NONSTOP Crypto Query

[Harmon Seaver]

Ken Brown wrote:

> > Certainly
> > they aren't running Tandem stuff on planes and vehicles -- this is heavy
> > iron --
>
> They certainly used to run IBM 370 (a lot  heavier than Tandems both in
> mass & power consumption!) in the air, probably to manage AWACS tape
> filestore (I vaguely think they may even have used UCC1). That is unless
> the US  & German airforce people I sometimes met on operating system
> training courses back in the early 1980s  were *very* good at pulling
> the wool over fellow-student's eyes.

       Bizarre -- but then I suppose 20 years ago the 370 was fairly small
compared to other computers. At any rate, I was thinking in today's terms,
and one would hope our glorious leaders would have a bit more on the
technical ball than to think they needed to drag mainframes around in planes,
eh? But then, probably they don't. So maybe John's "nonstop" is referring to
some weird intel op use of Tandems. Who knows?
      Come to think, my computer operator for the Tandem spent 20 years in
the AirForce, and he seems to think the Tandem is hot stuff. Of course, he
can't even set up his own PC, but what would you expect?  8-).