From: jcmorris@mwunix.mitre.org (Joe Morris)
Subject: Re: Computer Relics (Was: 9 track data storage?)
Organization: The MITRE Corporation
Date: Fri, 31 Jul 1992 12:30:52 GMT

taft@adobe.com (Ed Taft) writes:

>In article <7560@public.BTR.COM> thad@public.BTR.COM (Thaddeus P. Floryan)
>writes:

>>And there was something else also that used hanging tape strips (forget
>>what it was called, but I believe it was developed by Sperry in the late
>>1950s; I only saw it in operation once and said "This'll never fly"), such
>>that when a strip was "addressed", it would get sucked onto a drum and then
>>be processed something like the old Dictaphone machines of the early 1950s.

>I saw this, or something like it, around 1967. I vaguely recall that it was
>called a CRAM (Card Random Access Memory?) and was made by NCR. My school
>class made a field trip to the computer center containing the time-sharing
>system we had been using. Three of these CRAM boxes were turned on, but only
>one was doing anything. It was busily clattering and thumping, and it was
>amazing to see those magnetic cards flying around.

I think we're talking about two quite different systems here.

The CRAM system (tpf has the correct definition) worked -- and failed --
exactly as described above.  I never learned the history behind the selection
of that word as the name of the box, but the suggestion of brute force being
applied to force something into a too-small container certainly fit the
way the box worked.

I think that the box referred to in Ed Taft's posting (the first paragraph
above) was probably the IBM "Data Cell", aka the IBM model 2321.  That
Rube Goldberg device was originally designed for use with the 1401 computer
system, but when the schedule for releasing the System/360 was established
the 2321 was reworked to attach to an S/360 disk control unit (2841 if
anyone's interested).  There may have been a similar product from Sperry,
but I never heard of it...which means nothing.

The Data Cell used strips of magnetic material about 15" x 2" (my stock
of old strips is at home...I think these dimensions are about right).
A large number of these strips were contained in plastic cases called
sub-cells; when the 2321 was instructed to access one of the strips it
positioned the subcell under the access mechanism, then used mechanical
fingers to separate the desired strip from its neighbors.  (Within the
pockets of a subcell each strip had a unique set of protrusions which
the fingers could use.)

With the desired strip now isolated, a "pick finger" reached down and
hooked into a hole in the magnetic strip, pulled the strip from the
subcell, and wrapped it around a rotating drum where it was read and
written.  When the strip was no longer needed, the process was reversed
to return the strip to its position in the subcell.

When the 2321 worked properly, it was called a "noodle picker".  When
the box failed -- especially when trying to restore a strip to its
subcell -- it was called a "noodle stuffer".

One of the senior staff members from Oak Ridge for years has handed
out old data cell strips with the comment that each strip contains
200 KB (yep.  That's "kilobytes") of official Atomic Energy Commission
secrets, and anyone who can read them deserves to have them.

(Aside to the FBI: he's kidding about the secrets.)

The old strips do have some uses.  If anyone on the net is in the Denver
area, you might check the walls of the Traildust steak house in Arapahoe.
(This is one of the places where ties are forbidden.  Wear one there and
someone will come around with a pair of sissors to cut if off; the walls
are covered with slightly used ties.)  I used a data cell strip as a tie
when I went there several years ago; if the place still exists the strip
is probably still stapled to the wall with my business card...

Joe Morris / MITRE