The Tape Memo, 18 October 1960

This is an early commentary on data storage at NRAO. This memo, affectionately known as "the tape memo," outlines procedures and protocols for the multiple users who will store files on a recently-purchased MTA-2 magnetic tape.

Thanks to Barry Clark, who kindly provided the following additional information about the Charlottesville computer room in 1960: "The machine was a System 360 Model 50. The Mark I VLB correlator ran on this machine, at about eight or ten times slower than real time - not real swift. I hadn't remembered the front panel having so many lights. At any rate, it was the first front panel I encountered on which the lights were utterly meaningless except to a maintenance engineer. The console was not a teletype. It was a modified IBM Selectric typewriter. A great advance over the teletype. You could type as fast as you wanted - on the teletype, you had to adapt your rhythms to the machine."

Records of the NRAO

Text

tape-memo-16oct1960.jpg

1960-10-18

Charlottesville VA Operations Series

Charlottesville Site Selection, Procurement and Development Unit