Here’s my IBM 360, running Cayenne-
It makes an excellent remote control,
as well as a whole-home heating system!
It needs a few peripherial devices, namely,
a streaming tape drive and a punch card reader,
and the electric bill is a tad bit high,
what with the air conditioning required,
and the general power requirements…
but it works like a champ!
After loading Cayenne via paper tape,
and booting the system using the streaming tape drive,
to turn the light on-
just press the button
24th column, 32 row…
To turn the light off,
just push the button
on the 64th column, 17th row.
Here’s the programming code-
Here is the Arithmetic Logic Unit-
to decode the Cayenne commands-
simply push a button to control a light!
Now I’m curious about the number of Raspberry Pis you could run in parallel on the power budget of that thing, and whether or not they combined would match its physical footprint…
I’m thinking 1 RasPi would equal 5 IBM 360 'puters.
As far as power…I’m thinking around 2,000 RasPis
would draw the equivalent power as a bare bones 360.
(*CRTs not included)
As far as weight…cripes, just the POWER SUPPLY of a Sys 36 ALU weighs 400 pounds…
But the EYE appeal and prestiege of the IBM 360
…sitting in your living room…
will make you the envy of all your friends.
Just imagine- firing up your System 36…
and turning a light off and on
at the other end of the house.
IMPRESSIVE!
Back in the 8086 days with monochrome monitors, I used to login to a friend’s PDP-11 using a 1200 baud modem to compile my C programs. Not as ancient as the old IBMs, but…
Back in the “day”- (1982)
I hooked my IBM XT “clone”
to a Digital Electronics Corp. LA120-KSR
(I bought for $50 from University of California Liquidation Center)
-via the PC serial connector,
using DOS command “CTTY: 9600,8,n,1” (it’s been a long time, memories fade)
Okay, it was only dot matrix printer with a keyboard…
but it LOOKED so kewl!
