First of all, let me apologize for promoting the SciFi Channel offering of "Dune" - it was awful. Enough said...
I got much positive response to my recent column about my first PC, so I am going to expand that thread a bit and talk about some of the things I have seen in the growth of computer technology over the years. I will probably cram as much as I can into the column this week, and pick up the thread later - perhaps once a month.
I started college in 1964 at Stevens Institute of Technology, in Hoboken, NJ. Stevens has a very active relationship with the Navy, which helped it to install the huge UNIVAC computer that I spoke of in a prior column. But, I never used that. Its time, 24 hours a day, was spoken for. That is, all except for the two hours each day that they spent testing and changing tubes!
The students at Stevens were exposed to computers quite early in the freshman year. But what we had to work with was an IBM 1620. The 1620 was a very small, transistorized computer that could be put in a small room. I found out (later, at IBM) that its code name was CADET - the acronym meaning Can't Add, Doesn't Even Try. The acronym was very apt, as the computer could not even add two numbers; it used an addition table that had to be stored in memory. Very crude, even for those days.
There was no storage (i.e. disks, hard drives, etc.) at all on the 1620. It could only read and punch computer cards - Hollerith cards - named for their inventor. The students would use cardpunch machines to punch their programs onto cards (using the FORTRAN computer language) and then the staff (the students weren't allowed to even TOUCH the computer) would load the program cards into the machine. The result (output) would be more punched cards, containing a list of your program errors, or if you were lucky your program output itself. You then took the cards to a printing machine, which would print the results on paper. Because time even on the 1620 was precious, students were given "credit" cards that allowed only 5 tries per program assigned.
In 1966, I transferred to Newark College of Engineering. NCE also had a 1620, but in addition had an RCA Spectra 70 computer. The Spectra 70 was actually an IBM 360 mainframe clone, and was more of a true computer, with operating system and tape drives. Some versions (not ours) actually had disk drives. The Spectra 70 was much faster and students were allowed many more "runs", but the computer was still behind glass walls and "hands-off" for the students.
One of my favorite stories concerns chads, which are so much in the news these days. Since all work was done on computer cards, we were literally swimming in chads - the little pieces of card punched out by the computer or cardpunch machines. Usually they were just thrown out.
Students kept their punch cards in boxes. One day, I went into the computer center to find my card box up on a high shelf, underneath another box. Since they were so high, I had to stand on a chair and reach over my head, so it was easier to take down the top box first. Sliding it out, I found that it had been filled with chads and a hole cut in the bottom. A shower of chads that cascaded down, covering me and getting tangled in my hair. My first computer prank! But, I got my revenge - see the next installment.
(Bob Seidel is a local computer consultant in the Southport / Oak Island area. You can visit his website at www.bobseidel.com or e-mail him at bsc@bobseidel.com).