
Three geeks rescue a 50-year-old IBM 360 mainframe from an abandoned building - MilnerRoute
https://ibms360.co.uk/?page_id=22
======
GnarfGnarf
Their main problem will be finding card stock. When compiling, the binary
object is output on punched cards. They will need lots of blank Hollerith
cards for compiling and testing. Not a lot of places make punched cards
anymore.

Also, need card punches for input: IBM 029, Univac 1701. Will also need ribbon
for printing readable characters at top of card.

Card readers are high-maintenance equipment. The cards are fed at high speed
with a picker knife that needs precise adjustment. The card stock is sensitive
to humidity. If it swells, it doesn't go through the card reader.

I wrote Assembler in the 70's on Univac 9300 and 9400's, 360 clones.

I see small lots of cards on eBay for astronomical prices. They probably
wouldn't even work because of swelling.

~~~
MagicPropmaker
Cards are widely available, even new.

Their main problem will be getting it running! For example: if there are
germanium transistors in it, they often fail, and you can't get modern
replacements easily.

Every board will need to be checked component by component and it will have to
be powered up very carefully. Just getting everything connected together and
damaged cables repaired will take a long time.

~~~
jhallenworld
Not true! USSR produced germanium transistors much longer than the west. Large
quantities are available on eBay. For example here they are being used for
radio repair:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wet7QameYc4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wet7QameYc4)

The main annoyance is the shipping delay.

One interesting thing I learned is that the metal can germanium transistors
are often more reliable than the first generation of silicon transistors:
those domed-top epoxy ones are all terrible.

~~~
colejohnson66
Correct. For a Fuzz Factory guitar pedal I built instead of bought, everywhere
I read online said to use the AC128 germanium transistors for a better sound.
I got a pack off eBay for less than $10 shipped from the Czech Republic.

------
Animats
The IBM 360/20 is very limited. It's punched cards in and out. But the IBM
360/125 has disks and communications.

Getting it working, though. Huge job. It's taken years to get the IBM 1401
machines at the Computer Museum in Mountain View running, and they have help
from some of the designers and maintenance people.

~~~
philpem
Given sufficient motivation, I expect it would be possible to replace the card
reader and punch with something a little more modern. It wouldn't be period-
correct, but it would provide a more convenient way to get data into and out
of the machine.

Frankly while the machine itself is interesting, what I'm really interested in
is what they find on those tapes and disk packs!

I wonder if they have a Twitter feed or mailing list to keep updated on their
progress. This is a really cool "barn find".

~~~
sdrothrock
> I expect it would be possible to replace the card reader and punch with
> something a little more modern.

The card reader/punch are part of the charm of something like this, though --
that immediate physicality is a real "oh, wow, so THIS is how it works" kind
of moment that you can sort of follow up to records, floppy disks, and CDs.

Plus, I imagine if people could make their own little programs through a more
modern interface that made the cards, those would make cool souvenirs that
might help finance the museum a bit.

------
rmason
My late father started collecting antique cars in the forties. I used to read
his car collector magazines as a kid. They would have detailed stories about
'barn finds' of rare autos and this story reads like the best of them.

I well remember Michigan State's IBM 360 in the computer center back in the
seventies. You could see it through glass windows from the hall, they were so
proud of that machine.

~~~
jacquesm
What happened to your fathers collection? What cars were in it?

~~~
rmason
He gradually sold them off, sometimes to hire craftsmen to do work on his
prized cars that he couldn't do. Things like upholstery and paint. The car he
cared the most about and the last one he sold was his 1926 Wills Sainte
Claire. My father sold the Wills Sainte Claire so that he could pay for
college for my sister and me. But he remained a life long fan of C. Harold
Wills and his company.

With the help of the Wills Sainte Claire museum I reunited my father with that
car on his 100th birthday at Kellogg Center on the MSU campus. My dad did so
much for me that it made me very proud to give him this much joy. It's the
only time in my life that I ever totally stunned him. The classic car
magazine,Hemmings, even did a story about it.

[https://www.hemmings.com/blog/index.php/2016/07/07/wills-
sai...](https://www.hemmings.com/blog/index.php/2016/07/07/wills-sainte-
claire-enthusiast-reunited-with-his-old-wills-on-100th-birthday/#comments-
block)

~~~
jacquesm
That's a fantastic story. Thank you. He looks so happy!

------
karambahh
I'm glad some people take upon themselves to salvage important pieces of our
past.

As the technology evolves extremely fast, it seems that traditional
preservation & archeology institutions can't deal with these fast enough.

Salvaging IBM360s will probably have the same historical importance in only a
few dozens of years.as 16-17th centuries artefacts today.

I know of several private initiative to save items of first era of home
computing but salvaging industrial sized computers comes with severe logistics
challenges, as these gentlemen demonstrated

~~~
amelius
Funny thing is that it seems that future archaeologists need to have a STEM
background.

~~~
karambahh
Well, current archeologists need to have a vast range of expertise (water
management, cooking techniques, building & more)

I've watched a few days ago a documentary about ScanPyramids, a team of
nuclear physicists that used their knowledge to perform non destructive
exploration of Kheops Pyramid:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scanpyramids](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scanpyramids)

It could be argued that they're top of the line physicists AND archeologists
at the same time :)

------
fit2rule
I own and maintain a small retro computing collection, which I've recently put
on display in a museum setting in a popular city here in Europe, and one of
the most common questions I get from folks paying a visit is: "Why?"

The best answer I can give is, "do you throw old books away when you're done
reading them?" .. this always makes people think about it a little, and then I
follow up with ".. well throwing away computers is like throwing away old
books. Exept it took 10,000 barrels of oil to build the computer, another few
thousand barrels of oil to get it to you, probably a few thousand while you
used it, and it'll take another few thousand barrels to get rid of it while it
rots".

Better to just keep it running and find a user. For every old, archaic,
'outdated' computer that people chuck into the land-fill for the sake of
consumerist satisfaction, there are a thousand users who you don't know about
who will put that thing to valid use. Find those users, don't throw away the
computer.

Old computers never die - their users do!

~~~
nullc
To be fair, plenty of sufficiently old computers are so power hungry that they
can be replaced with a modern device that pays its cost (even including many
externalities) after only a brief period of operation.

~~~
fit2rule
The ones that are sufficiently different from modern platforms still need to
be preserved.

------
MarcE__
I've noticed looking through the site they have a gofundme to fund the return
trip of the machine back to the UK.
[https://ibms360.co.uk/?page_id=384](https://ibms360.co.uk/?page_id=384) .

~~~
option_greek
Pasting the direct link: [https://www.gofundme.com/bring-the-ibm-360-from-
germany-to-t...](https://www.gofundme.com/bring-the-ibm-360-from-germany-to-
the-uk)

------
sjakobi
This appears to be the building that contained the machines:

[https://www.google.de/maps/@49.4431182,11.0857279,3a,75y,31....](https://www.google.de/maps/@49.4431182,11.0857279,3a,75y,31.62h,74.19t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1slAp7lPch6UGg8xVIS8JlSg!2e0!6s%2F%2Fgeo0.ggpht.com%2Fcbk%3Fpanoid%3DlAp7lPch6UGg8xVIS8JlSg%26output%3Dthumbnail%26cb_client%3Dmaps_sv.tactile.gps%26thumb%3D2%26w%3D203%26h%3D100%26yaw%3D91.132416%26pitch%3D0%26thumbfov%3D100!7i13312!8i6656)

I found it via the "GlaserExpress" trailer that appears in a few pictures. I
used to live nearby a decade ago.

~~~
hycaria
I'm amazed that such a central space can be simply abandoned for decades.

~~~
jandrese
I'm curious what is stored on all of those reels of tape they packed out.
There was no obvious clues that I saw as to the previous use for those
machines.

------
dirktheman
Reminds me of the kid that bought an IBM z890 mainframe and brought it to his
basement. And got it to work!
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=45X4VP8CGtk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=45X4VP8CGtk)

~~~
thunderbong
His presentation was seriously awesome! Thanks a lot.

------
mkreis
It's not mentioned in the article (too obvious?), but for wondering: Seems
like those computers where used by the sports manufacturer Puma
([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Puma_(brand)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Puma_\(brand\)))

~~~
iforgotpassword
Was wondering. But it still looks so weird, this little shop in the midst of
all those apartment buildings. Shouldn't puma have been a little larger by
that time? And why not Adidas?

~~~
mkreis
From what I can see in the pictures, this seems like an annex to a larger
building. I imagine that the computer was run by a division of the accounting
/ book keeping department. Assuming that in the old days there were only a few
specialists who were trained in operating a computer, they might have created
that space for the (real) nerds. Why not Adidas?! Adidas is a competitor,
founded by the brother.

~~~
iforgotpassword
Not that I'm an expert in their history, but they were running one company
together until some time after ww2 when they split up. So I was wondering if
you saw something specific that hinted at puma. Afaik even today they still
both have their HQ in the same city.

------
tapland
Wow. I'm a mainframe dev who just turned 30 and this is the dream.

Sometimes I see old VAX or IBM machines given away in Europe but getting it
transported to Sweden is an even bigger project than finding something that
can be made working.

~~~
blattimwind
If you can strap them to a couple euro pallets it shouldn't be too expensive
to ship.

~~~
tapland
I plan on looking into that if I get a permanent contract (which comes with a
pay raise) in a few weeks.

Would love to tinker with that, emulating OpenVMS, z/os etc on x86 gets boring
after a while :D

------
sean-duffy
Fantastic set of posts, its good to see this system being rescued for future
generations! The National Museum of Computing for which these gentlemen
volunteer is a great place, when I visited it the passion of the volunteers
there was really evident, and seeing the likes of the Colossus and WITCH in
working order and being demonstrated really is amazing.

~~~
pushpop
I second that. It’s a fantastic day out

------
DonHopkins
Reminds me of Planet of the Apes!

[http://q7.neurotica.com/Q7/scifi/ApesTV/](http://q7.neurotica.com/Q7/scifi/ApesTV/)

[http://starringthecomputer.com/feature.html?f=164](http://starringthecomputer.com/feature.html?f=164)

[http://starringthecomputer.com/feature.html?f=732](http://starringthecomputer.com/feature.html?f=732)

------
maxnoe
"Seltene Anlage" in this context does not translate to plant.

System or machine would be much better fits.

~~~
JdeBP
There are other meanings to the word "plant", including an industrial site and
industrial machinery.

~~~
Nexxxeh
"Plant hire" amuses me, as it's not the hiring of greenery for the workplace,
but the hiring of dump trunks, excavators etc.

------
deytempo
I am picturing the lone gunmen from the xfiles trying to haul it up stairs now
in some abandoned warehouse

------
innocentoldguy
While not nearly as cool, I spent the entirety of April cleaning out the house
of a hoarder. Buried beneath 40 years of garbage, I found an Apple II
computer, still it its original box, complete with stickers and an integer ROM
card (also still in the original box). It was interesting to see one of the
first computers I ever touched after all these years.

~~~
holdenc
Just curious if that hoarder's house was J--- W------'s in California? He was
a relative. Always heard about the house.

~~~
jacquesm
Ah, John William, yes, I remember him well.

------
aap_
Oh great that this found a new home. I was concerned that it would be scrapped
when I saw the ebay listing.

------
RickSanchez2600
I hope they have the DOS/VSE or whatever operating system that ran on them on
backup or installed on the hard drive.

I remember 360's had a level you pulled called the IPL button. Initial Program
Load.

~~~
taborj
It's been over a decade since I was responsible for an IBM 400/iSeries, but we
still used the term "IPL" for firing up the machine. I bet it's still in use.

------
JdeBP
This is reminiscent of Connor Krukosky, who had the IBM z890 in xyr parents'
basement.

------
nebulous1
I'll be honest, this was a much larger job than I had expected

------
martin1b
Love all of the pictures. Great work!

------
dang
The rest of the series:

[https://ibms360.co.uk/?p=64](https://ibms360.co.uk/?p=64)

[https://ibms360.co.uk/?p=85](https://ibms360.co.uk/?p=85)

[https://ibms360.co.uk/?p=185](https://ibms360.co.uk/?p=185)

The submitted url above was
[https://slashdot.org/story/19/05/19/2336249/three-geeks-
resc...](https://slashdot.org/story/19/05/19/2336249/three-geeks-
rescue-a-50-year-old-ibm-360-mainframe-from-an-abandoned-building). We changed
it to point to the original source.

~~~
mirimir
These all give "Error establishing a database connection".

HN hug of death?

~~~
karambahh
Most likely yes, it was working fine about 20min ago (0700GMT)

