30 Jun
2016
30 Jun
'16
6:53 p.m.
Ah yes, the 3B’s. Running the state university computer department (in NJ) we got a lot
of 3B’s (3B2, 3B5, 3B20).
The 3B20 was definitely a piece of telephone equipment. They way you powered it down was
to turn a knob to off and then hold a button down for three seconds until it went twang
and turned off. Anybody remember the original bell 303 modems? That’s how you’d put
them into loopback. Used to have to do this from time to time on our old ARPANET modems
at the request of the NOC.
The 3B5 was an interesting machine. We found out how rugged it was when a drain pipe
broke over the top of it (the Rutgers main computer center was underground under a court
yard between the twin towers of the Hill Center). The thing survived a deluge of water
being dumped into it.