Klarinet Archive - Posting 000062.txt from 2012/02

From: "Bill Hausmann" <bhausmann1@-----.net>
Subj: Re: [kl] IBM 1620
Date: Thu, 02 Feb 2012 22:53:13 -0500

When I was in college (1969-73), the computer was the big thing in that
building over there that we liberal arts types didn't need to worry about.
The more scientifically oriented walked around with stacks of punch cards
muttering strange incantations under their breath. Then, in the Air Force,
I became a B-52 navigator, using 1950's-era ANALOG computers, and one later
upgrade piece that used -- naturally -- punch cards manually loaded one at a
time(!) until they were replaced by a new digital system based upon Intel
286 processors. We learned the hard way that you could not substitute normal
punch cards for the expensive ones that did not expand and contract with
changing weather conditions! The simulator I instructed in used 35-pound,
8-plate hard disk packs that spun in units nearly the size of a washing
machine. Each pack held an amazing 360 MEGAbytes of data (less than half a
CD)!

My own first computer was a Timex Sinclair 1000, with membrane keys and a
whopping 2 KILObytes of memory, although I blew the big bucks to get the 16K
memory extension, and the 4" wide thermal printer. I learned some BASIC
programming on that before upgrading to the Commodore 64. The first word
processor I ever used was Wordstar on a CP/M-based system.

Bill Hausmann

If you have to mic a saxophone, the rest of the band is TOO LOUD!

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Ray Whitmore []
> Sent: Thursday, February 02, 2012 11:28 AM
> To: 'The Klarinet Mailing List'
> Subject: Re: [kl] IBM 1620
>
> I also was introduced to programming on an IBM 1620. It was donated to
> my
> alma mater, Union College, by GE and was open to all Electrical
> Engineering
> majors. My wife and I spent many an evening punching cards on an 026
> key
> punch. Then we had to put them in the hopper and feed them into the
> computer
> without dropping the deck of several hundred cards. Late at night, we
> did
> that more than once!
>
> I remember the most interesting fact about the 1620 was that it did
> math
> calculations in decimal rather than octal or hexadecimal. And it even
> had to
> be taught how to add. You loaded the addition tables as part of your
> program
> each time.
>
> After graduation, I was hired by United Aircraft (now UTC) who had DEC
> PDP-8s in our department. We had to load all the programs and data from
> an
> 8-hole punched paper tape (7-bit ASCII plus parity) on an ASR-33
> teletype at
> 10 characters per second. When we got a 150 cps "high-speed" reader, we
> thought we'd died and went to heaven!
>
> Ah, the good old days in the mid-1960s.
>
> Ray S Whitmore
> Senior Application Engineer
> COmputer COnsulting Associates
> A member of the Datamat Group
> 730 Hebron Avenue
> PO Box 342
> Glastonbury, CT 06033
> 860.657.2210
>
>

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