petolino@joe.Sun.COM (Joe Petolino) (05/02/90)
>>When IBM built the 360, it was as expensive to build a 16K memory board as >>a 32K memory board. So, if your ordered a 16K memory board, you received >>a 32K memory board with 16K shorted out. If you subsequently ordered the >>16K to 32K memory upgrade (for thousands of $$$), they sent a technician >>out to clip the wire that shorted out the memory. Instant upgrade! >>-- > > I know for a fact that on the S/32 the price to upgrade from > 9 MB of disk to 13 MB of disk bought a visit from your CE > who pulled a retaining pin that keep the head from reaching > part of the platter and reformatted your drive. It's a not-too-closely-guarded secret that, at least in the mainframe world, the individual machines of a 'product line' often are identical except for the nameplate and a strategically-located jumper or two. The justification for this is that you can 'get your foot in the door' by selling a degraded model to a customer at a reduced price; then, when the customer eventually either has more money and/or needs more compute power, you charge him for an upgrade. A lot easier than designing and supporting two different machines. Perhaps the most amusing example of this strategy was (is?) the 'Amdahl Accelerator', offered as an option only on leased machines. With this gadget, the customer could actually switch the jumper in and out by turning a key on the console; he is then charged by the minute for the time in 'accerated mode'! The change required to do the upgrade is usually a lot more subtle than just changing a crystal - that would be too easy for a customer to defeat. -Joe
jthomas@nmsu.edu (James Thomas) (05/04/90)
In article <1990May1.163254.476@mentor.com> mbutts@mentor.com (Mike Butts) writes:
mb> It's an old story. I recall reading (in a review of a history of IBM, sorry
mb> I don't remember the reference) that in the 1920's the Calculating-Tabulating-
mb> Recording Co., IBM's predecessor, sold several speeds of Hollerith card
mb> counting machines at different prices. When you bought an upgrade, a mechanic
mb> would come out and move a belt from a smaller to a larger pulley.
Well....
The IBM 407 "printer" came in two speeds, 100 and 150 lines per minute.
The upgrade consisted of removing one relay. (We stuck a folded card {80
column of course :-} in except when we called the CE :-)
The IBM 1622 card reader came in 600 and 1000 (maybe? that's getting a bit
foggy :-) card per minute versions. The pulley did not have both sizes, it
had to be changed for the upgrade.
Jimnews@ism780c.isc.com (News system) (05/05/90)
In article <616@opus.NMSU.EDU> jthomas@nmsu.edu (James Thomas) writes: >In article <1990May1.163254.476@mentor.com> mbutts@mentor.com (Mike Butts) writes: > >The IBM 407 "printer" came in two speeds, 100 and 150 lines per minute. >The upgrade consisted of removing one relay. (We stuck a folded card {80 >column of course :-} in except when we called the CE :-) The 407 was more than a printer. It was called an accounting machine. It had an adder and it could do some rather complex operations. After the introduction of the 1401 (a stored program computer) IBM 'introduced' the series 50 line of unit record equipment. This line was simply a slowed down version of their previous line. It did extend the economic life of the equipment. >The IBM 1622 card reader came in 600 and 1000 (maybe? that's getting a bit >foggy :-) card per minute versions. The pulley did not have both sizes, it >had to be changed for the upgrade. The 1620 reader/punch came in two speeds 250/125 and 500/250 (reader/punch speeds). The machine we bought had the lower speed reader/punch. We discovered that the pulleys had a variable diameter that could be changed by adjusting screws. We changed the pulleys to the higher speed. But the machine was not reliable at the higher speed. The reason was that the machine had cam actuated circuit breakers used for timing. At the higher speed the breakers developed "valve float". In order to make the machine work, we had to replace the circuit breakers with ones that had stiffer springs. Still, the cost of our do it yourself upgrade was much less than IBM's price. Another bit of historical trivia. The first IBM machine we installed was an 080 card sorter. It was supposed to move cards at the rate of 600/min. We were having frequent jams. I put a stroboscope on the machine and found that is actual rate was more like 800/min. The cure: adjust the pully diameter. Marv Rubinstein -- Historian?