IBM BoozeBot™
March 2, 2023 2:11 PM Subscribe
"This is an IBM tape library robot. It’s designed to fetch, load, unload, and return tape media cartridges to the correct bay in large enterprise environments. One fateful ‘workend’, I made one serve drinks. It went back into prod on the Monday…" [A Mastodon thread]
The silly thing about the one in the Star Wars movie is that it has to be guided manually - the ones in our galaxy know where everything is by reading barcodes.
posted by LionIndex at 2:39 PM on March 2, 2023 [3 favorites]
posted by LionIndex at 2:39 PM on March 2, 2023 [3 favorites]
I'm glad somebody did something interesting with a tape robot.
posted by clawsoon at 2:54 PM on March 2, 2023
posted by clawsoon at 2:54 PM on March 2, 2023
Hey, I helped automate a cable channel with a tape robot - that was... ok, no it wasn't interesting, but the scanning work from the tapes to an early hard drive video playback system was interesting.
These days you'd just shove it all on disk from the jump and archive it to tape for security.
posted by drewbage1847 at 3:31 PM on March 2, 2023 [3 favorites]
These days you'd just shove it all on disk from the jump and archive it to tape for security.
posted by drewbage1847 at 3:31 PM on March 2, 2023 [3 favorites]
"...We returned an hour or so later with a few crates of cheap (but still premium, we weren't animals) Belgian lager...
.... some of those bays had miniature bottles of cheap (definitely not premium, we weren't rich) liquor in."
My burning questions answered.
posted by winesong at 4:01 PM on March 2, 2023
.... some of those bays had miniature bottles of cheap (definitely not premium, we weren't rich) liquor in."
My burning questions answered.
posted by winesong at 4:01 PM on March 2, 2023
I, for one, welcome our new robot overlords.
posted by slogger at 5:32 PM on March 2, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by slogger at 5:32 PM on March 2, 2023 [1 favorite]
Great story. I actually follow this account just for the stories -- this isn't the first banger posted.
posted by humbug at 8:22 PM on March 2, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by humbug at 8:22 PM on March 2, 2023 [1 favorite]
I’m having trouble picturing getting a drink in a slot the size of a square tape.
Maybe I’m missing something.
posted by MtDewd at 4:40 AM on March 3, 2023 [1 favorite]
Maybe I’m missing something.
posted by MtDewd at 4:40 AM on March 3, 2023 [1 favorite]
Well, @humbug, can you point us at some "previously..."s?
posted by k3ninho at 5:03 PM on March 3, 2023
posted by k3ninho at 5:03 PM on March 3, 2023
I’m having trouble picturing getting a drink in a slot the size of a square tape.
Maybe I’m missing something.
IBM BoozeBot™ wasn’t quite finished. It still needed some little shelves to hold lager cans instead of tapes, and the retrieval carriage also needed some minor, non-destructive modifications. Thankfully it still being a construction site, there were lots of offcuts, tape, tools, and other fixing lying about.
It wasn’t long before IBM DrinkCenter™ was fully operational.
It was a historic moment.
posted by ActingTheGoat at 5:26 PM on March 3, 2023 [1 favorite]
Maybe I’m missing something.
IBM BoozeBot™ wasn’t quite finished. It still needed some little shelves to hold lager cans instead of tapes, and the retrieval carriage also needed some minor, non-destructive modifications. Thankfully it still being a construction site, there were lots of offcuts, tape, tools, and other fixing lying about.
It wasn’t long before IBM DrinkCenter™ was fully operational.
It was a historic moment.
posted by ActingTheGoat at 5:26 PM on March 3, 2023 [1 favorite]
It's a really cook story, but having worked with those things off and on for 25 years, I'm afraid I'm with MtDewd: skeptical.
EVERYTHING in those libraries is designed around the exact, repeatable dimensions of a cartridge, and the system of slots and tabs that makes them snap into place. The picker assembly isn't some general-purpose robot hand, it looks like this; just another moveable slot with belts on the sides, to draw the tape in when it's pushed out of the magazine from behind. The access port to retrieve a tape won't hold anything else. Making the 'shelves' in the magazine hold something taller than a tape would involve cutting away all the slots above it.
It'd be a cool project, and I'd bet with a few months and a decommissioned library to play with, you could rig up something neat: Dummy tapes with a hole for a can? Slot partitions cut away to fit it, and custom firmware to make sure the library knows it can only use every 8th slot or so?
But over a weekend with one, maybe two folks with dremels and duct tape? (and two is the most you could fit in even a large running library)? And to make the changes so non-destructively that it was back in service on Monday? I won't say it's impossible, but if they pulled it off, they left a WHOLE LOT of steps out.
On the other hand, hey Oracle, really cool StorageTek conference demo idea here if you're feeling playful! (IBM is NEVER playful any more)
posted by CHoldredge at 10:31 AM on March 4, 2023
EVERYTHING in those libraries is designed around the exact, repeatable dimensions of a cartridge, and the system of slots and tabs that makes them snap into place. The picker assembly isn't some general-purpose robot hand, it looks like this; just another moveable slot with belts on the sides, to draw the tape in when it's pushed out of the magazine from behind. The access port to retrieve a tape won't hold anything else. Making the 'shelves' in the magazine hold something taller than a tape would involve cutting away all the slots above it.
It'd be a cool project, and I'd bet with a few months and a decommissioned library to play with, you could rig up something neat: Dummy tapes with a hole for a can? Slot partitions cut away to fit it, and custom firmware to make sure the library knows it can only use every 8th slot or so?
But over a weekend with one, maybe two folks with dremels and duct tape? (and two is the most you could fit in even a large running library)? And to make the changes so non-destructively that it was back in service on Monday? I won't say it's impossible, but if they pulled it off, they left a WHOLE LOT of steps out.
On the other hand, hey Oracle, really cool StorageTek conference demo idea here if you're feeling playful! (IBM is NEVER playful any more)
posted by CHoldredge at 10:31 AM on March 4, 2023
So you're saying that to get an interesting story out of a tape robot you have to make it up whole cloth?
posted by clawsoon at 11:51 AM on March 4, 2023
posted by clawsoon at 11:51 AM on March 4, 2023
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posted by hippybear at 2:16 PM on March 2, 2023 [7 favorites]