This picture is from the `1970s. There's a pretty woman sitting next to a Servus computer. The note with the picture said IBM, Xerox, and Texas Instruments were the most prominent. Wasn't Texas Instruments among the first with the hand held calculator? The next page shows the all female band, the Runaways. They ain't ugly.
No - the first pocket calculator was made for Bill Hewlett, by HP.
-- -TV
Nice lungs, too!
3/5 of The Runaways on the next page are in bikinis. It looks like the monitor is about a foot and a half deep. Who knows how hard it was to run it. The first computer my boss had at his business was really finicky about operating temperature. He had a special room built for it and the operator. Fast forward about forty years or so. My last boss had three monitors on some sort of bracket on his desk. They are maybe an inch and a half thick. I worked mostly outside and had an iPhone. Heat would shut it down if I left it on top of a metal control panel or on the dash of my pickup. It seemed ok otherwise in outside temperatures which would hit 100 F sometimes. Cold didn't seem to bother it much except for battery life.
"This desktop computer looks like bricks compared to the technology available to us today and it?s a wonder how anyone ever got any work done back then." 50 years from now, some people will say the same thing about today's technology. And in yet another 50 years......
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Oh yes, computers today are a far cry from a mature technology
Computers were in use in the 1920s. They were mechanical & analogue. Well.. . computers in the sense of calculators began in the 1600s. I don't think t he abacus qualifies as any sort of computer.
NT
Well... computers in the sense of calculators began in the 1600s. I don't think the abacus qualifies as any sort of computer.
No, less so, I think, than Napiers Bones.
Mike.
I am already fed up with the "modern" technology, don't need to wait for more 50 years. The best mobile I have ever had was the Nokia 6300. Then I switched to the N95, which was still OK and then to some Galaxy touch-only Android-based junk. I have never seen such an unintuitive interface, couldn't get used to it for 3 years. Now I need to buy another mobile because of the physical damage of the Samsung (what a pity...). I am either going to go back to the 6300 or give a chance to a BB, which still has a proper keyboard.
Best regards, Piotr
Abacuses were still in use in Japanese banks in the 1990's. A skilled operative can be faster than a calculator for addition and subtraction. It was quite impressive to watch them.
-- Regards, Martin Brown
A '70s computer with no floppy or tape drive? It looks like a cheap computer terminal, not a computer.
TI had their 'Silent 700' series. Xerox had their 820 'Big Board' Z80 based computer. IBM had many variations.
-- Never piss off an Engineer! They don't get mad. They don't get even. They go for over unity! ;-)
The word "computer" has been used for centuries referring to human computers performing routine calculations e.g. in astronomy (planetary orbits).
Some astronomers hired unmarried women, some of which later became the wife of the astronomer :-).
On Friday, September 4, 2020 at 3:44:47 AM UTC+10, snipped-for-privacy@downunder.com w rote:
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l... computers in the sense of calculators began in the 1600s. I don't thin k the abacus qualifies as any sort of computer.
Some of "whom". Calling them witches wouldn't go down well.
relied on his younger sister and fellow astronomer Caroline Lucretia Hersc hel . She was rather more than just a computor.
-- Bill Sloman, Sydney
Curiosity got the best of me. There's a picture of the same woman holding a big spool under the original one. Didn't people run cables to the actual computers which sat on the floor somewhere nearby because of their size?
Actually it looks like a disk pack. Maybe a 5444 - a couple MB capacity on a 14" platter.
Large computers sat on computer flooring, where all the cables and the cold air for cooling were hidden from sight. You removed one of the
2' by 2' concrete or steel tiles, and positioned a rack over it. Tiles with a corner notch could let cabling for terminals come up to a desk. The same flooring system was used in the control rooms of some TV stations, and military command centers for the same reasons.A TV station in Fairbanks, Alaska went cheap. They cut squares out of the concrete floor, tapered so they wouldn't fall through. One of their engineers was running some new cables and had several of them removed. Something went wrong with their equipment. He ran towards the master console, but he ended up laying on the bar in a restaurant on the floor below. Being on autopilot can get you killed!
-- Never piss off an Engineer! They don't get mad. They don't get even. They go for over unity! ;-)
The following quote appeared in a book (1996) of reminiscences from staff of my former employer. However since I discovered it and contributed it, I hope I am not breaking copyright by offering it here.
Un avis rouge, par telex, 1987 Mike Coon
DUE TO LARGE RAIN SINCE TWO WEEKS THE TOWN OF SAINTES IS INUNDATED. CRCA SAINTES BUILDING HAS WATER UNTIL 1ST FLOOR. THE 2972s AND 2966s HAVE BEEN DECONNECTED AND HOUSED TODAY UNDER PLASTIC WITH VACUUM CLEANING. NOW THE WATER MAKES FLUSH WITH THE FALSE FLOOR OF COMPUTER ROOM. THE CUSTOMER CANT STOP HIS WORK ON COMPUTER AND WILL GO WORK ON CRCA AVIGNON MACHINE SATURDAY 25TH AND SUNDAY 26TH DECEMBER. ONCE THE WATER LEAVES WE WILL HAVE TO DRY COMPUTER ROOM AND TO COMMISSION AGAIN THE SYSTEMS. IT IS LIKELY WE COMMISSION ONLY THE 2966s (IN THIS CASE SEE AVP RED ALERT) BUT THE COMMISSIONING RISK TO BE LONG TIME AS THE SYSTEMS HAVE PERHAPS ENDURE HUMIDITY.
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