It was interesting to see so many familiar faces. I was transferred from the Sperry Univac Manufacturing plant in St. Paul, Minnesota to the Clearwater plant in April 1975. The last AN/UYK-20 was produced in 1989. Total production for all customers was just over 5000 units. We were still repairing AN/UYK-20 assemblies for the Navy when I retired from the Clearwater facility in 2012. Many other computer models were produced there over the years for a variety of customers. The facility continues to produce a variety of computerized equipment.
Hi @chuckhobus, sounds like you had a very interesting career in the Sperry Univac arena. Glad this film brought to light some familiar faces, that sounds like fun too. The AN/UYK-20 had quite a reputation. Thanks very much for sharing your thoughts on this. Interesting to hear the plant is still operating today too! ~ Victor, CHAP
Core memory in 1975? Pretty cool to see, if perhaps in its sunset by that time. Thanks a million, CHAP, for uploading these fantastic glimpses back in time!!!
Greetings Nipkowdisk, thanks very much. This was a fascinating one to work on. Hagley Museum had this film in their archives and not yet digitized. I asked them to digitize it, and was pleasantly surprised at how great the material was! Some day, I hope to get a higher resolution copy. Many folks in the video are probably still alive today, and might get a real memory boost of seeing themselves and their friends again. Hope so! Thanks again~, VK
Core memory had a few advantages. 1: In 1975 it was harder against ionizing radiation. 2: Since it is nonvolatile it will NOT lose contents if power is lost.Very important for "critical" applications sometimes. See Apollo Guidance Computer.
I am amazed at the quality of your videos on this channel. Thank you so very much for all the hard work to bring this to the public. I really enjoy them!!
Hi @sadalite, Thank you very much for your very kind words! We enjoy researching and bringing these vintage videos and presentations to our viewers. We do not get any revenue from the RU-vid ads, so all our support comes from our intelligent viewers who appreciate good content. Hope you will be one of our supporters. We have more videos in the pipeline to share very soon. Thanks again! ~ Victor, CHAP
I worked for NCR from the late 1960s to early 1980s. I repaired the early main frame computers such as the NCR 315-100 series computer. It had a wire wrapped backplane with nearly 400-printed circuit boards. The main core memory was in a separate cabinet. A typical system used in a bank would be the main processor, 1 to 4 memory cabinets, CRAM (Card Random Access Memory), tape drives, a paper tape reader, a high-speed printer, and a document sorter. Offline was a key to magnetic tape unit. NCR did not use punched cards, but instead used a key to magnetic tape unit. Checks and other documents that could not be read, went into the reject pocket. Those documents were then keyed in and written onto magnetic tape, which would then be merged in with the other documents, that were previously read by the document sorter. Punched cards were very wasteful and at the end of the day were tossed out. Magnetic tape could be used repeatedly.
Hi @jsteck3, those wire wrapped backplanes were always an amazement to me. Such an impressive piece of technology in those days. It sounds like you have an impressive background in early computer technology. Your point about the punch cards/vs tape was interesting also. I don't recall people being concerned back in the day, about the punch cards being "recycled" or just tossed. Times change. Whatever happened to the thousands of reels of plastic (Mylar and PET) tape that were in data storage rooms since the 1960's?
Hi @gregtaylor8310, wow, that is pretty exciting! Glad we were able to find and restore this clip. Lots of other folks there that might like to see their younger selves too. I bet you had some great experiences at that time as well. Thanks for your feedback! ~ Victor, CHAP
A lot of the processes and equipment looks VERY similar to what was at Lexel Imaging when I worked there in the late 2000s. That company used to be Hughes Electronics. We did a lot of hand soldering rework, automatic circuit test, CRT sub assembly manufacturing (from raw glass to finished tube assy), conformal coatings, and circuit potting. But yeah lots of vintage stuff still in use at that place LOL
Hi @manuelmaseda4875, that sounds great! From the film, it looks like a fascinating and busy place to have worked, and a unique experience to have been a part of! Thanks for your sharing that! ~ Victor, CHAP
Lockheed Martin owns the factory now, still making great products for US Navy ships. I was allowed to visit there in 2010 to look at modern Navy ship combat systems consoles.
Hi @diamonddave45, thanks very much for your feedback! It sounds like a great place to tour, even today. I found this link below about the Lockheed factory, which looks like the same factory. Does it look familiar? www.ibaset.com/lockheed-martin-case-study/ Thanks very much! ~ Victor, at CHAP
@@ComputerHistoryArchivesProject Oh that's even fancier than when I saw it. When I was there, they were still making things at the circuit board level.
@@ComputerHistoryArchivesProject Yes, it is the same factory. I don’t remember exactly when we first installed the IbaseT manufacturing execution system, I think it was in the late 90’s.
I worked with the newer AN/AYK-14 computers that were made for naval aviation. They shared the same base instruction set but were 1/4 the size and nothing was wire wrapped. It had 128 K Words of core memory with a bit slice processor. Very rugged and radiation hardened with 3 to 6 redundant bus lines go io. Today an Arduino is more powerful.
Hi @christopherguy1217, Thanks very much for your comment! The AN/AYK-14 sounds like quite a computer! Thanks for the mention of Arduino too. (I had to research it, and this is what came up: "Arduino - Open-source electronic prototyping platform enabling users to create interactive electronic objects." ) Fascinating! Thanks again! ~ Victor, at CHAP
Wire-wrap was still very much a thing into the 80s - check almost any issue of Byte Magazine before 1990. So yes, lots and lots of living people know what that means. Only those born after about _NINTEEN_ 85 would be confused!
