RE: [Fwd: I remember when...]

["Ridder, Fred" <Fred.Ridder@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

-----Original Message-----
From: Carolyn Stallard [mailto:cstallard@surfnetusa.com]
Sent: Wednesday, January 31, 2001 9:27 PM
To: FrameMaker Users Network; Free Framers
Subject: [Fwd: I remember when...]

> Hee hee, I gotcha all beat.

I'm not so sure about that...
 
> I wrote my first computer program in machine language on an IBM 650 in
> 1960, and used punch cards.  The computer had no transistors or
> chips.  They weren't invented yet.  It had TUBES.  Hundreds and
> hundreds of little triode tubes and a huge air conditioning system to
> keep the monster cool.  

My first computer experience was when I was accepted into a National
Science Foundation summer program for gifted high school students in 
1966 and 1967. In that first year, we used a vacuum tube computer 
called the LGP30 (made in Switzerland, no less), which had NO random 
access memory--the *only* thing it had was a 4 kbyte magnetic drum. 
Program and data input was via punched paper tape--not even cards. 
And all programming was in machine language--not even an assembler
was available for it. The second year, we got to run on the IBM 
mainframes, which were all run in batch mode so that it would take
anywhere from 4 to 8 hours from the time you submitted your deck of
punchcards before you'd get your output and find out that you made 
a stupid typo on the second instruction of the program. 
 
> I wrote my first technical manual on (what else?) a MANUAL typewriter
> in 1972.  Electric typewriters were not invented yet either, never
> mind software.  

I'm afraid you're wrong on this. When I went off to college in the fall 
of 1968 I bought an electric typewriter, along with about 85% of my
classmates. Admittedly, it was still the era of the slide rule (H-P's
first handheld electronic calculator, the HP35c, was still a year or 
so away), but electric typewriters were pretty commonplace.

And to save you all doing the math, I am just over a half-century old.

My opinions only; I don't speak for Dialogic or Intel...
Fred Ridder (Fred.Ridder@Dialogic.com)
Senior Publishing System Analyst
Dialogic, an Intel company
Parsippany, NJ


** To unsubscribe, send a message to majordomo@omsys.com **
** with "unsubscribe framers" (no quotes) in the body.   **