Will's journey and the journey of the blue 1130

Will, as you will remember, decided to start his trip home on Saturday evening, immediately after we finished the group dinner hosted by Robert. You may also remember we were inundated with extremely heavy rain, receiving a flash flood emergency alert on our smartphones shortly after Will began his drive.

He reassessed his plan at about that point, with reports of hail piled on to the rain and lightning already visible. Will pulled to the side of the railroad tracks near the site and slept out the storm. Once it had abated, he restarted the drive back. While he still experienced wet conditions for about 85% of the journey back to Kingston, NY, mostly he faced drizzle or recently wet roadways and not downpours.

Route home for Will and his 1130 system

Remember, too, that the IBM 1131 and the CHI 1103 printer were riding on an open trailer, although very well wrapped in shrink wrap plastic and pallet bags. Not a drop of water got into either unit, in spite of the best attempts of the weather. Due to the poor road conditions on parts of the interstate, not only potholes but spans where the tarmac has been removed leaving the concrete slabs exposed, a few bolts were shaken loose.

We experienced the same kinds of roadway trauma on our westward journey. The concrete slabs are regular in size, thus there is a joint between slabs at a fixed distance for those entire sections of interstate. The regular distance means a periodic bump which in our case set up a resonant oscillation with the truck suspension. We would be shaken vigorously by the low frequency oscillation for as long as the roadway was exposed concrete slabs. The resonance spread across the useful range of driving speeds on the highway, otherwise we might have been able to slow slightly to stop the jarring.  If Will's van and trailer had any resonance to the period of the slabs, that would certainly explain the loosened bolts.

The front door that covers the internal disk drive does not stay closed - something loosened or fell off where there should be a catch holding it shut until pulled on by the operator. As Will says, easily fixed, and otherwise the machines are all safely in place in his facility.

Blue 1130 safely in Will's facility

1403 compatible printer from CHI