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Politics : BuSab
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To: Alan Smithee who wrote (11244)12/31/2011 12:38:44 AM
From: ManyMoose2 Recommendations  Read Replies (1) of 23934
 
I was hands on with a 1401. When we needed the 360 we had to turn our tapes and card decks over to the Computer Center operators. Yale University's computer center was headed up by a forester, George Furnival, and it was so efficient we justified loading up all our tapes and card decks into a station wagon and making the trek from Upper Darby PA to New Haven Connecticut, staying in a motel and working after hours to get the turn around time we needed.

We were government employees, and we worked overtime for free.

There was a faster computer at UPenn just down the subway from our office, but the turn around time there was one or two days and we needed the hour that Yale's gave us.

People who walk around with an iPhone glued to their ears should realize that they are standing on the shoulders of giants. Feeding a main frame back then required a card puncher, which required that the code be entered twice--once to get it in and once to verify that it was entered correctly. Card punch operators were very skilled typists. The cards were sorted in another big machine, and the tape drives were the size of refrigerators. The main frames were isolated in a special room that was about the size of a cafeteria. The iPhone probably has more computing power than the 360.
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