Cartoons we need em . post your favourites here .

[ebikeerwidnes]

A friend described a visit to his university computer room in the same era. The room was largely empty, but with a couple of wardrobe sized pdp11 minicomputers in one corner. These had replaced the entire roomfull of earlier generation kit.

Yup
anyone driving into the centre of Liverpool from the North might have noticed a mirrored building on the corner of Leeds Street and Old Hall Street
That was built to house the new Main Frame used by Littlewoods to run their Home Shopping business
it needed that whole building for the computer and all its accessories - such as comms devices and backup power supply

a just over 5 years later after it went live it was replaced (as planned) by a new system which only required 1 floor so the other floors were just used fro storage

even the new system - which was massively more powerful than the original - was massively less powerful than your average phone nowadays

 

[cisamcgu]

et voila !

 

[ebikeerwidnes]

et voila !

View attachment 782054

That's it
apparently not used for years since Littlewoods left and went to Speke - which was a while after I left
well - I say left - I was chucked out with some money
they were pretty good about it all - but it was a bit upsetting at the time!

 

[cisamcgu]

That's it
apparently not used for years since Littlewoods left and went to Speke - which was a while after I left
well - I say left - I was chucked out with some money
they were pretty good about it all - but it was a bit upsetting at the time!

Sometimes the mirrored glass panels fall off - it is just rough brickwork behind them as far as I can see !

 

[Chris S]

Sometimes the mirrored glass panels fall off - it is just rough brickwork behind them as far as I can see !

As the IRA found to their cost when they fired mortars at MI5's headquarters.

 

[ebikeerwidnes]

Sometimes the mirrored glass panels fall off - it is just rough brickwork behind them as far as I can see !

Yup
Originally there was a problem with them breaking

it turned out (so I heard) that it was the landlord or the pub opposite who was smashing them with a high powered catapult and ball bearings

he was "annoyed" because the computer operators had been banned from nipping over there in quiet times
of which there were quite a few because they staffed the computer rooms based on what they might need - but when everything was going OK then some of them were just sitting around doing whatever (some stories about wheegee boards that I'll save for another time)

so they started nipping over to this scruffy pub instead and having a pint (or two)

banning them seriously screwed up his profits!!

anyway - he got caught when they put CCTV up - the appearance of several large cameras clearly didn;t make him stop and think!!!

but yes - behind the mirrors is just breeze block
originally it was supposed to be a rectangular building just built of brick but the council rejected it as not pretty enough for a new building on a well used approach to the business district
so they cam up with the curvy thing and mirrors to make the city look techy

 

[ebikeerwidnes]

It is worrying the amount of stuff I can remember from then

and can;t remember where I put my socks this morning!!!

 

[Supersuperleeds]

It is worrying the amount of stuff I can remember from then

and can;t remember where I put my socks this morning!!!

Have you checked your feet?

 

[PeteXXX]

 

[Chris S]

 

[Chris S]

 

[craigwend]

 

[rikki]

 

[matticus]

View attachment 782113

... and then there's reality:

(Baillie Wind Farm, west of Thurso in the Scottish Highlands.)

 

[ebikeerwidnes]

... and then there's reality:


View attachment 782184
(Baillie Wind Farm, west of Thurso in the Scottish Highlands.)

Those sheep are in danger of being injured by all the dead bird falling down on them!!!