Dougloid From , joined Dec 1969, posts, RR: Posted (5 years 11 months 3 weeks 3 days 14 hours ago) and read 2044 times:
This deserves its own thread.
Back when I was a little tyke, Armed Forces Day (May 14, I believe) was a pretty big deal. My mom and her cousin would down tools, load the kids in the cousin's 1956 Chevrolet, and head off to Raritan Arsenal. There we'd get to see all the toys, they'd ride us around in the DUKWs (amphibious trucks) and we'd tour the exhibits in some of the buildings.
Anyway, with my mom as chaperone (this would have been, say 1957 or 1958) we strolled along, and I got to put the phones of the mine detector to my ears and inside on building was a very large piece of electronic gear that you couldn't actually touch because there was one of those velvet ropes like they have in theaters to separate the crowds. There was a guy there and he'd hand every kid a strip of paper tape about an inch wide with domino holes punched in it.
Apparently this was a gunnery trajectory computer of some type and the paper tapes were what it was programmed with.
So I've got to say the first computer I actually saw was in the latter half of the 1950s.
JGPH1A From , joined Dec 1969, posts, RR: Reply 1, posted (5 years 11 months 3 weeks 3 days 14 hours ago) and read 2038 times:
Probably the old clackety cast-iron BEACON and BOADICEA DCS terminals at LHR in the seventies, when I was still at prep school. BEACON was the first fully automated check-in system in the world IIRC.
N231YE From , joined Dec 1969, posts, RR: Reply 2, posted (5 years 11 months 3 weeks 3 days 14 hours ago) and read 2030 times:
My grandmother used to work for the payroll department of an explosives company (Austin Powder, Inc.). Anyways, I remember going to work with her when I was just a toddler, ~2-3 years old. The computers took up an entire, air-conditioned room, with a screen at her desk. She used to have to do something with large reels of magnetic tape, but I don't remember what.
Searpqx From Netherlands, joined Jun 2000, 4343 posts, RR: 12 Reply 3, posted (5 years 11 months 3 weeks 3 days 10 hours ago) and read 1999 times:
The first one I saw in person was the old State of Alaska system. I used it to do research active bills in the legislature, though I know it did more. Immediately following that was an Alaska Airline's res terminal, in the first travel agency I worked in. Alaska called its system ALICE, but in reality it was just a partition in CCS. Finally I took a programming class in my Junior year in HS, on a Radio-Shack TRS-80, with my very own cassette drive! All of this occured between about 1978 & 1980.
"The two most common elements in the universe are Hydrogen and stupidity"
AeroWesty From United States of America, joined Oct 2004, 19262 posts, RR: 63 Reply 4, posted (5 years 11 months 3 weeks 3 days 9 hours ago) and read 1980 times:
Other than a slave terminal somewhere along the line, the first living breathing computer I saw was the one we used in a basic programming class I took during my freshman year at Cal in 1976. It was a beastly thing with an array of terminals for classes to use, and to get a passing grade in the class you had to write a program that actually did something. I did one that balanced my checkbook.
A couple of years later, the law firm I was working for plucked me from obscurity and put me in charge of their $100,000 billing computer. "Well you've seen a computer before", was the excuse. It had 44MB drives the size of large pizzas, and to back up the data, you had to remove the top disks in each drawer (called "platters"), and copy data from the fixed platters onto a backup, then copy the data from the removables over the fixed, back those up, then restore the data from the backups to the fixed. One error in the flow, and you were screwed, which is why we always kept a double set of backups. IIRC, the platters were named dp0, dp0f, dp1 and dp1f ("f" for the fixed platters in each drawer).
MD11Engineer From Germany, joined Oct 2003, 13369 posts, RR: 64 Reply 5, posted (5 years 11 months 3 weeks 3 days 8 hours ago) and read 1964 times:
On pictures an IBM 360.
The first one I actually laid my hands on was a rackmounted HP unit with a punch tape drive and a teletype as a terminal. Later I fooled around with a VAX 2000 and also another rackmounted HP unit (I still have one of the huge (1 foot diameter) replaceable harddisks beside my desk). I also fooled around with a PDP 7 and a PDP 11.
The first small computer we had in our school (affordable for a teacher) was a Sinclair ZX-81, the one with the foil keyboard and a cassette tape recorder for storage, later an Apple 2e. Later my brother and myself saved about 6 months worth of pocket money, plus all money we got for birthday and christmas gifts from our relatives and bought a Commodore VC-20 (I still have this one in my barn). I was about 14 at this time, so it must have been around 1981.
Dougloid From , joined Dec 1969, posts, RR: Reply 6, posted (5 years 11 months 3 weeks 3 days 7 hours ago) and read 1949 times:
My law school had a Digital VAX when I first started there in 1993 and it was used as a card catalog for a number of years thereafter. I betcha they would make a fellow a deal on it.
LTU932 From Germany, joined Jan 2006, 13864 posts, RR: 51 Reply 7, posted (5 years 11 months 3 weeks 3 days 7 hours ago) and read 1946 times:
I'm not sure. It was either one of those old Unisys systems that were used by bank tellers in the late 1980's or it was probably one of those first ATM machines I ever saw.
N174UA From United States of America, joined Jun 2006, 994 posts, RR: 0 Reply 8, posted (5 years 11 months 3 weeks 3 days 6 hours ago) and read 1942 times:
ThePRGuy From , joined Dec 1969, posts, RR: Reply 9, posted (5 years 11 months 3 weeks 3 days 6 hours ago) and read 1935 times:
One of the classic BBC computers I believe...but it was well outdated by then. Other than that an Atari Midi machine and various Apples. (Lisa - dang i wish we had hung onto that, II, IIc, IIci etc)
Sprout5199 From United States of America, joined Feb 2005, 1783 posts, RR: 2 Reply 13, posted (5 years 11 months 3 weeks 3 days 3 hours ago) and read 1891 times:
Early 1970's. My dad worked for ATT(bellsouth) and he took me into the switching station. One of the first ESS in the state. 12 inch floppys, even had a game or two that we played. I think it was a Bell Labs or Western Electric one.
Wow, that's the size of the floppys were that I first used... I still have some and they are huge!!! Not to mention that they only held about 50 pages...haha The computer only had one drive and in order to copy something you had to open it on the screen...remove the disk, put a new one in and save it. You had to do that for every page you wanted to copy onto another disk.
Phyllis
Life is a bitch sometimes....Smile, laugh, play~~enjoy every moment~~life is too short!!
I've got a pal who has to be the first on the block to have any new gadget. I went with him and watched as he laid out $800 for a VIC20.....how times change.
DesertJets From United States of America, joined Feb 2000, 7677 posts, RR: 18 Reply 18, posted (5 years 11 months 3 weeks 1 day 16 hours ago) and read 1806 times:
Well I am young enough that computers were already making their way into the classroom when I entered elementary school in the mid-80s. Any of the early computers that I saw or used (in the 1st grade, never saw or touched them in Kindergarten) was an Apple II Plus or IIe.
Stop drop and roll will not save you in hell. --- seen on a church marque in rural Virginia
Superfly From Thailand, joined May 2000, 38597 posts, RR: 79 Reply 20, posted (5 years 11 months 3 weeks 1 day 15 hours ago) and read 1800 times:
Quoting N231YE (Reply 2): My grandmother used to work for the payroll department of an explosives company (Austin Powder, Inc.). Anyways, I remember going to work with her when I was just a toddler, ~2-3 years old. The computers took up an entire, air-conditioned room, with a screen at her desk. She used to have to do something with large reels of magnetic tape, but I don't remember what.
Sounds like your Grandmother used the same computers that O.J. Simpson used in the movie Towering Inferno.
Quoting Searpqx (Reply 3): Finally I took a programming class in my Junior year in HS, on a Radio-Shack TRS-80, with my very own cassette drive!
Same here!
The Radio-Shack TRS-80 was the first one I used on a daily basis. The only thing was that I took this class in 1985-1986 school year. They were so outdated even by 1985.
Off topic; One of the most memorable yet horrifying experiences in that class was when we gathered around the TV to watch our teacher's friend (Christa McAuliffe) go up in the Space Shuttle and being in total shock and horror to see the disaster that followed.
Anyone remember those geeky T-shirts computer folks used to wear?
MD11Engineer From Germany, joined Oct 2003, 13369 posts, RR: 64 Reply 23, posted (5 years 11 months 3 weeks 1 day 13 hours ago) and read 1773 times:
Quoting Superfly (Reply 20): Quoting N231YE (Reply 2):
My grandmother used to work for the payroll department of an explosives company (Austin Powder, Inc.). Anyways, I remember going to work with her when I was just a toddler, ~2-3 years old. The computers took up an entire, air-conditioned room, with a screen at her desk. She used to have to do something with large reels of magnetic tape, but I don't remember what.
Sounds like your Grandmother used the same computers that O.J. Simpson used in the movie Towering Inferno.
Seems like the grandma was a computer operator, working on the mainframes. Mass storage were at first magnetic tapes or magnetic drums, later stacks of huge hard disks. RAM was either a bank of flip flops or a magnetic core memory (still used in some applications where the equipment is exposed to radiation, since, while being big, they are not as sensitive to it as computer chips).
the operator was responsible for the correct running of the machine, which then operated the programs of several users using time share.
Superfly From Thailand, joined May 2000, 38597 posts, RR: 79 Reply 24, posted (5 years 11 months 3 weeks 1 day 13 hours ago) and read 1761 times:
Quoting MD11Engineer (Reply 23): Seems like the grandma was a computer operator, working on the mainframes. Mass storage were at first magnetic tapes or magnetic drums, later stacks of huge hard disks. RAM was either a bank of flip flops or a magnetic core memory (still used in some applications where the equipment is exposed to radiation, since, while being big, they are not as sensitive to it as computer chips).
the operator was responsible for the correct running of the machine, which then operated the programs of several users using time share.
Sounds like N231YE has a very smart Granny.
Bring back the Concorde
25 N231YE: Except for the fact she drove a Buick Century , until recently.
26 Superfly: That makes her a super smart Granny! SuperGranny!
28 57AZ: The first computer I saw was an abacus too. First computers that I remember were a Radio Shack (may have been the TRS-80) desktop and the Apple Lisa l
29 J_Hallgren: Not 100% sure, but I suspect it was a Burroughs mainframe at the junior college in 1974...unsure of model nbr (9500?), but it took a good sized room a
30 Baroque: I SAW the valve machine at Sydney University, but actually got my hands on a 1620 about 1965 or 66. Top of the line it was, with 4 (four) tape drives
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All of this occured between about 1978 & 1980.
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