I started to learn programming in what must have been literally the final year of the Era of programs written on paper cards.
Computers were so much cooler back then. I want that desk. Flashing lights, whirring tapes, fat printers making loud clunking sounds.
It’s all too neat now.
Back then, more women were involved in computing, too. Maybe we need more blinking lights on our computers.
These stories and photos reminded me of a book I read in my youth, “The Mark of Conte” was about a high schooler who hacked the school computer to think he was two different people so he could graduate in half the time. I remember being fascinated by the world of punch cards…
As of last week, IBM no longer manufactures computer logic (or really much of anything, it was about the last to go). It’s the end of an era.
I just watched this last night, after someone here mentioned it earlier this week. (was it you? If so, thanks.)
What a brilliant film.
I heard an interesting thing a while back.
Transpose the letters H.A.L. forward one space along the alphabet.
Designing things is just so much more lucrative than manufacturing them.
You mean H.A.L. => G.Z.K. ?
I was in an accounting class at my local Jr College in Bakersfield, CA in 1963, when the math Director came in and announced that there was going to be a Computer Class starting, and the room number. I folded up my ‘toy paperwork’ and stood, walked to the teachers desk, drop that crap on his desk and said “Bye” and left. When I got to the ‘Computer Lab’ I saw the 1620 sitting in the corner! I looked like a sci-fi book cover. We had only a card input, and I learned to program the 1620 in ‘machine language’! Later I learned SPS, then a standard for that machine . . . By 2003 when I retired, I had worked for a two city gov’s, a billion dollar construction company as IS Director, and an operations manager for Unisys.
The Museum of Computers (not sure of their name) in Santa Clara, CA has a very nice 1620!
Very good description! Thanks for a legit post !!
The large ‘selector’ dial was to find the register that show the lights on the left to find program hangs!
I got Þ.B.M.
By the way, this is me at the console of a 7040 in 1964
http://www.rchrd.com/Gallery/bpi64/source/9.html
I loved that machine. Coded in machine language and Fortran. (Ooops, FORTRAN)
Yeah, but then there was APL1130.
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