Am I really that old?

[mdlbear]

When we got our hotel room last night I immediately recognized our room number, 1403, as the number of the printer associated with the IBM 1401 computer.

Comments

[elimloth.livejournal.com]

Sigh! 1620 type 2 decimal computer, 2311 hydraulically actuated disk drive, and yes, a 1403 printer. I believe it had a whopping 20KB of RAM, enough to house a disk based monitor program (monitor in this case meaning a DOS).

[mdlbear]

The 1620 wasn't quite my first computer, but close. No disk drive or 1403; if you wanted something printed you punched a deck and took it down the hall to the 1401 in Administration, or printed it on the console typer.

The 1620 had from 20 to 100K digits of memory -- 4 data bits and two flag bits (called "flag" and "word mark" if I remember correctly.

[elimloth.livejournal.com]

Yup, digits not bytes. I forgot, though I clearly remember the digit format. The flag in the unit digit was used to denote the number's sign.

I found a reference that shows the 1620 with the peripherals I recall I used in high school. http://www.xprt.net/~pgrogers/Ibm1620.html

The wiki on it is nicely complete: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_1620

Oh yes, the disk drive was a 1311, not a 2311 which was an early S/360 drive.