They had their own “handmaidens” (computer operators) whose jobs consisted of feeding them with large decks of punched cards, checking that these jobs got run, putting large magnetic tapes up when requested and keeping the hungry large printers loaded with paper and distributing the print out to collection points.
It was to be two or three years later before we got the first interactive terminals (screen and keyboard), code was written on customised paper pads and then cards were punched. One time we had to send our work on a 200 mile round trip to get it run, this really helped to focus the mind as one missing semi colon could result in a total job failure.
Remember coming across my first PC in 1984 and being unimpressed by everything except the size, bought my own one a couple of years later it came with 2 3.5” floppy disk drives and had a primpitive graphical interface.
Was much more impressed with the interface on the first MACs that I saw in the mid eighties - took Microsoft a fair few years to catch up there with Window 95 being the first usable Windows and Windows 2000 being the first stable version.
The new laptop that I am planning to buy has 2,000 times the amount of memory compared with first mainframe that I worked with and a 160 Gb hard disc in a package that weighs less than 7lbs, at times like this I feel that in some ways the world has changed for the better.
Here are a couple of pics of the sort of machine that I was talking about at the start, if memory serves me correctly that exchangeable disc she is holding was a “massive” 80 Mb.
5 comments:
Those old (big) room-sized 'puters also had their own a/c system, with special firefighting equipment and an independent power line. The first TI "pocket" calculators (4-functions) cost over $150.
Today, my cellphone has a bigger memory, faster processing, can send/receive images and videos and I can use it to make a telephone call.
I remember when we had our first "computer" records check system in the USA. Via teletype through NCIC. It was fantastic! You could get a National warrant check in 20-30 minutes.
PD, I remember lusting after a work mate's programmable HP calculator back in '78 - never got one as they cost silly money back then.
Did buy a TI one that would perform decimal/hexadecimal conversions for me - still got it in a drawer somewhere.
I remember when I was little going into where my mom worked and always looking into the computer room (from the outside) like it was some glass encased control room that no one could enter but the guys in the short sleeved shirts and ties. Heh.
Hey, I was like 10 years old.
rt, Our "handmaidens" were more likely to be dressed in jeans an T shirts, passing their free time reading Freak Brothers comics - well it was the seventies :)
In the mid-80s, I worked at a company where customer orders were recorded via punch-card. And, jeez - that horrid tractor-feed printer paper-- what beastly stuff. Nice when the march of technology actually serves us well.
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