jim (03/31/83)
I have gotten several inquiries recently about my home computer, and I thought I should try to clarify the issue. My home computer is an IBM System 3, model 10, with two 40 Mb 5445 cartridge hard disk drives and a 5 Mb 5444 cartridge disk. It has a Selectric console and a 96 column card reader/punch. It occupies 200 square feet of floor space, weighs about 2000 pounds, and consumes 15 Kw of 3-phase power, which is more than the total heating capacity in my house (keeps us toasty in the winter). It took four people with a lift-gate truck just to bring it home. Although this wouldn't seem to qualify as a micro, in fact it has only 16K bytes of memory (expandable to 32K). No, it doesn't run BASIC, just RPG and assembler.
greep@su-dsn.arpa (04/20/83)
Your message about using an IBM System 3 as a home computer reminds me of an article I read in an old Popular Electronics about someone who had bought a used IBM 1620 (talk about ancient!) and set it up in his house. I think he even tried to rent out time on it. He said it looked like it had been de-installed by carpenters, rather than electricians -- they had just sawn through the cables. (This was LONG before microprocessors were around.) These machines usually had only a few K of memory so I guess they would qualify as home computers. - greep