nmg | You have been outbid...

Bother. I spotted an emergency power off panel from an IBM 1602 on eBay over the weekend, and was out-sniped within the last ten seconds (I'd set my snipe for 29 seconds, figuring that there wasn't likely to be a great deal of interest in a 3kg block of metal). On the plus side, the postage would have cost me the best part of USD50.

For those of you that might be wondering why I'd want an obsolete IBM boat anchor, might I refer you to one of autopope's stories, particularly the last four paragraphs.

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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.