Wow! I used to have one of these a looooong time ago.
Elsewhere, I've always wanted one, and still want to get one. Write some crappy little games for it and save them on microcassette. It would be a cool toy!
Watchtower Computer Engineering Research Lab
by VM44 37 Replies latest jw friends
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Nosferatu
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drwtsn32
LMFAO Nos!
They should use something a little higher end than punch cards... how about this IBM 2361 Core Storage rack? This thing must be like 8 feet tall and it only holds 16K. They only need 30,000 of these racks to hold the WT Lib. lol
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Nosferatu
Yeah! Magnetic Core memory!!
Order the WT library and pick up one crate at a time.
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observador
I have on good source that the MEPS has been phased out for quite some time now. The reason: MEPS was replaced by commercial systems that cost a lot less to purchase and maintain.
Observador.
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Narkissos
I was working in the translation dept. in France when MEPS was introduced in the early 80's. If I remember correctly, the story we were then told is that "brothers" who had been working for IBM developed it in Brooklyn, and that the cost of hardware and software production for one mini-computer (to which common IBM PCs were connected as terminals) was about 3 months of rent for an inferior IBM technology.
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jst2laws
There have been so many tales about the developement of MEPS. I have heard, as Narcissos, that a group of bros with IBM developed it. I also heard that a group of brains from Japan came to Brooklyn to produce it.
Briefly, It was the project of Reiner Holm and John Ekran who were sent to the WT farm with a minimal budget to produce a demonstration of what they thought they could do. About a year later the GB approved the project with enthusiasm and a real budget. Holm was the computer science nut. Ekran was into software.
Gary Horn, if I remember correctly, was related to Cal Chyke, factory administration. He lived near WT farm and had the manufactoring expertise. The project was intitially to produce software to "pour" text of any language into the WT page format. With Horns help it soon included a lazer photo electric system for making lithographic printing plates. As a side project they also produced low cost PCs that could do the work so they eventually phased out the IBM (I thought it a was very expensive mainframe).
Holm has left Bethel. Ekran, last I heard, is still there in charge of informations systems. I understand Gary Horn was given the licence to use MEPS commercially. I don't know if it is true that they have dropped MEPS for commercial software, but I would not be surprised.
I have been off line for some time. Perhaps some day I will put together a more detailed account going back to 1976.
Jst2laws
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Leolaia
Compact Computer, circa 1890. This device was the first to use punch cards for tabulation.
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gitasatsangha
Zion's Watchtower and Steam Computnig MEPS (1876)
Ancient Israelite PC: (built by the Greeks, used by Phineas Ruben to download Scythian Porn)
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Wallflower
Proof the WT used old technology:
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cyberguy
jst2laws ?
I worked with Reiner Holm at the farm for 3 months on the precursor to the MEPS. He had an EE degree. I mainly worked in Brooklyn, on the software developments there. I was the guy that got John Ekran his job at the Farm, for eventually working on the MEPS. The Japan "brains" as far as I know, were never used, but they did visit Brooklyn Bethel (they were "heavy?s" in A.I. research in Japan). Cal Chyke, was Gary Horn?s brother-in-law. The IBM equipment and the MEPS hardware have been gotten rid of and replaced with inexpensive PC?s, except for the multinational keyboards in some branches. I believe the phototypesetters are still in use at present. And yes, they use off-the-shelf software for typesetting now, except for a few languages.
