Old Computing Equipment

[GAD]

Having learned on punch cards, I have a soft spot for old computing equipment.



This is MADDIDA the last of the differential analyzers from the ‘50s.
A Northrop numerical analyst using a Marchant calculator to post process the computational output from a Magnetic Drum Digital Differential Analyzer,

 

[GAD]

One of my dad’s slide rules:

 

[dreadnut]

My eyes keep getting drawn to the right side of that photo...

 

[GGJaguar]

Having learned on punch cards

Me too. I recently pitched a box of punch cards I had hiding in the attic. They were already 45 years old and I saw no reason to keep them.

 

[GGJaguar]

One of my dad’s slide rules

I have one like that in a box. Somewhere. We learned how to use them in high school chemistry class, but that's also when the TI-25 (or was it the 35?) came out so everyone just ponied up the $$ for one of those since they were infinitely easier to use. I was lucky and borrowed my girlfriend's TI so I didn't have to buy one.

 

[Rocky]

How does the Tektronix scope fit into this? Probably measuring my EKG.

 

[gjmalcyon]

I learned to write FORTRAN on punch cards: Punch the card deck. Submit the job. Look at the output. Fix the errors. Rinse and repeat.

Until I got my hands on a comp sci prof's password for the COBI call/batch interface and I was able to create and submit my jobs from the comfort of a terminal.

And then I submitted that job with the print loop. One entire box of green bar paper through the band printer later, the SYSOP came running into the terminal room asking who was using that account.

I was back to the card reader.

 

[GAD]

IBM punch card machine.

When I went to school we had a punch card service, so we filled out our coding forms:



Submitted them to punch, and then we got he card backs. If you were smart you would examine each and every one for errors and if/when you found them, you would go to the tiny room with eight punch machines, sit in the heat and manually re-punch the cards as needed.

You'd get a certain number of "syntax runs" (usually five or less depending on the class) and then every failed run was -5. 95-100 was an A, 90-94 was a B, and so-on. It's an unfathomable system for people who learn today when you can just re-run your code 1000 times with no penalty.

 

[fronobulax]

The bad news is I never learned more than multiplication and division on a slide rule. The good news is I can still do it and know exactly where my circular slide rule is located.

 

[Rocky]

I learned to write FORTAN on punch cards: Punch the card deck. Submit the job. Look at the output. Fix the errors. Rinse and repeat.

Until I got my hands on a comp sci prof's password for the COBI call/batch interface and I was able to create and submit my jobs from the comfort of a terminal.

And then I submitted that job with the print loop. One entire box of green bar paper through the band printer later, the SYSOP came running into the terminal room asking who was using that account.

I was back to the card reader.

An acquaintance went to a school where the computer center printers were visible behind glass in the student union. A thing for him and his friends was to program line feed loops, hang out, and take bets when the paper volcano would erupt.

 

[Rocky]

I wonder how many folks thought their careers were set with a comfortable keypunch job.

 

[GAD]

I learned on an IBM System 370, but we literally never even got to see it. The operator ran the jobs. We put our card decks into bins at the end of the day and the output and cards would be there waiting for us in the morning. Oh yeah that's the other limitation - we had only one run per day.

 

[Guildedagain]

NE1 here been to the most amazing computer museum at the Google campus?

Starts with native computers, through the Babbage machine, IBM's computer system for the TR, Enigma machine, ENIAC, computers that used vacuum tubes as on/off switches, gorgeous computers, miles of wiring neatly dressed.

The Journey of ENIAC, the World’s First Computer

ENIAC’s spirit of innovation and practical approach to refurbishing, upgrading and reusing equipment lives on in the work we do at Sims Lifecyle Services.

www.simslifecycle.com

 

[richardp69]

Never could figure out a slide rule and then I graduated to not figuring out computers either.

 

[GAD]

An acquaintance went to a school where the computer center printers were visible behind glass in the student union. A thing for him and his friends was to program line feed loops, hang out, and take bets when the paper volcano would erupt.

Back then before wide-spread adoption of laser printers, we had line printers.

Line printers were amazing tech that printed a line at a time and they were FAST. Being surrounded by mainframes and minicomputers (I supported them), we had every model, and some of them would print 1200 LPM on 132-column green-bar paper. That's like 60 pages per minute

These things were so fast that they had vacuum systems to suck the paper flat so that it wouldn't jam. They were beasts.

Printronix still makes them. I'm sure others do as well. I couldn't find a video of one really flying, but they would go through a box of green-bar in mere minutes.

 

[fronobulax]

Since we seem to be telling computer stories, I wrote BASIC on a GE mainframe in 1967. I used a Xerox Alto in 1975 (and your nerd cred is lacking if you have to look it up) and I used punch cards professionally in 1980, plus or minus. Punch cards were already on the way out but I could use a keypunch and a remote job entry terminal that was in the office building or drive about 30 minutes or more to stand in line to use an interactive terminal. The client had a requirement that the source code was a deliverable and they were not quite expecting four boxes of punch cards.

I also co-discovered a bug in an optimizing FORTRAN compiler for an IBM 360/65 circa 1977. We were implementing various matrix operations and some of our test data involved matrices that had plus or minus one at various locations. Our code worked, but took forever with optimization off. But it failed with optimization on. Simplistically, the optimizer incorrectly failed to load a register with the -1 before it reinitialized an array. Don't trust your compiler

 

[GAD]

NE1 here been to the most amazing computer museum at the Google campus?

Starts with native computers, through the Babbage machine, IBM's computer system for the TR, Enigma machine, ENIAC, computers that used vacuum tubes as on/off switches, gorgeous computers, miles of wiring neatly dressed.

The Journey of ENIAC, the World’s First Computer

ENIAC’s spirit of innovation and practical approach to refurbishing, upgrading and reusing equipment lives on in the work we do at Sims Lifecyle Services.

www.simslifecycle.com

The Computer History Museum in Mountain View California is a must-visit for anyone interested in the topic.

Here's a pic I took of the Babbage Differential Engine. I have videos of it being cranked somewhere.



It was made from Charles Babbage's original design drawings. This guy was so smart that he designed this machine but they couldn't manage to build it during his lifetime. This one was built from his plans and works perfectly. It cost $5 million to build and weighs tons.

 

[GAD]

The bad news is I never learned more than multiplication and division on a slide rule. The good news is I can still do it and know exactly where my circular slide rule is located.

Nor did I. My dad could fly on them, though.

 

[Rocky]

The first computer I learned to program.

Of course it was ridiculously obsolete when I used it.

The next one:

Connected by dumb terminal by acoustic coupler.

If you were lucky you got the 300 baud line. If you weren't, you were stuck with 110.

 

[Guildedagain]

So this is insanely advanced for the time indeed.

I have some fabulous pics from the museum, but where.


Will look.