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Burroughs 220

B

BHedges

New Member
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Dec 5, 2019
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I recently bought a Burroughs 220 control console and have been trying to find more information about it but haven't had much luck. Does anyone know the exact years that it was built and the total number that were built? The serial number is 142 so I'm guessing this is the 142nd built. It was stored in a basement for 50 years and is still in very good shape.
 
Chuck(G) said:
I wonder if yours wasn't used as a Hollywood prop. See an example here.

At any rate, there's plenty on the web. There's even an Apple II simulator.
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It was never used as a prop since it still has the original neon bulbs and hasn't been altered inside. It belonged to a Illinois college and when they were going to move to a new location gave it away rather than scrap it and it was stored in a guy's basement for 50 years, at least the control console, two tape drives and their controller unit were. The memory and processor cabinets were probably way to big to get into his basement. I've checked a lot of websites and emailed museums and even Unisys, the company that Burroughs became, but can't seem to find much information about how many were made or the time frame that they were made. I can't even find any computer museums that have a Burroughs 220. Maybe I have the last of its kind, I just don't know. I know it wasn't as popular as the 205, and that it was the last of the Burroughs tube computers so the transistor ones helped make it obsolete.
 

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Al Kossow said:
Congratulations on saving the panel (eBay?), Electrodata/Burroughs 220 anything is difficult to find.

Bits of the 205 are everywhere thanks to Woody's Electrical Props

We have a 205 https://www.computerhistory.org/collections/catalog/X1055.91
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Woody's is amazing, probably helped save many of those systems that otherwise would have been scraped. I know at least two Burroughs 220 control consoles were used in a lot of 1960s TV shows but I'm not sure is even Woodys has one of those. I even have an Electrodata 205 control console front panel that was turned into a prop used on Lost in Space, although I had to fix up a repro cabinet for it. I did find the 220 control console on ebay, amazingly in complete good condition. After I bought that the owner wanted to know if I wanted the two tape drives and controller that were also in the basement so I took everything he had. The moving and shipping cost way more than the actual cabinets. It was a struggle for them to get the heavy (850 pound) tape drive controller out of the basement and up the stairs. Everything is still like when it was last used, operating notes and a cartoon clipping taped to the cabinet, circuit board extenders were still in the cabinet and tube extenders still plugged in waiting for someone to test the circuit that they never got back to. The tape drives still had reels on them with data waiting to be processed one more time. I feel lucky to be the caretaker of this historic system.
 
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