What a Home Computer Looks Like

LOLOL!!! When I first started working in IT I was in operations. That meant working on the raised floor with mainframes, mostly switching disk packs (300 MB, the size of a large washing machine) and running backup tapes (ran all night for that amount of data). When I moved to programming i had to be really careful to keep my stuff in less than 64K of memory space (COBOL and PL/1). Over the holidays I bought myself a 64Gb SD card to put a bunch of music on. The cost was less than $100.

Thanks for the blast from the past!

I like the looks of that home computer- and I think we really got ripped off. That model has steering wheels.

Now I wish my computer had steering wheels too.

This illustrates just how innovation and the free market allows technology to progress- what they thought it would look like in 50 years. They came pretty close except they missed the compact nature of solid state electronics and the impact of the microchip- and of course- the steering wheels!

Is FORTRAN widely used anymore? Is it even taught?

The predictions were way off...my home computer didn't look like that in 2004, which is a good thing 'cuz I don't think the floor in the house I was living in would have held it.

My question is how small is the home computer going to get?

The first computer I worked on was at 3rd & Lipan in Denver. It belonged to Public Service Company of Colorado and you actually walked through the computer to unplug and replug very large cables into large cathode ray tubes. Vintage 1967.

cydl wrote: LOLOL!!! When I first started working in IT I was in operations. That meant working on the raised floor with mainframes, mostly switching disk packs (300 MB, the size of a large washing machine)

Thanks for the blast from the past!

I repaired many of those machines, 16 platters plus a servo platter. Used a oscilloscope to align the heads, I can still remember what the correct wave form looked like. A magnet on the servo motor that would toast your wrist watch if you got close.

Oh yeah, Grady! What a hoot!

My husband used to be head of operations at a business that used Prime computers. One day the roof of the building they were housed in was re-tarred, but they didn't do the flashing correctly. Shortly afterwards it rained, and the rain was channeled down the conduit to the fusebox on the raised floor. We got the call at about 3 AM and went high-tailing to the site. Everything was okay, but you haven't lived until you seen and smelled charred 660 fuses! We were just happy the Halon system didn't trigger!

Ahhh...those were the days... :faint:

Needs a bigger monitor. But i like the wheel instead of a mouse.

I recall having decks of punch cards and paper tape to run the first machines I worked on. I was also a tape ape for a few years on a Sperry-Univac 1190.