I haven’t identified all the labeling. But nice switches and LEDs.
I also found this PDF showing that 14 of these computers (including R10) and 20 terminals were used in the 1984 new built Daimler Benz car factory in Bremen, Germany (producing Mercedes 190) running PEARL OS and the real-time SQL database BAPAS-DB (DB obviously stands for Daimler Benz). BAPAS-DB was a collaboration of Werum, Siemens and the Fraunhofer Institut. One of the most powerful database systems with short access time and 24/7 stability. One of the R30 is for monitoring.
Interesting! In 1984 I was in Bremen at Krupp Atlas Elektronik and programmed an application for their EPR 1500 process computer. The fact that Daimler used process computers from Siemens at this location was probably because Daimler’s headquarters are in Stuttgart. By the way, PEARL (which I used at the time) is not an operating system, but a real-time programming language that is often confused with Perl.
This isn’t the actual computer but only a binary input/output box. It’s original name is “Wartungsfeld”. Don’t know any correct english name for it.
I worked on these computer (R10, R20 R30) systems in the eigthies. They didn’t fit in this small box.
Some of them, the R10 series, had no Wartungsfeld, so you could connect one. The large ones like the R30 had these boxes integrated in their frontpanel. R30-systems were large rackbased systems.
These computers were used as processcomputers in the industry and had digital in- and outputs, diskunits, tapedrives. Main use was realtime control for rolling mills, production lines, high bay warehouses.
These systems became obsolete with the introduction of the PLC.
Thanks very much!
I wasn’t aware that R10-R40 (next to 310+330) were just the CPU units and the system is in fact Siemens Systeme 300. (Later turned into SICOMP-M).
The embedded control panel at the CPU cabinet might resemble that in the suitcase.
There was also Sytem 3003 I never heard of. More famous was the 4004.
Dear all
I also worked with R30 computers in a steel factory for 10 years about 30 years ago.
It was excellent in level 1 and level 2 of automation in the form of multitasking and real time and The programming languages were Assembly and FORTRAN .
The working with R30 was a very valuable experience for me at the beginning of my career.
I have a lot of document relevant to that time, the photo below is a sample of the books from that period. also a very useful software at that time , was XTreeGold as a file manager for searching and editing.
Another memory of me is relevant to restart of R30 , I remember to restart with the keys: STP , FT and then STP,ZRS . (Am I right? , maybe!)
I worked too into late 80s on this process calculators, I was a Siemens technical and my job was to repair and setup those machines. The picture into first post is a wartungfeld in german that can be translate like service panel. It was portable into a bag and was used mostly on R10 machines because they didn’t has it enclosed like R30 units. It was used for diagnosys purpose in event of errors. On R30 it was used to set the address of hard disk where the boot software was located, so in case of restart the computer was rebooting without operator command. Those machines was very complicate to repair because there was ton of boards and diagnostic was not so accurate, also there was alot of different peripherals connected also very complicates like disk units and tape units. Disk units was made by CDC (control data) and tape units was made by Ampex. Was good time for me, the job was sometime hard but very well payed.
This is, why I – as a German native speaker – have always preferred the English manual.
Often, it’s unclear, what term has been translated, or the translated terms often come with a peculiar distance (there are people in lab coats and users), e.g., while “Bedienoberfläche” (a term used by Siemens, literally “service surface”) is arguably a valid translation of “user interface”, the general feel and sentiment is totally different.
In my department in the 80-ties, there was a group doing the maintenance on HELL-systems. Hell was known for digital printing services and they used these Rxx systems for that purpose. They also used the large 300MB diskpacks.
Had once the case that a Hell-customer moved a pack after a diskcrash into 5 other drives because he couldn’t read the stored pictures. 6 drives with each (if I remember well) 24 heads had all of the heads crashed after this event. We simply hadn’t enough heads to repair them all.
BTW I’ve trown away all these little (mostly in the then Siemens-orange) books like the one shown above and the shortcut-cards when I moved early 2000.
I should still have the two small books for service of R series. One was on hardware the other on software. Hell was a Siemens Company for this they was working with R30. Was another time Siemens was huge Company years ago.
Hell ppl has made Just what was forbiden on disk units!
