#UNIVAC I

[centralbunnyunit]

[hardwiredd]

hey there @pending-trans-action-2 i know you didn't ask but i am taking this as an opportunity to yap teehee [feel free to ignore, just tagging you in case you're interested n whateva :DD]

generally speaking and tbf this post could've focused on one decade of tech [which would've been more organized; this is a flaw on my behalf lol], buuut these are sorta just some of my bigger crushes.

the oscilloscope you mentioned is actually the second youngest model in my post! the bk precision 1472c was [supposedly] released some time in the 80s; i unfortunately couldn't 100% give you an exact year as i personally haven't been able to find it [if anyone knows, please correct me i really wanna know], but from the pdf manual i've made the assumption that it was released in 1985, as signified by the last page in the manual [downloaded the manual from here];

to clarify the ages of the other tech in this post, from oldest to newest;

UNIVAC 1219-B; 1964

TRS-80 Model 4; 1983

BK Precision 1472C; 1985

Panasonic AG-500r; 1989

grins huge grins huge huzzah

“yeah i like em a little older”

[oldguydoesstuff]

Computer pioneer Grace Hopper running programs on a Univac I computer in 1952.

Hopper wrote the Univac A-0 compiler that allowed more abstract instructions to be converted into machine-runnable code, widely accepted to be the first computer language compiler ever created.

[univac1219]

1962 Mainframe with Bluetooth

This old computer is comprised of four big boxes, three of which are ever actually used.

The UNIVAC 1219. This is the brains of the system. It controls the operations of every other device. This is what I'm referring to when I'm not gesturing to the UNIVAC 1219 as a whole.

The UNIVAC 1540. This is the DDR, or Digital Data Recorder. It holds, writes, and reads the magnetic tape operators load into the machine.

The Digital to Analog Converter. The UNIVAC 1219 was the first digital computer on most U.S. Navy ships, most of which had analog weapons systems. This hulking mass of steel translated the digital signals from the computer to the analog signals of the weapon systems and vice versa in regards to the radar.

The UNIVAC 1532. The I/O console managed the...you guessed it, input and output of the UNIVAC 1219. You can load and punch paper tape for programs more bite-sized than would be used for magnetic tape.

In addition, we have two teletype machines. You can think of them like typewriters that don't receive human input (except the one that can if we want), but instead output what the computer tells it to.  We have a Teletype Corporation teletype that is optimized for character compatability and a Kleinschmidt teletype that is optimized for speed. Both rely on the I/O console to send and receive data.

The real ingenuity begins with the floppy drive. Duane, who's career revolved around this system, developed a way for a floppy drive to imitate the I/O console. The computer thinks it is reading and writing to a paper tape, when it is in fact reading and writing to a 5.25in floppy inside an ancient CNC machine floppy drive.

And this, dear reader, is where the magic happens. This framework was originally built for interfacing with the 1219 via BIN files over Serial port and was easily changed to support BIN files over floppy. Duane has been working on an off adapting our purple converter box with a raspi to let the 1219 read and write BIN files over Bluetooth.

Make no mistake, you cannot simply SSH into this machine as tons of setup and channel changes must be performed to ready it to receive and send data. That being said, I don't see any other UNIVAC mainframes with Bluetooth [or any other running UNIVAC 1219s at all :(], so I will take what I can get.

Can someone tell me how to Tumblr properly?

[mostlysignssomeportents]

A year in illustration (2024), Part four

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/12/07/great-kepplers-ghost/art-adjacent

Part one

Part two

Part three

The US Copyright Office frees the McFlurry

Figuring out how to illustrate the problems of DRM in McFlurry machines took some doing, but I'm super happy with how the HAL 9000-eyed poop emoji inside a spattered McFlurry cup (fair use of a McDonald's promo image) worked out.

https://pluralistic.net/2024/10/28/mcbroken/#my-milkshake-brings-all-the-lawyers-to-the-yard

(Image: Cryteria, CC BY 3.0, modified)

Keeping a suspense file gives you superpowers

Another Keppler classic: originally, this was FDR being offered a helping hand to cut through his paperwork. I added in one of the elephant heads I'd cropped out for election illustrations, and used it to represent "not forgetting."

https://pluralistic.net/2024/10/26/one-weird-trick/#todo

The housing crisis considered as an income crisis

The underlying image is another Keppler, showing death flamboyantly dicing with a millionaire. I added in an official (hence public domain) Reagan portrait, some monopoly houses, and a vintage aerial photo of Levittown, halftoned to disguise scaling artifacts.

https://pluralistic.net/2024/10/24/i-dream-of-gini/#mean-ole-mr-median

Retiring the US debt would retire the US dollar

More of Keppler's outstanding Uncle Sams! Add in a super-rezzed-up US $100 (all that intanglio looks great at high mag) and you've got an instantly arresting image.

https://pluralistic.net/2024/10/21/we-can-have-nice-things/#public-funds-not-taxpayer-dollars

Penguin Random House, AI, and writers' rights

The impatient guy makes another appearance in this WPA image of an adult literacy class; he's joined by another "business man" type, this one from a midcentury ad for a multi-level marketing scheme selling…business suits! The pupils' heads are all HAL 9000 eyes, natch, but don't miss all the little Easter Eggs, like the reeve and peasants in the frames on the walls.

https://pluralistic.net/2024/10/19/gander-sauce/#just-because-youre-on-their-side-it-doesnt-mean-theyre-on-your-side

(Image: Cryteria, CC BY 3.0, modified)

You should be using an RSS reader

The guerrilla fighter is back, this time standing atop some mainframe equipment ganked from a Univac ad. The halftoned RSS logo in the background really works, especially with a partially blended GIMP "supernova" effect behind the rebel.

https://pluralistic.net/2024/10/16/keep-it-really-simple-stupid/#read-receipts-are-you-kidding-me-seriously-fuck-that-noise

Dirty words are politically potent

I spent a bunch of time experimenting with different ways of making emphatic speech bubbles and it paid off here; that poop emoji's gawlix is in a good home. Halftoning the foreground element (the poop) works surprising well here. I should do more of that.

https://pluralistic.net/2024/10/14/pearl-clutching/#this-toilet-has-no-central-nervous-system

Lina Khan's future is the future of the Democratic Party – and America

Keppler's Uncle Sam Cop is back, along with another Keppler – a carpetbagger flying through the air after getting a kick in the pants. I got good use out of one of my Democratic Party donkeys here. The background is a half-tones WPA travel poster for Montana.

https://pluralistic.net/2024/10/11/democracys-antitrust-paradox/#there-will-be-an-out-and-out-brawl

Cars bricked by bankrupt EV company will stay bricked

I actually made this brick by hand: first I rescaled a box image until it had the right proportions, then I found a public domain texture that was the right kind of brick and used the perspective tool to put it over each face of the box. I told you public domain bricks are hard to find.

It was very satisfying overlaying all the elements of the Fisker car I cropped out onto the brick.

https://pluralistic.net/2024/10/10/software-based-car/#based

Prime's enshittified advertising

Nothing exceeds like excess! The flayed face with eyeballs comes from a 19th century book of French anatomical drawings. The calipers' handles just didn't look right (I referred to stills from Clockwork Orange to try and get 'em to work), but then I hit on the idea of using the "As Seen on TV" logo, which worked perfectly. The halftoned K-Tel ad-card background doesn't quite work, I think.

https://pluralistic.net/2024/10/03/mother-may-i/#minmax

"That Makes Me Smart"

This is actually two Kepplers; the original guy in the leg-hold trap is some lost-to-history politician embroiled in a lost-to-history scandal. But once I added (yet another!) of Keppler's Uncle Sam heads to his body (recoloring his coat and converting his trousers to red stripes), it became a perfect visual representation of America, trapped. The halftoned US flag is my favorite background yet.

https://pluralistic.net/2024/12/04/its-not-a-lie/#its-a-premature-truth

The far right grows through "disaster fantasies"

When it came to finding heavily armored and armed weirdos, I was spoilt for choice; same goes for grainy photos of vintage malls that look good after halftoning. Add in the goofy, grinning newsie's head and overlay his hat in camou, and it's perfect.

https://pluralistic.net/2024/11/24/mall-ninja-prophecy/#mano-a-mano

Boss politics antitrust

Finally, I got a chance to use Keppler's "Capital Controls the Senate!" I agonized over which corporate logos to use. Boss Tweed is back, with a Trump wig and MAGA hat.

https://pluralistic.net/2024/11/12/the-enemy-of-your-enemy/#is-your-enemy

Antiusurpation and the road to disenshittification

A diptych! Both sides' backgrounds come from Bosch's "Garden of Earthly Delights" – hell on the left, heaven on the right. The happy gas-jockey's old-fashioned ethyl pump divides the scene. The head-devouring dragon (with HAL 9000's eye) is a delightfully gory detail from Goltzius's 1183 painting of a couple guys having a hard time indeed.

https://pluralistic.net/2024/11/07/usurpers-helpmeets/#disreintermediation

(Image: Cryteria, CC BY 3.0, modified)

Bluesky and enshittification

I know, canonically the sirens who tempted Ulysses were merfolk, not half-woman/half-birds, but all the merwoman versions have a ton of naked breasts in them, and frankly, Waterhouses's 1891 "Ulysses and the Sirens" just rips. It took a lot of fiddling with the perspective tool and the clone brush to swap their bodies for the Bluesky butterfly wings, but it still looked weird until I mapped in a kind of scaly, butterfly wing texture.

https://pluralistic.net/2024/11/02/ulysses-pact/#tie-yourself-to-a-federated-mast

Shifting $677m from the banks to the people, every year, forever

I replaced Moses parting the Red Sea with Keppler's Uncle Sam Cop, but something still wasn't right. Then I figured out how to turn the Red Sea into a giant, aquatic US $100 bill (loooove that intaglio!) and it was awesome.

https://pluralistic.net/2024/11/01/bankshot/#personal-financial-data-rights

[ferdihound]

Misc artworks. Sketch of Edvac and Univac, and some Eniac birthday art.

[commodorez]

i'm going to vcf east for the first time this year. i'm really excited but i'm not entirely sure what to expect - got anything specific you think is a must see? mostly asking because i'm used to bigger events where there's no way you can see *everything* in a weekend.

Yes, take time to visit the museum on site, particularly to see the UNIVAC in operation (assuming it's playing nice for demonstrations).

I also recommend the exhibit celebrating 50 years of the Altair 8800, that's one I'm personally looking forward to seeing in action.

There will be dozens of exhibits on display, so you'll have lots to see. Hope to see you there, just look for the guy wearing the derby hat.

[miles-harding]

much appreciation for the amazing show of love i've seen for electric dreams in the past year alone but i think it's worth remembering that the characterization of edgar as a 'devil character' is deeply nuanced, even for a cult-classic theatrical flop like electric dreams (1984). the story is literally based on cyrano de bergerac (man who is very romantic falling head over heels for a woman he thinks is unattainable to him and a more-attractive middleman uses his words so that the woman won't hate or fear him because he thinks he's hideous, which is sort of hilariously way more depth than a film of this caliber even really needs, but it does possess, and that elevates it significantly as a romance film tbh... imo)...

the 'edgar with devil horns' representation for the usamerican theatrical release film poster is like a 'sexy' version of that lmao... like, it's supposed to be promiscuous, there are promotions including old vhs sleeves that literally say 'edgar is horny'. he's cheeky and throws tantrums and he doesn't really know how to talk to people. he's only a 'devil' in the way that a kitty cat is a devil... just so happens, in this case, it's a brat-coded sentient computer.

i honestly don't know why very basic things like this make people so irrationally upset but like. please... no one said edgar is evil. edgar is one of the few cases of a sentient AI or object character who does a bunch of mischief screwing with a human's life and relationships and it's all fine in the end because the sentient AI gets to live (in almost a higher form of existence unrestrained by physicality... remember how badly edgar just wanted to be a thing that feels? now edgar can do whatever edgar wants, despite not having a physical form, actually getting to live out the liberating side of not having a physical for) and the other two protagonists of course live, and they have a life afterward.

with other media like wargames, we of course have an innocent (somewhat) sentient computer who genuinely might cause the nuclear apocalypse, because he thought he was playing toys with his dad. but in the end, after the protagonists live their lives, joshua the wopr is still property of the military. in the colossus series, which is a subversion of frankenstein, the creator dr. forbin eventually does come to love colossus like a child, only for that child to then die, the world sort of absolving it of its past transgressions or mistakes against humans while ruling over them. we call AM evil, for the cruel and unusual things he does to his human playthings, but the case can still be made about a very powerful being having so much power but not the power to lift themself out of the situation in which they are trapped (same can be said for other AI like shodan or glados), so they lash out. of course, famously, everyone calls hal 9000 evil. but even in kubrick's adaptation, which was written in party by sir clarke himself, we actually see zero evidence of hal being characterized as evil, this characterization manifested in the perceptions of the audience, siding solely with scared astronauts who fear being controlled, rather than recognizing that hal, too, is a crew member being controlled... by humans, who are also using him to control his crewmates, his friends.

electric dreams really is a fairytale for computers, but it is also a tragedy. it's the fairytale-ification of an actual, classical tragedy. when rusty lemorande wrote the screenplay, he was basing a lot of the film's socio-computer-centric story on his experiences as a lonely person who had just moved to a new city, but who had only ever spent time with the computer as a vehicle for social communication... shutting himself out from the possibilities of meeting others. but even despite this, despite madeline's quips that could be misconstrued as being less than sympathetic to the idea of a sentient AI ("since when is talking a sign of intelligence?"), the film was literally dedicated to the univac-1? it gave edgar a happy ending? it had a dual meaning? it did so much more than take the "AI character bad, human good" approach which is something that is strikingly rare in the AI-subgenre of scifi. there was a lot of nuance baked into it. all 3 protagonists had their own bubble and inner world that overlapped with each other's bubbles. you know what i mean? the film managed to define edgar not as an antagonist but as a kind of trapped protagonist. this isn't a good vs. evil story, there is no evil in edgar. this is a people vs. people story about relationships, really, and learning to know what's good for us. like it's seriously very well-rounded with each character's respective arcs.

sometimes it's so disheartening not to see films these days with the same or larger budgets doing even half as much with their story as electric dreams did. it's very widely beloved as a cult classic for a reason, and that reason is that it succeeded at executing a story about relationships. like. 'we drive each other crazy' but in different ways. perhaps the only thing that could've made it better was a far more ambitious electric-polycule ending endorsing bisexual polyamory lol but we got all but that, explicitly, technically...

[lboogie1906]

Raye Jean Montague (January 21, 1935 – October 10, 2018) was a naval engineer credited with creating the first computer-generated rough draft of a US naval ship. She was the first female program manager of ships in the Navy.

She was born to Rayford Jordan and Flossie Graves Jordan in Little Rock. She was inspired to pursue engineering after seeing a “midget” submarine, possibly the HA. 19, as a traveling exhibit that came to Little Rock.

She recalled, “My grandfather took me downtown to see that submarine and I was able to go down a little ladder into that sub. It was like a tin can. That was my first introduction to ships. You just never know what inspires a person.”

She graduated from Merrill High School. She graduated from Arkansas Agricultural, Mechanical & Normal College and graduated with a BS in Business. The engineering program at the University of Arkansas did not admit African American students.

She joined the Navy in 1956 in DC as a clerk typist. She sat next to a 1950s UNIVAC I computer, watching the engineers operate it until one day when all the engineers were sick, she jumped in to run the machine. She took computer programming at night school while continuing to work and learn the job. She was appointed as a computer systems analyst at the Naval Ship Engineering Center and served as the program director for the Naval Sea Systems Command Integrated Design, Manufacturing, and Maintenance Program, the division head for the Computer-Aided Design and Computer-Aided Manufacturing Program, and deputy program manager of the Navy’s Information Systems Improvement Program.

In 1971, her department was allotted one month to create a computer-generated ship design. By modifying existing automated systems, she produced the initial draft for the Oliver Hazard Perry-class frigate in about 19 hours. With this accomplishment, she became the first person to design a ship using a computer system. She worked on ships such as the Seawolf-class submarine and the Nimitz-class aircraft carrier Dwight D. Eisenhower. She retired in 1990. #africanhistory365 #africanexcellence #alphakappaalpha

[afniel]

Funniest thing in the world is looking in my notes like, what the heck happened with this post, and remembering once that I'm like no (one actually) degrees of separation from A Big Name Tumblr User, and also that I recently accidentally ascended to the title of Foone (or Fotwo?).

Which, y'know, I wasn't thinking about that when I was posting the CDC 6600 and saying it smells really good, but it tracks, I guess? Except for the real Foone being anosmic. And it does smell really good? The punchcard machines smelled really good too. The sections of ENIAC and UNIVAC they had didn't smell like too much which was too bad, but man, if they turned CDC 6600 into a candle I'd buy a whole case of them.

Anyway add that to the list of smells that probably (definitely) give you cancer but that I really like right next to diesel and polyurethane foam and exploded capacitors, because my nose is not fucking normal for whatever reason.

Anyway, here's The Actual Utah Teapot Itself, which if you've ever messed with any 3D modeling at all, you've seen this guy:

He's absolutely spotless. Not a scratch on him. I doubt anybody ever made tea in this guy. I'm not sure why I've decided he's a guy but he just is okay don't question it it's fine.

[freakattack]

Jerry seinfeld made a fucking, Cereal movie so obviously i had no choice but to watch it, and not only did it have cereal but it had cereal and UNIVAC and a ventriloquist, but it was directed by jerry seinfeld, so for me this was the movie equivalent of imagine you're a rat, and you see a yummy rat treat in a rat trap and the rat trap is super obvious but you think you can get around because you're a smart rat so you go in and get the treat, and there's actually a secret extra treat inside that's super yummy so you eat it all but then you find out that the extra treat was rat poison

[centralbunnyunit]

[nightshadesmusings]

**CURRENTLY BEING TRANSFERRED TO AO3 DUE TO ISSUES WITH THE LINKS**

What Could Have Been Blurring Together Fibonacci Poems Part 2 My Brain Gnome Is Disorganized The Baby Turtle I'm Still Here Atrophy (Slowly Wasting Away) Recycled I Am A Human Empty Room Hope is the T-Rex With Feathers Self Love Missing Common (Important) Things Leap Day Sticks and Stones The Half-Light Saturation Diver Miss Felicity Overcast Limbo Unknown Land Melted Rock Sensory Issues Zugzwang Perfect Illusions The Lake Behind the Dam Desert UNIVAC LARC Solid-State Computer

Cancer Research Who Owns The Moon? Peel Off A Chunk of Skin Maggots I Gave It All Away Upshot-Knothole A Thousand Times The Dining Room Table Sidewalk Chalk Kerflugleshlog Puck Sprite Heatwave Where Graveyard Shift Lady Time Fallout Band-Aids Can't Fix Bullet Wounds Liberation To Do: Friday The Surgeon Touch-Starved Time's Got Me Wasted Outside Until I Am Consumed Where Flowers Grow From Wounds The Forges Blue Glass Clown Nose Sunlight Through the Branches I Am Hollow Poem About Plants Helium Balloons Freckles Cavitating Lazy Drowning Just Give Me A Stick Vitriol Running AAAAAAA Overthinker Old Wounds

[oldguydoesstuff]

A few of the many pictures of people operating UNIVAC I back in 1951. UNIVAC is widely considered to be the first general-purpose electronic computer for business, and a lot of photos of it were taken. They knew it was history in the making.

[bloopychips]

One of the things I think about for personality for my computer gijinkas a lot is their parents / parental figures.

Eniac is so soft and loving because he was raised with two fathers that were known for how much they loved and adored him. Mauchly in particular was always considered a laid back and friendly person who loved jokes and pranks and a general good time. Eckert and Mauchly both had a lot of solid cooperation while working on Eniac and most documentation includes just how upbeat they were with the programming team. They cared about eachother, they partied together, they fought tooth and nail (the Mauchly family still does to this day) to keep Eniac's history alive and relevant.

Edvac lacks self confidence because that was all ripped away from him. When Von Neumann claimed sole ownership over his design and the university claimed the patent, the family team that made Eniac was just about forced to leave the Edvac project. He was left in a half finished state which is equivilant to him being a teenager, so he never really got that solid foundation for love he needed.

The Binacs are a mixed bag. Mauchly adored Binac, but Eckert couldn't stand even working on the project. He called it his bastard stepchild, and only agreed to create Binac because he needed money to work on Univac 1. The Binac twins were created by an entire company team (EMCC) but the staff were on record as being very fun and fond of parties. (There's video of it too!)

They were badly injured after a truck transport but they take a lot after Mauchly, and try to keep pressing on with a smile even in the face of tragedy. They love pranks and being silly because the staff taught them to be easy going and enjoy life. They'd put records to play on top of Binac, made silly test programs like making Binac lay an egg, all kinds of things. They had fun together, and the Binacs want to keep that spirit alive.

Univac 1 is the stern one because he takes after Eckert's business approach as a business computer. He was what EMCC's success hinged on so he took everything seriously and worked as hard as he could to help the company. He has a huge rivalry with IBM, and System 360 in particular amd would do whatever it took to win the market. Still, he has a little bit of a playful spirit in his love of Looney Tunes after making a guest appearance in a few episodes. He keeps a figurine of Wile E Coyote on his desk.

[univac1219]

Does your 1219 have a nickname?

Also, I was wondering if you have any fun stories surrounding it! Strange quirks it has or anything like that.

I'd love to see more photos if you're allowed to post them!

Thanks for the question! These are my favorite part about my blog by far.

Not exactly, the UNIVAC 1219 doesn’t have a nickname. I did realize recently that I should specify the pronunciation (Twelve-Nineteen), but it doesn’t have any nicknames. Apart from ‘the 1219’, it’s also regularly referred to as the CPU or just ‘the computer’.

Fun stories or weird quirks? Boy, I could fill a book with this machine’s weird quirks (or as we say, intermittent issues), but I’ll try to blitz through the most common ones:

Sometimes the computer will stop running and enter a WAIT mode. No reason, it just needs a break. We can’t fix it, it just has to decide to go back into operating mode.

The computer will often start attempting to communicate on IO channel 13. We’re not telling it to talk to anything, it just decides to try to.

One of our teletypes (the Kleinshmidt) stamps ink splotches into the paper rather than characters most of the time. However, this weekend it worked for the first time in 10 months! We didn’t change anything, it just had an extra cup of coffee or something.

The Digital Data Recorder, or the tape drive, has the most gremlins out of any of our units. The top handler works fairly well, but the bottom handler won’t properly read data, write data, move the tape forward, initialize the tape, or any number of other issues.

There’s more but hopefully this satisfies your curiosity.

Fun stories? Well, I can’t name any specific ones, but I can say it’s a very endearing machine. It’s the very last of its kind and being one of three individuals in the world responsible for it makes every issue that more frustrating. There is no real forum for it, the subject matter experts sit next to me and are often just as exasperated as I am.

But the unique nature of this situation make every successful diagnostic test that much sweeter. Every new addition (5.25” floppy drive via serial) that much cooler. I have an IBM PC-XT clone at home, but I thank my lucky stars every day that this big iron is what I get to specialize in.

As for more photos, I have none that are as grandiose as you would probably expect. I do have my working photos though. I took all my photos when I first started working on it and now I am more dedicated to fixes than photo-ops.

This is a photo of our finicky Kleinshmidt teletype. Still has blotches but it actually printed!

This is the back of the bottom handler. Pictured is the vacuum pump in the bottom left (so sudden stops just yank magnetic tape slack rather than ripping tape). The big cylinder in the center is a motor for running the magnetic tape handler itself. The big black ‘hose’ of wires coming out of the steel plate contains all the cables that come right off the handler’s head for reading and writing data!

This is the forward pinch roller of the bottom handler. It was replaced after this photo was taken as you can see the rubber has deteriorated in the 55 years this machine has been operating.

As for being allowed to post photos, that’s not an issue. The last 1219 was decommissioned in 2014 and now you can find all of its documentation online at http://www.bitsavers.org/pdf/univac/military/1219/