We all use computers these days.  It is hard to imagine a world without them.  I'm using one now and can't remember any amount of time passing when I didn't use one.  I began learning how to program computers when I was 17 years old, just before the 1970's.  I went to a computer programming school to learn what I could about them before they were ever popular.  I believe because I chose this field is the reason that I have never in my life been unemployed. (Knock Wood)

I'm dedicating this thread to "the good old days", to impart my experience as I grew along with the industry.  Most people have no idea when and how computers developed.  I'm revisiting the days of the mainframe when IBM was king and before IBM said, "Let that Gates guy have the small computer, how could it possibly hurt us"?  One of the first mainframes I have ever worked on was an IBM 360 model 85.  At the time it was state of the art and cost millions of dollars.  Today an old Zenith 286 computer runs rings around this beast.  The mainframe took up about 3,000 square feet of space and it took about eight people to run it.  The console operator had a PA system to communicate with the crew because of the size of the room and the noise this beast made.

Back in those days the machines were leased and not bought.  IBM or whatever company usually had one of their own engineers on site during what we called the principle period of maintenance which was usually 8:00AM to 5:00PM.  After that depending on the lease it could cost money to get the engineer out to work on a problem outside this period. 

Typically back then computers were run 24/7 and shift work was extremely common.  I can remember working on shift and the computer malfunctioning and not being able to call in hardware help because of the money that it would cost.  The shift operator was expected to keep the machine running until relieved and was really not allowed to mess with the hardware.  It was kind of like a catch 22.  I learned on many a grave shift how to get around hardware problems until the day shift arrived so that the engineer could address the problem and not get myself in a bind with management. 

I hope you all find this thread interesting.  I have a bunch of stuff already put together on this subject.  I have some gee whiz facts and some questions to answer.  Hope you find this enjoyable and enlightening.

How we've changed.  The picture below is what a typical Digital Equipment Corporation KI 10 mainframe looked like.  The blue units in the upper right side of the photo are memory units.  Each one was capable of storing 512K of memory.  They were the size of phone booths and a real nightmare for maintenance crews to work on when they malfunctioned.  Now you can put gigabytes of memory on a piece of silicon and put it in your pocket.  The smaller the hardware the bigger they become.  The photo is only showing about 1/3 of the full size of the mainframe.


http://www.megabaud.fi/~setala/pics/ki10a.gif

Very interesting. I saw some similar mainframes in the late 70's when working in the bank (data processing center). Big machines...very noisy.

Very interesting. I saw some similar mainframes in the late 70's when working in the bank (data processing center). Big machines...very noisy.



Gibbo, I operated one of these for about 6 1/2 years.  It used almost the same operating system as Microsoft's DOS.  The OS was called TOPPS 10

Does anyone know what these are?  The picture makes them look like they are interlinked but they are just one lying on top of another.


http://t0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:iiGYWhKu3qvffM:http://www.wunderland.com/WTS/Andy/XmasTrees/WriteProtectRings.jpg

Wow, that is early...

The first computer I ever used was probably around 1981 at my school, it was a TRS-80 (Radio Shack brand).  They only had about 10 of them so we had to get in groups and share computers.

Then I finally got a computer at home in about 1985.  It was an Atari 800, I think.  I didnt have a monitor, I would hook it up to the TV.  I think that same year, I got a 300 baud acoustic modem and started calling local BBS's (messageboards).  As BBS's progressed into multi-line with real-time interaction, I got involved in MUD (multi user dungeon) games, and started developing a bit in C+.

I don't know what happened after that, but I never followed computer stuff much after that, and it's frustrating that people who didn't even know what a modem was in 1991, now know a million times more than I do. ::)

Odyssey - The more I learn about them the more I realize just how much I dont know about them.  No one knows it all and the technology changes faster than a hypochondriac changes symptoms.


The picture above is of three magnetic tape write protect rings. I have several of these relics at work.  Maybe one out of 25 IT people know what they are. 

If the ring was in the magnetic tape it could be written on. If it were out it was write protected.  A pin on the inside hub of the tape drive was depressed when the ring was in thus making it possible to write to the tape. 

What is this a picture of?

A. Card sorter
B. Card interpeter
C. Card counter
D. Card verifier


http://www.officemuseum.com/IMagesWWW/Punch_card_machine.JPG

My first computer was in the year 1979 I think. The language on it was APL. Files were stored on cassettes. The monitor wasn't really a monitor, just a one line screen. This is going back a long time.
Maybe a year or two later, a buddy got a commodore 64 Wow.! That was so amazing back then.

What is this a picture of?

A. Card sorter
B. Card interpeter
C. Card counter
D. Card verifier


http://www.officemuseum.com/IMagesWWW/Punch_card_machine.JPG
This brings me back. My 1st year of university, we used to have to put our data on cards similar to your photo. If the cards were in the wrong orderr, just 1 of them, the program woudl be wrong.
I think this might be an actual card machine sorter.

This brings me back. My 1st year of university, we used to have to put our data on cards similar to your photo. If the cards were in the wrong orderr, just 1 of them, the program woudl be wrong.
I think this might be an actual card machine sorter.



;) Right you are Frank.  I've used them back just a bit more than a few years ago.  It is indeed a card sorter.  8)

COBOL is a very old computer programming language that was used as early as the 1960's.  It was the first computer language that actually used English in it's source code.  COBOL stands for Common Business Oriented Language.  As programming languages go it is extremely verbose.  During the Y2K "crisis" most of the code that needed to be rewritten was COBOL.  Most of the changes done was in areas that contained dates.  Dates in COBOL programs used only the last two digits of the year.  So 1972 was expressed simply as 72.  The popular myth was that programmers were lazy and didn't bother to use a four digit date.

The reality of using two digit dates was driven by cost.  During the 60's and 70's disk space and memory was very expensive.  A typical COBOL program may have thousands of dates.  By using only two digits instead of four a vast amount of savings was realized.  By the year 2000 there were still a lot of COBOL applications in use.  So to avoid massive computer errors all the code that dealt with the dates had to be changed or calculations that used a date would produce erroneous results.  For example a phone bill for a toll call could be computed as being as long or longer than 100 years if the dates were not changed to four digits.  Could you imagine the price tag on that call?

COBOL was developed by a female US Navy Admiral.  She became known as "The Mother of COBOL". 


Who is known as the Mother of COBOL?

A. Hedda Hopper
B, Alice Cooper
C. June Nelson
D. Grace Hopper

What is this a picture of?

A. Card sorter
B. Card interpeter
C. Card counter
D. Card verifier


http://www.officemuseum.com/IMagesWWW/Punch_card_machine.JPG



I'll guess...card verifier?  I remember filling in computer code cards when at school. They would send them off to one of the local Universities for reading. Oh...how it's changed!

Wow, that is early...

The first computer I ever used was probably around 1981 at my school, it was a TRS-80 (Radio Shack brand).  They only had about 10 of them so we had to get in groups and share computers.

Then I finally got a computer at home in about 1985.  It was an Atari 800, I think.  I didnt have a monitor, I would hook it up to the TV.  I think that same year, I got a 300 baud acoustic modem and started calling local BBS's (messageboards).  As BBS's progressed into multi-line with real-time interaction, I got involved in MUD (multi user dungeon) games, and started developing a bit in C+.

I don't know what happened after that, but I never followed computer stuff much after that, and it's frustrating that people who didn't even know what a modem was in 1991, now know a million times more than I do. ::)



I remember that TRS 80 when it came out or how it was "affectionately" known as the "trash 80".  I knew it was just a matter of time before someone made a small computer.  My friend had one and I toyed with it.  It seemed so limited as compared to what I could do on the old mainframes.  But it blazed the trail and like you after that I had a whole slew of small computers.  I got the Color TI when it first came out.  It actually played games!  Wow.  I programmed a hangman game on it and ran it out of memory, all 16K because I had to store the hangman words within the program.

Then sometime later after owning something else that I can't quite remember, I got my hands on a  Tandy/Radio Shack CoCo.  This had more power than the trash 80.  My son was having problems in school with spelling.  I wrote a program for him to study his spelling words.  I'd plug in the words for the week in and then the program would display each word for 10 seconds.  It would then blank the screen and solicit input for that word.  It made a happy sound and a feel good message whenever he got it correct.  It made a sour sound and a helpful try again if he got it wrong.  He liked playing on the computer so well that he practiced everyday.  He never had problems with spelling again.

Yeah after the trash 80 I always had some kind of small computer but I always thought the mainframes were the real deal until Microsoft came out with its DOS OS and we started getting them at work.  I knew right then and there that the mainframes were on their way out. I was a one man shop where I worked.  I was the IT guy and management basically left me alone.  All they wanted from me was results on their computers and databases.  What made the transition so easy was the fact that I had worked on DEC 10 mainframes that had almost the exact OS as the new PCs had and that was DOS.  I had a very tiny learning curve and I impressed the bosses with my learning speed and agility in getting these new systems up and running in record time.  (whatever the record was back in the mid 80s)  I was thankful for that ease in transition. 

Yeah I grew up with the industry and am still growing along with it but these days you have to specialize in something since no one person can be an expert at all the disciplines that we have today.  My current speciality is related to comms. 

Gibbo, look about three posts back and you'll see that Frank identified this as a card sorter.  He wrote his answer into the original picture and it is hard to see making it easy to miss. I will touch lightly on verifiers later on in this thread.  Thanks for your input to this thread.  Verifier was a good guess.  Why not try to identify who "The Mother of COBOL" was?  It is a multiple guess question a few posts above this one. 

Does anyone know what these are?  The picture makes them look like they are interlinked but they are just one lying on top of another.


http://t0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:iiGYWhKu3qvffM:http://www.wunderland.com/WTS/Andy/XmasTrees/WriteProtectRings.jpg






For a second,I thought they looked like the olympic symbol.

I remember Apple Computers back in the early 80's,Boy things have changed over the 30 years.  :o

I used to use IBM cards when I was in communications. Messages would come in at 500 cards each (that was the max). If we had to send them out, we had to create a header & ending card for each message. You had a whole bunch of these 500 card messages in a box and carrying them across the room, when all of a sudden...OOPS!!! You are playing 500 card pick up. You never know what order the cards are in so you HAVE to go back to the originating station to request a retransmit and you ALWAYS, ALWAYS say due to "equipment malfunction."  :D ;D ;D ;D


BTW: I posted this not to long ago on another thread. This is my dinosaur that I used for my undergraduate degree.

http://i706.photobucket.com/albums/ww64/CatwomanofV/006.jpg


Not a computer per say as much as just a word processor. And yes, I still have it. It is the only thing that I have that can read my old files.



Cat

I used to use IBM cards when I was in communications. Messages would come in at 500 cards each (that was the max). If we had to send them out, we had to create a header & ending card for each message. You had a whole bunch of these 500 card messages in a box and carrying them across the room, when all of a sudden...OOPS!!! You are playing 500 card pick up. You never know what order the cards are in so you HAVE to go back to the originating station to request a retransmit and you ALWAYS, ALWAYS say due to "equipment malfunction."  :D ;D ;D ;D


BTW: I posted this not to long ago on another thread. This is my dinosaur that I used for my undergraduate degree.

http://i706.photobucket.com/albums/ww64/CatwomanofV/006.jpg


Not a computer per say as much as just a word processor. And yes, I still have it. It is the only thing that I have that can read my old files.



Cat



I used to use IBM cards when I was in communications. Messages would come in at 500 cards each (that was the max). If we had to send them out, we had to create a header & ending card for each message. You had a whole bunch of these 500 card messages in a box and carrying them across the room, when all of a sudden...OOPS!!! You are playing 500 card pick up. You never know what order the cards are in so you HAVE to go back to the originating station to request a retransmit and you ALWAYS, ALWAYS say due to "equipment malfunction."  :D ;D ;D ;D


BTW: I posted this not to long ago on another thread. This is my dinosaur that I used for my undergraduate degree.

http://i706.photobucket.com/albums/ww64/CatwomanofV/006.jpg


Not a computer per say as much as just a word processor. And yes, I still have it. It is the only thing that I have that can read my old files.



Cat



Can you say 291 or was it 491 or 3C0?  ::) 

And I don't doubt it that the Smithsonian piece ppictured here is the only thing around that can read your files.  ;)  I guess if you really really needed to read the stuff on a more state of the art processor you could probably download some free translation software.