1401S, 1470 "last gasp" computers 494

The 1622 was a card reader-punch unit for the IBM 1620. The plotter I worked with wasn't an IBM product; it was a Calcomp pen plotter with a homebrew local interface to the paper tape interface of an IBM 1620 (at Carleton College).

There was an 1130 across the river at St. Olaf; I used both while in highschool in Northfield, 1968-1972. I think I used the 1130 around 1970 a little. But it was far away, and less interesting than the PDP-8-I that Carleton installed around then (and we got a terminal to it at the highschool, too).

I don't remember details of 1130 Fortran; but then I was used to NCE Load-and-go Fortran, and AFIT Improved Fortran, on the 1620, none of this newfangled relational IF statement nonsense there!

Oh, that TARDIS might have been an LP controller I suppose; the base 1130 hardware had a nearly-all-software LP controller, where it made visible to the software the current chain position, and a bitmap or some such structure to fire particular hammers, and let the software driver figure out how to print the intended characters. Which means there could quite possibly have been benefits from an add-on controller to take that load off the software! --