[TUHS] 3330s, 3340s, Winchesters... (was: /dev/drum)

[Clem Cole]

On Tue, Apr 24, 2018 at 7:43 AM, Paul Winalski <paul.winalski at gmail.com>
wrote:

>  Clem claims that the code name refers to various advances in
> disk technology first released in the 3330's disk packs.  Wikipedia
> and my own memory agree with you that Winchester referred to the 3340.

​Interesting ...   My source was (is) my friend and former colleague from
Stellar, Russ Robelen, ​who was the HW lead for the 360/50 and the IBM ACS
systems.   Russ said the original IBM project Winchester  first begat the
platter (as Noel pointed out was so named because of the 30-30 capacity of
the original disk) - which showed up in the 3330 disks as well as the
sealed head stuff that Paul and Greg are talking about.  What I never asked
him, was where Memorex fit it.  It was a somehow a joint project with them,
and they got at least some of the technology -- in fact DEC's OEM for the
RP05/RP06 was Memorex [the big box of logic on the side of the DEC version
was the Massbus to IBM I/O logic converter].    It is also true that real
lasting piece of project Winchester was the embedded (sealed head) stuff
that came from the 3340.

I should ask Russ what he remembers, on this.  I'm guessing that maybe
there was two parts of the project.   The sealed head stuff that Paul and
Greg are discussing and probably was IBM only, as I do not remember that
Memorex ever produced a similar product to the 3340 .   But maybe platter
stuff may have been joint.

But I have asked Russ a couple of times, and he very much states that name
'Project Winchester' came from the platter technology which was first
introduced in the IBM 3330.

I'll have to dig up the book Noel suggests and see what they see (and ask
Russ what he thinks of it).
ᐧ
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