Recent Posts

Dear All!

On Feb 04, 2015 we celebrate the 10th anniversary of the site and The Core Memory Project!
My sincere greetings to all contributors,- we did it together!

Aleksandrs Guba

Hi Terry,

thanks for your reply!

I wrote about the young man who teached us the 615-100 processor. His forname was Tom. He drove a red Triumph TR sportscar - after work we used to travel with this nice car through the streets of London. Can you remember his last name?

I wrote about an elder experienced man from Scotland who teached us the 615-200 processor (not a member of the ITEC staff). Did you remember his name?

Is it possible that the teacher for the century magtapes was Paul Vincent (it was his first course)?

Best regards
Heiko

Hello Heiko
Good to hear from you and your memories of those days at the ITEC on the
North Circular Road.  I remember the incident when I walked into your classroom and
started speaking about the Printer, it was to see how far I could get before someone among the students would
correct me and let me know that it was not the subject they expected. Happily it was not too long before
I was reminded that I was teaching the wrong material.
They were very happy days

Sadly Joe Fry died some years ago, As for Tom Baldwin, Dudley Lowe and Dave Lewis they are all now retired from working, I know Dudley lowe is still with us but have no idea of the status of the others
Soon after 1072 the ITEC was relocated to Dundee in Scotland which was a disaster and very unpopular 
 

Hi Terry,

i thought about the men who teached us the 615 Tape drives (i remember the "egg crate" ....).

It is possible that his name was Paul Vincent or so??

Regards
Heiko

Hi Heiko,
as far as I can remember the printer was the main-difference 399 - 499.
"Grünkohl" is "curly kale" or just "kale".
Give my regards to Klaus.
Best regards Wally.

Hello Wally,

I had to install and support several BW-Installations in Schleswig-Holstein, and every Installation consist of a NCR-499 with the Label "M05" on it - strange!

I never was trained on a 399. What were the differences between the 399 and the 499? I guess the main difference were the ball print head on the 399 against the matrix print head on the 499?

The collegues from the former NCR-Branch Hamburg (ALL collegues (cash registers, medium sized EDP, Mainframes)) meet every two years to talk, refresh their memorys, to drink and mainly to eat "Grünkohl" (is there a corresponding word in English?). This year this meeting is end of February, and there I will meet Klaus Mahl and tell him about our postings.

Best Regards
Heiko

Hi Heiko,
yes, it was Klaus Mahl! The decision, who had to cover South or North, was made by the managers in Augsburg.
We were both for 2 or 3 weeks in Augsburg, preparing the first 399s to be delivered to customers.
And as my base was Hannover, they decided for me to do the North.

The pilot-installation at BW Ahrbergen consisted of a 399, 368 and 378 for punched cards, 349 line printer, 314 ML-reader
and a punch card sorter (IBM 082 or 083) and an older IBM-communications-unit for transmitting punched cards.
As the summer 1975 was very hot, I had to modify the 605 (399) with stronger blowers. One of the requirements was operation
without air-conditioning. After BW had placed the order, the first units delivered were 399s. I never heard about any relabeling
and later on I was to far away.

When I was with H. Fischer at BW Lengerich, we did a communications-test with the 399. This was done by a hand made ring connection.
Leaving Lengrich from one 399 and going via 10 or a few more depots and returning to Lengrich to a second 399.
The transmissions were a success.

My training for communications was done during my time in Dayton. So I was also involved in the 399-installations for
the "Oberpostdirektionen", all with binary-synchronous-communications. Later in Bermuda I found a bug in the BSC-routines,
which I fixed. But I had a lot of discussions about it with the guys in Dayton. In the end they had to admit the bug.

I was also heavily involved in 726-support. I programmed once (still in Germany) a support-tool for it.
It was used for dumping and loading the memory of a 726. I did this in 605 machine language. I got a 400 DM bonus from NCR for it.
Later I was involved in introducing "scanning" to Bermuda and I was asked to switch sides and develop software for the customer.

The article about Mr. Cusack was published in an old NCR-magazin (must have been 60s). He passed away in Sep. last year at age 93.
http://www.royalgazette.com/article/20141029/BUSINESS/141029642
I never used a unicycle, but I used scooters and motorbikes in Bermuda (I lived and worked there for 12 years).

Since a few years I enjoy now my retirement, working only private with PCs and software.

Best regards Wally.

Hallo Wally,


thanks for your reply.

I was stationed at the NCR-Branch in Kiel and had to do the Century-Support  (and later on for the Bundeswehr and Karstadt (726/255)) in Schleswig-Holstein. My Chef resides in Hamburg (Dieter Huke).

You mentioned Klaus ? from Hamburg doing the same 605-Course as you. Was it possibly Klaus Mahl? He was the NCR-500-Specialist in Hamburg, and it sounds logically that he did this course, because the 605 seems to be the follower of the good old NCR-500.

It sounds funny that he did the support in the South - from Hamburg?

My 615-100/200-Training was in London, the rest of all trainings were in Augsburg (Basic-Training, 605, the 499, the 657-Disk with the 625-Controller, an new Controller to handle Compact-Cassettes as Input-Device on the Century, the Binary Synchronous Communications-Course (for the Bundeswehr-Machines), and so on. I've never been in Giessen or in the USA - unfortunately .....

You wrote, NCR gets the order - in competition to installations of IBM, Phillips and Nixdorf. A myth (rumor?) says, that NCR offers the 499, and the Bundeswehr didn't like it. So NCR produced some new labels to stick them on the machines and re-labeled the 499 to "M05" and offered again - and became the order .....

We technicians where all laughing about the old "historical" Peripherals NCR sold to the Bundeswehr. Machines like the "I-8200" (with IMOS as Operating System), with Disks, Printers and several Monitors (Multi-User) where State of the Art at this time - and they had there a system with Ledger Cards(!) for Storage (I remember the big Ledger Card feeder coming from the NCR-500), with Punched Cards as input medium (Juki-Locher!), with several big hods storing all the hundreds of Ledger Cards - Data Processing at the level of 1967 (NCR-315)!! Really funny!!

I remember the Juki Card Punch having an interface to connect it to the 499 (sorry: M05 ..) -  so they could punch the cards programm controlled from the 499 (Whow!). This Interface was "handmade" by an engineer bureau at Paderborn. Some years later I contacted this bureau, and they produced a lot of  "handmade" and  "hand-programmed" data input terminals (like Datalogic) for special purposes for my company - very good people there!

On this Bundeswehr material depots I remember the time to wait for the hand-made(!) connection to München-Erding to transmit data!

I remember they printed a very lot of "MBS" ("Material-Begleit-Schein") with 4(!) copies at the 499 console matrix printer - I guess, this Printer was really not constructed for THIS use!

Yes, the 605 was a very nice CPU. Lateron NCR evaluated the 605 from a 4-Board-CPU to an 1-Bord-CPU (that was after my NCR-Time).

The 605 was in an lot of machines (726, 625-Disk-Controller für 658-Disks, Century 8200, I-8200, 399,499, Multiplexer for Terminals (RS-232) on VRX-Machines, Cash Dispensers, all the "IMOS"-Machines, and, and, and ....

I guess the 605 was the most produced CPU NCR ever build.

Very funny the article over Mr. Cusack on his Unicycle at the Bermudas! Did you also use this vehicle for the way to your custumers ...?

"Those were the days, my friend we thought they'd never end............."

Best Regards
Heiko

Hi Heiko,
as I mentioned before, in Germany I was one of the first, who had training for the 605 (399). I had my training at
ITEC Giessen (1973). The other engineer was from Hamburg (Klaus ??). In the first few month we had to cover all of Germany.
He did the South and me the North and West-Berlin. My training for peripherals I had at CTEC Dayton in 1974 (4 to 5 month).
The teachers in Giessen were Edgar ?? and Hans Fischer. Hans died end of 1975, he had a tumor in his head. I was shocked, because
I had no idea about his ailment. This happened a few month after we both were on a support-trip to Bundeswehr-Depots in
the region of Lingen (BW-Depot Lengerich) and Rheine. BTW in 1975 I had the support for the pilot-installation at the Bundeswehr-Depot
in Ahrbergen (between Hannover and Hildesheim). The installation was in competition to installations of IBM, Phillips and Nixdorf.
The result was, that NCR got the order (believe it were 80 installations). In mid of 1976 I left NCR Germany and took over the
605-support for Bermuda Business Machines (Agents for NCR). Bermuda was the reward for all the hard work in Germany....lol.
"Those were the days, my friend we thought they'd never end............."
I have attached a little funny story about making calls in Bermuda. It shows the owner of BBM (Martin Cusack RIP.)
Best regards Wally.

Hallo Wally,

I just read your memorys about the 605-Processor.

I was a Field Engineer for the 615-100/200 in Germany.

I was trained for the 605 in 1974 in Augsburg - a complete Course down to Chiplevel-Repair (6 weeks?) only on the CPU.

The reason: The EDP-Service Personnell had to take over the Support for the new electronic cash registers (255/726), and we had to support the M05-Maschines (=re-labeled 499) for the german bundeswehr.

I found the 605 a very nice processor!

Best regards
Heiko