After reading:

> The first computer I programmed did not have any sort of disk drive.
> It had 20,000 *decimal digits* of magnetic core memory.

I immediately thought:  That sounds like an IBM 1620.

Then I saw the msg was from

> David Dyer-Bennet, dd-b at dd-b.net

and realized that I had used the same machine at Carleton College.
IIRC, the IBM 1130, mentioned on the web page, was marketed in part as a
replacement for the 1620.

Glenn McDavid
mailto:gmcdavid at winternet.com
http://www.winternet.com/~gmcdavid