Today In History

[RTH10260]

A 2400bd modem? What a luxury. I started data comm with a 300bd acoustic coupler. And was very proud when my first major download from a BBS worked for eight hours without any glitch. I think that was one floppy disk worth of data, the Apple 3.5" style one with 800KB. PS. was a long night to use the cheaper phone tariff, daytime charges were prohibitive. That was around 1988 CE.

[neonzx]

A 2400bd modem? What a luxury. I started data comm with a 300bd acoustic coupler. And was very proud when my first major download from a BBS worked for eight hours without any glitch.

You're in the house. I had an 8 line local BBS back in the 90s. Some of my bestest friends of today are from them times.

[Foggy]

I carved numbers into rocks.

[AndyinPA]

[Suranis]

I carved Rocks into Numbers.

[Frater I*I]

I carved numbers into rocks.

We're not interested in what you did during your vacation at exotic USP Leavenworth....


I'll see myself out...

[Tiredretiredlawyer]

Floppy disks. pffh. I remember back when we stored computer data on old-school audio cassette tapes, kids.

Newcomer! When I started with personal computers in 1975, we were storing programs on long strips of punched paper tape. The guys who could afford the cassette interface were really stylin'.

Cue the "Four Yorkshiremen Sketch."

My dad used the punched paper tape in 1973 when he dialed up McDonnell-Douglas in St. Louis to run his mathematical calculations. He also had a 40 pound "laptop".

[keith]

A 2400bd modem? What a luxury. I started data comm with a 300bd acoustic coupler. And was very proud when my first major download from a BBS worked for eight hours without any glitch. I think that was one floppy disk worth of data, the Apple 3.5" style one with 800KB. PS. was a long night to use the cheaper phone tariff, daytime charges were prohibitive. That was around 1988 CE.

Heck, thats nothin. I once managed an IBM 370/158 from home via a thermal paper teletype with a 300 baud acoustic coupler when the system monitor died and TPTB absolutely needed some job to run and they couldnt wait for IBM to fix it.

[Frater I*I]

"You people are old"

Signed,

Gen X

[johnpcapitalist]

"You people are old"

Signed,

Gen X

See, I told you it would devolve into a slightly nerdier version of the Four Yorkshiremen Sketch.

[qbawl]

"You people are old"

Signed,

Gen X

Old‽ I'll give you old. In '67 I started working on an IBM 7074 the stereotypical computer that would fill a small house. Input was via cards or tape which was initiated via a console you entered a bootstrap program that allowed you to read the rest of the program. The storage architecture consisted of 10,000 10 character words so 100,000 characters limited to the integers 0-9 the console input was via a typewriter pre IBM Selectrix. This was a step up from the IBM 1401 with 4k of storage. you could select input from card reader or tape. But any other entry was via toggle switches. Both devices had core memory (little magnetized donut rings that changed state by reversing polarity) so memory of course was volitale. Good times. My Watch has more compute power than either one of them by a factor of 10,000 minimal.

[bill_g]

Data comms have certainly come a long ways over the last four decades. From the mid-80's, through the 90's and into the first few years of the new millenium, our little company got $20k/mo to maintain the client equipment for the State of Oregon Law Enforcement Data System (LEDS). We had a four hour response time: four hours from notification to restoration (when possible).

The early system was all Teletype equipment, loud, complicated, and monsterously heavy. Each successive equipment upgrade got faster, lighter, and easier to maintain (mean time between failures went way up). When enough agencies had switched to Windows based PC's with their own internet and IT depts, LEDS withdrew all their hardware and became simply a centralized data service.

That long affiliation got us many maintenance contracts with other three letter acronyms and large corporations that needed the same level of service and response time. But, over time, though those services were largely moved in house at all of our previous clients. And as all our points of contacts retire, die, or move on, we've seen our client base recede in this area.

We were cutting edge in the 80's and not in the 2010's in that respect. We made several acquisitions of dark fiber after the late 90's telecom meltdown, and many key real estate purchases that put us in a prime position for the server farms that are popping up everywhere. We're morphing into a property management company which should carry us well beyond our retirements into the next generation, and almost entirely agnostic to whatever technology comes next.

[Tiredretiredlawyer]

Hubby worked at Teletype in Little Rock to earn money to pay for university. He had to live with his preacher uncle cuz he couldn't afford rent. During that time he had to give up his wanton ways with women.

The Four Yorkshiremen are inspiring.

[RTH10260]

continue my reading at the Fossils & Paleontology thread

[neonzx]

The old TI Silent 700. Wrote my first program on one of these as a wee lad. (no those cup thingies are not drink holders)

[noblepa]

50 years ago - IBM brings the Floppy Disk to market

The Floppy Disk

Though the floppy disk came from many different places and in many different shapes and sizes throughout its time as the preferred data storage solution, it was born in an IBM lab.

The floppy disk was once ubiquitous. More than five billion were sold per year worldwide at its peak in the mid-1990s. Now, the little plastic packages are a fast-fading memory. It has been widely reported that Sony, the last major floppy disk maker, will stop producing them in major markets this year. Today, the disks can be found mainly in the dusty bottoms of desk drawers and filing cabinets. Yet the floppy disk will go down as a singular advance in computing history. Floppies helped enable the PC revolution and the emergence of an independent software industry that now includes more than 10,000 companies. “It turned out to be one of the most influential product introductions ever in the industry,” says Jim Porter, a long-time disk drive analyst.

The floppy got its start at IBM’s data storage skunkworks in San Jose, California. In 1967, a small team of engineers under the leadership of David L. Noble started working on developing a reliable and inexpensive system for loading instructions and installing software updates into mainframe computers. The big machines were already equipped with hard disk drives, also invented by IBM engineers, but people used paper punched cards for data entry and software programming. The team considered using magnetic tape first, but then, in a project code-named “Minnow,” they switched to using a flexible Mylar disk coated with magnetic material that could be inserted through a slot into a disk drive mechanism and spun on a spindle. “I had no idea how important it would become and how widespread,” recalls Warren L. Dalziel, the lead inventor of the floppy disk drive.

The first floppies were 8-inch disks that were bare, but they got dirty easily, so the team packaged them in slim but durable envelopes equipped with an innovative dust-wiping element, making it possible to handle and store them easily. IBM began selling floppy disk drives in 1971, and received U.S. patents for the drive and floppy disk in 1972. In the early days, a single disk had the capacity of 3,000 punched cards, and IBM adapted its punched card data entry machines so their operators could easily shift from loading data on paper cards to putting it on the disks. In this way, the company sent into retirement the punched card, which had been a key to its success since its founding in 1911. It’s an example of IBM’s willingness over the years to obsolete its own technology when it discovers something that does the job better.

https://www.ibm.com/ibm/history/ibm100/ ... ns/floppy/

My wife was once a keypunch operator, keying data onto 80 column punched cards. The IBM 029 and 129 keypunch machines could be "programmed" for different formats of data entry. This was done with a "drum card", a standard 80 column card, in which codes were punched to define different fields. This card was then wrapped around a rotating drum that turned as the data was punched into cards, shifting the machine to alpha or numeric and skipping over blank spaces, as required for the particular application.

Noteably, it was common practice to store these drum cards on the side of the machine using refrigerator magnets. There was usually a different card for payroll, one for accounts payable, and so on, so it was normal to have several cards. This is important to my story.

Then, the company she worked for upgraded to new-fangled machines that keyed the data onto floppy disks. The drum cards were replaced with program files on a separate floppy disk.

One day, one of the operators started having trouble. Her key-disk data entry machine was acting up and not entering the data correctly. My wife, being the senior operator and the most knowlegeable was called over. After spending some time and not being able to figure out what was going on, they placed a service call to IBM.

The IBM CE (Customer Engineer) came out and took a look. After about 30 minutes of checking, sitting on the floor, opening the panels that covered the electronics, he asked the operator to see her program disk.

You guessed it. She reached over, removed the magnet holding the floppy disk to the side of the machine and handed it to the CE.

My wife said it was the first time she ever saw a CE cry.

BTW, it is well documented that, when Herman Hollerith invented the punched card, he chose a size that matched that of US currency then in circulation. In the seventies, IBM released the System 3, a small computer, intended to compete with the DEC PDP-8 and PDP-11 minicomputers. The System 3 used a new, 96 column punched card that was about the size of a credit card.

I was sent to a week long class to learn how to program the System 3 and the instructor said that IBM chose that size because it reflected the decreased value of the dollar compared to when Hollerith invented the 80 column card. I suspect he was joking, be he said it with a straight face.

[Uninformed]

I’ve still got an unused 029 “plastic” coated program card, not sure why, although I think they were somewhat of a rarity. It seems so quaint to have spent hours splicing / repunching wrecked paper-tape. Ah, nostalgia.

[Foggy]

I still have a rock.

[noblepa]

I’ve still got an unused 029 “plastic” coated program card, not sure why, although I think they were somewhat of a rarity. It seems so quaint to have spent hours splicing / repunching wrecked paper-tape. Ah, nostalgia.

I still have my IBM 360 "Green Card". I had it laminated in 1972 and it is still in pretty good shape.

[Foggy]

Yes, and I'm sure it's probably worth just as much as my rock.

[Foggy]

Sorry, I'ma go stand in the corner.

[qbawl]

Somewhere around here I have a System 360 POP (Principles of operations) manual. I should look for it; with winter approaching it would make great reading by the fire on a cold and blustery evening.

[Uninformed]

Oooh, the Assembler programmer’s holy text.

[noblepa]

Yes, and I'm sure it's probably worth just as much as my rock.

Probably less.

I was just demonstrating my bone fides as a genuine, certified (also certifiable) old fart.

[noblepa]

Somewhere around here I have a System 360 POP (Principles of operations) manual. I should look for it; with winter approaching it would make great reading by the fire on a cold and blustery evening.

I began my professional life as an Assembler programmer on an IBM 360 model 40 running OS/PCP. I spent many happy (??) hours perusing the POP manual.

The story I heard was that, when the engineers at IBM's Triangle Park center began working on the 360, the first thing they did was to write the POP manual. Then they set about building a computer around it.