 IBM Archives |
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(Left) "Our" RAMAC. on loan from IBM
image from the Magnetic Disk Heritage Center According to http://www-03.ibm.com/ibm/history/exhibits/storage/storage_350.html, over 1000 *305* computers (which utilized these storage devices) were shipped before production of the *305* ended in 1961. Similar/identical mechanisms but with different interface electronics were also available for the IBM 650 and the IBM 1401. |
 via Dave Bennet | (Right) RAMAC and a DC-7. Date on back of photo is "Fall, 1957"
Two mutually exclusive? comments - photo from Dave Bennet, scanned by Robert Garner 
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and links to YouTube videos: IBM 305 RAMAC publicity release,
And another IBM 305 film, different from above. Spotted by Herbert Kanner
*Very* recent events: - of a much longer restoration history -
| 2006 | June, July, August, October, November |
| 2007 | January, February, March, May, June, July |
| 2008 | January, July |
| 2009 | July, August, September, October, December |
| 2010 | March, March |
| 2011 | March |
Other contents:
Disclaimer
One might call this web site (the one you are viewing) a working/current status web site.
Current goal: present the working RAMAC to interested viewers,
Future goal: present the RAMAC in a future museum located at the location of its development - 99 Notre Dame Ave, San Jose, CA
This web site is presented as a learning aid to its owner, who wants to join this ongoing restoration effort.
Documents on line -
Control Overview
Pictures:
Interesting Info
from Dave Bennet July 4th 2006
The other version, I guess it was 353, was the STRETCH version, which had one head per disk surface. Early ones still had air pressurized heads, which took a LOT of compressed air. Later ones had flying heads. CHM has a STRETCH RAMAC which came from Livermore Lab, but someone discarded the head arms because they were supposedly rusty. In so doing they discarded the most interesting part of the machine.
Dave
from Jim Strickland July 23, 2011
I was docenting, as is my wont, and I came up to a group of four. “Did you folks come to see anything in particular?” I said.
“Well, perhaps RAMAC,” said a man of 80 or so.
“We have restored a RAMAC”, I said. “Let me show you.”
He indicated they wanted to go through the museum sequentially, so I told them I would see them later in the RAMAC area.
Later, I did find them in the /360 area and asked if they had seen the RAMAC, yet. They had not, so I showed them to it.
“Now, tell me your story,” I said.
“Well, I was with IBM for 45 years. And in 1958, I was working for IBM France when we introduced the RAMAC. Tom Watson Jr. came to Paris for an industrial exhibition and we demo'd the RAMAC.
There were hundreds of people lined up for the demo. When you got to the front of the line you could name a date and the operator would enter it and in a few seconds tell you what happened on that date in history. It was the biggest hit of the whole show!”
Was this the early version the Watson that wowed people on Jeopardy in February?
Contact Info -
Some RAMAC patents
How the RAMAC got its name
Per Al Hoagland's email below (hired at IBM San Jose in late 50's), he confirmed that the "Random Access Memory-AC" naming story (as in ENIAC, MANIAC, etc) is incorrect.
Per his email below, the earliest published articles illustrate that RAMAC originally stood for "Random Access Memory ACcounting machine."
Apparently RAM acronym was owned by Potter Instruments, so meaning was changed by marketing to "Random Access Method of Accounting and Control." This from an Al Shugart talk, introduced by Al, recorded at: http://www.mdhc.scu.edu/100th/Progress/Shugart/shugart.html
"We wanted to call the thing RAM, but a fellow named Potter from Potter Instrument Company had already used that name in a product. There may be people here who remember Mr. Potter and the Potter RAM. But probably none here has heard of Bill Goddard. Bill was awarded the fundamental RAMAC patent, assigned to IBM, and received a belated cash award for his efforts. I guess that makes Bill Goddard sort of the grandfather of the industry."
Regards,
- Robert
p.s. In the old computer acronyms like ENIAC, MANIAC, ILLIAC, etc. the AC stood for "and Computer" or "and Calculator." I agree it was likely an "iXX" or "eYY" like phenomena.
This is in reference to your comment on the RAMAC page of the IBM 100th anniversary package. I am a member of a team of IBM retirees which has restored an original RAMAC mechanical assembly to operating condition at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, California (USA). We are very interested to hear that you have a RAMAC and would like to know more about it. Before now, the following are the total of RAMACs that we knew about:
Dave Bennet, IBM retiree, Aptos , California
Website started June 8, 2006
If you have corrections or suggestions, please send e-mail
to Ed Thelen (ed@ed-thelen.org) -
This web site is *not* official web site anything.
(I *really* want to see that!! - and maybe help make it happen again :-)) )
- How about that for stepping right out, moving right along ?!?!
Useful links
Restoration History of this RAMAC
Other existing RAMACs and RAMAC restorations
I never worked on a RAMAC, but I did install and maintain this "second generation" product from General Electric Computer Department in 1963,
and did see a working RAMAC at G.E. Large Appliance Division in Louisville, Kentucky in 1963.
and WFM0620b.trc - Index pulse Waveform 336 bytes, from Joe Feng, 2 revs @ 10 MS/s
The red thing is a very noisy aircompressor with regulator. The black tank is an accumulator? to smooth??
50 psi air is used to operate detents, "lower" the heads using 3 little pistons, supply air to the six little holes in the head
to fly the head maybe 0.0003 inch off of the oxide on the disk
Part of the drive train to select disk and track.
Potentiometer to sense the position of the arm/head assembly on a disk.
These are the plugs from the RAMAC, and the sockets and wires the Santa Clara students added to connect their board.
The original RAMAC connectors are used. Apparently finding the matching connectors was a challenge.
This is the area of the Santa Clara drive boards with plugs and cables to the RAMAC.
Note that the plugs and sockets are much easier to find than the connectors at the RAMAC end.
This is the drive circuitry make by the Santa Clara students, , to drive the RAMAC seek mechanism. A manual switch to
operate the head lowering air switch is off screen. A PIC, running BASIC, was used to:
Using this method, they achieved a seek time of about 10 seconds
Joe Feng amplifies the about 80,000 bit rate signal from the RAMAC read head (about 40 millivolts) by 2
and uses this scope to:
He then down loads the captured result to a PC for analysis, decoding, what ever :-))
Joe Feng sent this image "... of ABS of one of the RAMAC heads, taken by Terry Whittier of HGST."
There was a 353 and a 355 version of RAMAC. I gather that 355 was the version that went on 650 and if so I'm not sure of the differences from 650. My guess would be that it might have a different data format and whatever other changes were necessary to attach to 650. The 350 data I/O was sequenced by a drum file in the processor unit. 650 may have done it another way.
STORIES: Watson Precursor?
- 1970 IBM patent announcement - .pdf, 1.5 megabytes
- US03503060__.pdf - .pdf, 5.9 megabytes - filed Dec. 24, 1954, granted March 24, 1970
- US03134097__.pdf - .pdf, 5.9 megabytes - filed Dec. 24, 1954, granted May 19, 1964
"Prior Art"
- 2690913.pdf - Magnetic Memory Device - 500 K Bytes by J. Rabinow - filed March 14, 1951
Letter from Robert Garner to ...
Paul,
Hello Michael [Deichmann - mde at dk dot ibm dot com],
Could you please send me a digital photograph of the machine there in Lundofte? Thank you very much!
Updated through Sept 30, 2011
