Adventures in systems land

I got an email pointing out that I omitted a link to the youtube video of the IBM hydro-cluster. So, here it is.

Towards the end of the video, Jeff Gluck says “hot water can be moved off site”, “to heat your home or cook a family dinner”. In the famed Larry and Brin, “do no evil” context, I guess this is goodness. While I appreciate that there is a very serious side to the “greening” of the datacenter, I couldn’t help but laugh.

Back in the 1970’s on one of the first large scale computer servers, aka mainframes I worked on, we used to store takeaways inside the server for 4-5 hours to keep it warm on evening and night shift. The really scary thing, back in those days microwaves didn’t exist!

The IBM 370/145 was a T-shaped server, laying on its back, the whole back of the T was largely empty, ready in case you wanted to upgrade to a 370/148 or 155(I think). So it became common place to store stuff in there that you wanted to keep warm and dry. Ideal for takeaway and girlie magazines(so I’m told!).