Handwritten PDP-6 hardware log from the Stanford AI Laboratory (1967) [pdf]

Some interesting stuff in here.<p>On page 4, a note from Raj Reddy about a tape drive not working correctly. Reddy was an assistant professor at Stanford at the time (1967). He went on to win the Turing Award in 1994 for his work in AI. (<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Raj_Reddy" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Raj_Reddy</a>)<p>But apparently he had time to play computer games. On page 15: &quot;SPACE WAR BUTTONS DO NOT WORK. - Pingle and Reddy&quot;.<p>On page 1: &quot;TTY 3 threw its drive belt&quot;. Anyone else here remember the days when terminals had drive belts? (On page 6, some output from one of their printing terminals pasted in.)<p>On page 10: &quot;MY HARDWARE WORKS!&quot;. Looks like they were building custom hardware and hooking it up to this machine.<p>Here&#x27;s the Wikipedia page for the PDP-6, complete with a photo: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;PDP-6" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;PDP-6</a>

Cherrypicked a few gems:<p>p. 28: <i>Console teletype sometimes gives two line feed for the price of one.</i><p>p. 29: <i>REJOICE! PDP-10 COMPATIBILITY IS HERE NOW!! ...EXCEPT FOR UINS5, WHICH DOESN&#x27;T SEEM TO APPRECIATE THE GLORY OF THE NEW ORDER, ALL NON-PORNOGRAPHIC POGROMS WILL WORK AS BEFORE.</i><p>p. 31: <i>GLORIOUS PROGRESS MARCHES ON!!</i><p>p. 34: <i>BUG WORKS AGAIN. TROUBLE WAS CAUSE BY SOME J. RANDOM BENEDICT PLUGGING TWO THINGS INTO SAME INPUTS.</i><p>p. 34: <i>TTY3 STAYS AT LEFT MARGIN &amp; PRINTS BLACK RECTANGLES. I DON&#x27;T NEED BLACK RECTANGLES. YOU DON&#x27;T NEED BLACK RECTANGLES.</i><p>p. 36: <i>&quot;It&#x27;s a NonExMem&quot;, said Steve haltingly.</i><p>p. 44: <i>&lt;something?&gt; is not a bug, it is a feature!</i><p>p. 50: <i>DOOM!</i><p>p. 51: <i>The stupid brushes are worn out AGAIN (so soon?) on the mag tape. Some idiot carefully hid the spares. Probably said idiot should replace them. Perhaps someone should send a bomb to DEC or at least find out why we go through brushes so fast.</i><p>p. 52: <i>We have no bananas?</i><p>p. 66: <i>MORE GLORIOUS PDP-10 COMPATIBILITY (AND OTHER GOODNESS).</i><p>p. 67: <i>OVER FOR BIG MSG. --&gt;</i> p. 68: <i>TTY2 DON&#x27;T WORK WORTH SH!T</i><p>p. 81: <i>FIX THESE GOD DAMNED TELETYPES!!</i>

I still keep a paper notebook in the server room. Why? Because the logbook needs to work when the servers don&#x27;t!

The amount of sarcasm in that log is both hilarious and validating (for my job today, of course).

If this interests you then are two more scanned hardware logs at: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;exhibits.stanford.edu&#x2F;ai&#x2F;catalog&#x2F;rn367gp7801" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;exhibits.stanford.edu&#x2F;ai&#x2F;catalog&#x2F;rn367gp7801</a> and <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;exhibits.stanford.edu&#x2F;ai&#x2F;catalog&#x2F;gq025tt6144" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;exhibits.stanford.edu&#x2F;ai&#x2F;catalog&#x2F;gq025tt6144</a>

21 April: “There was a wiring hack in the disk kludge...”

This reminds me of when I was working with a PDP-8 back in 1975. We had a hardware failure, I ran a diagnostic which confirmed the problem was in the hardware. I called DEC (we had a maintenance contract), and they sent out an engineer. He looked at the output of the diagnostic, then he pulled out a circuit board and he <i>proceeded to unsolder a transister and solder in a new transister</i>!

&gt; BOTH Scopes Down<p>&gt; Old scope loses focus, sync, mind in dramatic fashion<p>&gt; New scope blows fuses instantly.<p>My housemates must think I&#x27;ve gone mad, giggling like this. Bless these engineers, this is a fun read. Thanks for sharing!

Page 5: &quot;4-18-67 TTY 1 doubles characters - Fred Hansen&quot;<p>Different handwriting, unsigned: &quot;(IT WON&#x27;T IF YOU DON&#x27;T BANG ON IT)&quot;