## hpr2968 :: Life and Times of a Geek part 3

 Introduction
In the last part of my story (show 1811 in 2015) I told you about some of my experiences at the University of Manchester as a postgraduate student from around 1973.
Today I want to talk a little more about my time in Manchester and mention some of the things I did that may be of interest to Hackers!
Researching for the episode
As I have been researching for this HPR episode I realise how long ago some of these events were - in Internet years particularly. In many cases I could find no online records of places, equipment or people. This seems to be because any records there might be are on paper and have never made it online. I contacted a company that made some of the laboratory equipment I used that I thought might be of interest, and the person I contacted said that although he remembered what I was referring to the company had kept no records of it and had had to discontinue it due to modern safety concerns.
I find this somewhat dispiriting and it makes me feel very very old!
Long notes
I have provided detailed notes as usual for this episode. The HTML version can be viewed here and the ePub version downloaded from here.
Links

Building experimental apparatus:

Wikipedia page for Dexion - for building metal structures
Wikipedia page on the “Skinner Box” or Operant Conditioning Chamber
“Handy Tube” used for making Skinner Boxes

Video tape recorders:

The Rewind Museum reel-to-reel video recorders
Wikipedia page on Video tape recorders
Youtube video about a Sanyo Reel to Reel Video Tape Recorder

Logic programming:

Wikipedia page on the Logic Gate
Wikipedia page on the (electronic) “Flip-Flop”

D-MAC Digitiser:

StackExchange article discussing the D-MAC digitiser

ICT (ICL) computers:

Wikipedia page on the ICT (ICL) 1900 series
Wikipedia page on the ICL GEORGE operating system

Teleprinter:

Wikipedia page on the Teletype Model 33

CDC computers:

Wikipedia page on the CDC Cyber range

Wikipedia page on the APL language
Sinclair calculators:

Wikipedia page on the Sinclair Scientific
New Scientist advertisement December 1975
Sinclair Scientific operating instructions [This link might be dead; try the archive.org one below]

https://web.archive.org/web/20141021211903/https://phils.bitboxes.co.uk/scan_and_ocr/manuals/sinclair_scientific/

Sinclair Scientific simulator
Vintage Calculators
Reverse Polish Notation

Previous episodes:

Life and Times of a Geek part 1 (2014-12-18)
Life and Times of a Geek part 2 (2015-07-13)

Resources:

Full show notes
ePub show notes


