I'd already suspected as much; I'd spent quite a while looking through the IBM archives and other sources. I don't know enough about old IBM kit to have been able to hazard a guess as to what it coupled, but your suggestion makes sense.
There's also a separate issue relating to this quote from the Stross: "[...] the 1602 was one of the last computers built to run on tubes: I’ve probably blown half its circuit boards." The 1620 used RTL logic, not valves, so this is either authorial license for the sake of a better story, or a simple mistake.
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zvi and
Re: Not what you think it is...
Date: 2008-11-13 10:15 am (UTC)There's also a separate issue relating to this quote from the Stross: "[...] the 1602 was one of the last computers built to run on tubes: I’ve probably blown half its circuit boards." The 1620 used RTL logic, not valves, so this is either authorial license for the sake of a better story, or a simple mistake.