That new fad - Data Processing

[launderess]

Anyway lots of people would staple, paper clip, etc.these ca

Remember seeing the words "do not staple..." printed on the various bills that came to our home as a child. IIRC it was warning/telling customers not to staple their check or money order to the bill.

Cobal and Fortran were taught at high school. Classes were open to both sexes but it tended to pull lots of boys. Girls were usually over in typing and stenography (Gregg or Pittman).

Keypunch Operators:

If one was taking the ferry into Manhattan in early evening on weeknights you'd see various workers heading into the City for their nightshift employment. One group would lots of women that one later found out were keypunch operators. They worked for the various banks, financial firms, Wall Street, etc... Cannot imagine sitting for hours on end doing something like that five days a week. Another group would be the encoders who pretty much did the same sort of thing.

 

[beekeyknee]

That reminds me of Lilly Tomlin's album, "This Is A Recording". Take a listen.

 

[petek]

It was a lifetime ago. Having not used any of those old machines in 30 odd years I wonder if it would be like riding a bike. I know I couldn't read the holes on the telex tapes anymore like I used to be able to, the Flexowriterrs were even more difficult with the extra column and added characters and I couldn't much read those back then. That's all gone. But I think if I sat down at a keypunch or flexowriter now I could still work the thing proficiently enough after 10 or 15 minutes of playing around. The only slightly complicated part if you could call it that on a keypunch was if you had to make a new drum control card for a new job otherwise it was pretty automated

 

[washdaddy]

Petek-
My grandmother had one of those wreathes spray painted in gold, strung with lights hanging on the front door of her house. A few little added Christmas ball ornaments for extra holiday flair!

OH MY!

 

[ovrphil]

Wow, indeed! These were B.C.

Contol Data Institute - I trained there with punchcards and had some of the same when I minored in Business Applications programming at a jr. college. They're definitely more interesting on the inside than the outside, (not a fan of punchcards). This one looks similar to the CDI units utilized.

Christmas cards! LOL! Aw.org members are so creative!

 

[whirlcool]

Way back in the mid 70's North Central Airlines developed their own computerized reservation system. How they did it was took several people from various departments (baggage control, reservations, ticket agents, gate agents, mechanics) and sent them all to IBM in upstate New York to learn how to be programmers. North Central thought that taking people from the jobs that would be included in the ESCORT reservation system would make the best programmers as they knew their jobs.

The computer system (and IBM 360/50) was behind a glass wall and you'd see the entire computer room as you entered through the main doors of the HQ building. Over a period of a year they created the system which turned out to be one of the best in the industry. It was an amazing project. And it was all done with keypunch and 80 column cards.

 

[cadman]

Please do not fold, spindle or mutilate!

Pete, wash your mouth out with soap! I have a pair of Fridens on the bench right now and as far as I'm concerned, Flexowriter is a dirty word. It's not so much the automatic equipment that gives me trouble, but rather anything related to the "power roller" and all those little cams and linkages that make up the type system. Frustrating stuff.

I'm more of a paper-tape guy (lots of that stuff running around here) but never got into the punchcard scene until now. Namely because it's all so darn rare. I've kept my eyes open for a keypunch but they're tough to find these days. There's a parts condition 129 on eBay right now missing a cover or two but for what they're asking, I'll keep looking for something complete.

If I can track down two of these cog belts, I'll be halfway there with this sorter! -Cory

 

[whirlcool]

Speaking of paper tapes, the weather bureau offices used to type in current conditions at each station on paper tape and then on the hour they'd "play" the tape on a teletype machine to get to the NWS Aviation Weather Department. We'd use that data for flight planning services. This was still being done as late as the late 70's.

 

[launderess]

Contol Data Institute

Now that takes one back!

Remember seeing adverts for the place on television as a child. Right along with the Barbizon School of Modeling and "beautiful" Mount Airy Lodge. *LOL*

 

[launderess]

Please do not fold, spindle or mutilate

Wasn't that printed on paper money at one time? Yes, do remember seeing that phrase on paper bills lying about our home as a child.

There was also a television move of the same:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Do_Not_Fold,_Spindle_or_Mutilate

 

[launderess]

One For The Boys

Imagine sitting for eight hours doing all this?

http://https//www.youtube.com/watch?v=iXLfiAvkbyg

 

[launderess]

Back In The Day

When American was largely run by and for the benefit of......

http://https//www.youtube.com/watch?v=BlUWg2nxCz0

 

[whirlcool]

Control Data made some great mainframe computers for awhile. We had a few CDC 3000 terminals in the scheduling room at the MSP airport. But the mainframe itself was IBM.

Another thing is that Seymour Cray, founder of Cray Research the company who made supercomoputes got his start at Control Data.

It seems to me that Control Data, otherwise known as CDC lost it's momentum in the mid 70's. They stopped making mainframes and then focused on computer parts like hard disk drives, etc. Then they disappeared.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Control_Data_Corporation

 

[cadman]

'A Few Good Men from UNIVAC'

I have a tremendous respect for Control Data. Back in the early 50's, after Rem Rand brought UNIVAC into the fold, the parent company decided they needed to add a scientific computer line to their offering (as opposed to the UNIVAC series which were business oriented). Engineering Research Associates out of St. Paul, we're doing very interesting things in the computer and memory fields, and had recently released the ERA 1101. Because they were started as a military spinoff, there was concern about offering a machine for sale to the corporate market and the computer division was sold off to Rem Rand.

The ERA guys (including Cray) decided to leave and form their own company, Control Data, and other bright, (now) famous engineers jumped ship in the following months to join them. Meanwhile, having two competing design teams with two completely different architectures, located halfway across the country, only lead to further infighting within Rem Rand.

IBM had the Stretch, and UNIVAC had the LARC, but CDC showed the world that a small bunch of bright guys could make the fastest machines in the world. Talk to anyone that programmed the CDC series and they'll talk about the powerful simplicity of the Instruction set. This dominance drove IBM mad.

Now, Cray was always pushing the latest technology, and in that business, you're always working against unknowns. With a development time measured in years, you bet the farm on each new design at the onset and hope you've picked the right technology (like gallium arsenide). And these guys were funding development of this tech each time. This made things a little rough, cash-flow wise. A schedule slip, or a losing design, really put the hurt on. Meanwhile, the company had grown into a large, slow moving, focus-drifting, corporation. The cold war was over, military spending had been cut drastically, and the need (and money) for large super computers was no longer there.

Cray had enough of the bean counters and beauracracy and decided it was time to move on (again). He founded Cray Research, and went on to release the famous Cray supercomputers until his life was tragically cut short. A very interesting guy, and a true genius by definition.

 

[firedome]

Cool 083!

We had rows of those when I was a programmer for a large Baltimore bank submitting card decks to a dumbwaiter to the 3rd floor where they were running a System/370 then a 3033, and finally a 3081 when I left to return to teaching... ah those punch card days... I hated those things!

I thought I was the only one here into old DP machines! So here's a small teaser of the latest piece for our vintage electronics collection... anyone know what is is? You'd have to be an old timer like me to have used one.

 

[petek]

Well it doesn't have tubes nor any wires to pins making it more solid state so it's not an early accounting machine

 

[whirlcool]

A memory module?

 

[polkanut]

Seymour Cray was originally from Chippewa Falls, WI.  He also had his original manufacturing facility there too. 

 

[whirlcool]

I had the occasion to meet Seymour Cray a time or two. He flew North Central quite often.

Cray YMP supercomputers were all the rage in the late 80's & 90's. Due to their nature that had very specific environmental requirements. They weren't water cooled, but freon cooled. In each circuit board there were coolant galleries built in. And the computers were round. Why? Seymour Cray thought it took too much time for a signal to have to go around a corner in a computer box. It the computer is round you can have very direct wiring. Also there was no financing or leasing of Cray computers. You just handed them a cashiers check for $1 mil upon delivery.

Exxon had a couple of these. I know a guy who worked there and on one weekend I got to go visit the Cray. Here is one in the photo below. When you order a Cray you get to pick the colors and if you look near the bottom of the computer you can tell that there are seat cushions over the part that houses the cooling system.
Now Exxon being a very conservative company told Cray that they don't need no seat cushions on a computer and they don't want them. Cray told them that if they don't want the seat cushions, then they don't want a Cray! So Exxon got the seat cushions on their Cray.

 

[nurdlinger]

Firedome!

I can't tell you the model, but the equipment is from Digital Equipment Corporation. (DEC) I used several of their minicomputers back in the 70s and 80s. Right now I'm looking at a bus grant continuity card from an 11/34 that I happened to save from oblivion at some point.