Re: Interesting idea

--- In [email protected], "idc3009i" <idc3009i@...> wrote:

> The 3330s were the removable packs which the MSS emulated.  They actually worked off of a wide (5 or 6 inches) magnetic tape on a single reel.  This was presented to the system as a 3330V device type.  When accessed, the robot arm loaded the tape cartridge from its cell inside the unit to a reader and staged it to 3350 from where it was accessed.  De-staging was the reverse of the process.  Lovely to watch it in action... there was even a window in the side!


For sins in a prior life I had to support one of these when I worked for an NJ insurance company.  It was quite a Rube Goldberg contraption, but not as bad as the infamous data cells.

There was an AUDITMSS command you could use to verify if a given honeycomb cell was occupied or empty consistent with what the Mass Storage Volume Inventory table said it should be (oh dear, how ancient jargons are still lodged in memory).  You would specify the X, Y and Z coordinates of the cell you wanted to check. A fun trick was to make it tap the window and startle bystanders.

I still have a bunch of the tape cartridges - they make excellent paperweights, and nobody knows what the heck they are. :-)