Objects in the Red Room

By Charlotte Wipp

To create a diorama of the Red Room I collected many images that could make my model as accurate as possible. One thing I noticed as I continued to find images was that the room's layout would often change by year as the machines were being updated and switched out. Below are photos of different layouts and machines present in the Red Room from 1967 to 1989. Additionally, some machines existed for longer in the room than others, such as the Central Processing Units like the System/360 and System/370. Below are some of the photos that I gathered for my research and more information on some consoles and devices in the room.

Most of the photos were provided by the University of Waterloo Library Special Collections & Archives.

A former student provided some helpful notes on the labelled images:

The second picture is a wide view of the Red Room, in which the operator station is labelled as "IBM 1052." This is actually an "IBM 2150 Remote Operator Console." Also in this image some cabinets at the left are labelled "IBM 7074." The IBM 7074 was a computer that predated the System/360, and there is no indication that the university ever had one. In any case, the 7074 looked nothing like the cabinets in this picture, which look like standard System/360 cabinets. These items are most likely channels for the /75, or possibly control units.

The third picture shows some plotters, one labelled "IBM 1627." However on close examination the name CALCOMP is discernible. IBM sold rebranded Calcomp plotters under its own name, but this appears to be an actual Calcomp plotter, known as a Calcomp 565. No name is visible on the larger plotter, but a chronology of computing at the university mentions "the University's Calcomp 763/770 Plotting System which had been purchased in the summer of 1967" along with a picture of a plotter and a tape drive. The items in that picture look suspiciously like the items here labelled as "IBM 563 Plotter" and "IBM Tape Drive." There is little doubt that those two items in picture three are actually a Calcomp 763 Drum Plotter and a Calcomp 770 Tape Drive.

While studying this photo in particular to make the diorama, there were a few object I could not identify. Luckily I did not have to make multiple renditions of the Red Room throughout the years, as that would further increase the unknowns. 

If you have any idea what any of these particular objects are, we would love to know!

We received some feedback about some of these mystery items:

The first picture shows five unidentified objects circled. The item second from the left in this picture appears to be an IBM 2250 Graphics Display Unit. The 2250 displayed information using vector graphics, so it wasn't restricted to just text. This unit is also visible at the top left in the second picture under 1969.

Pages A.1 through A.4 of the following document describe the 2250 at Waterloo

Methods for producing linear displays of visual graphs by R. Brien Macguire

The second picture, labelled "IBM Plotter Tape Drive, model unknown," is the Calcomp 770 mentioned above.

Charlotte is a Physics and Astronomy student currently in her 2B term at Waterloo. She enjoys tinkering and creating all forms of art in her free time. She works at the Computer Museum as their current Winter 2024 coop student.