Noodling around on a computer history website, it appears to me that the first cathode ray tube display was in use in the 1960's. See DEC PDP-1, circa 1960. This looks sort of like what I remember.
computerhistory.org
I have a very vague recollection of very large computer thingies that I guess were mainframes in a darkened room behind the display panels. My supervisor, who had a bad back, used to lie on the carpeted floor back there and do stretching exercises for his back, I guess because it was the cleanest place in the control room.
I was told by the old guys that before they put in the computers, everything had to be operated by hand, so the automation put a lot of guys out of work.
The museum reminds me that I bought one of the earliest calculators, that had four functions, for $125. I was making $5 an hour, a princely sum for the time. Almost flunked out of the training class due to inability to do addition, subtraction, multiplication and division using just a pencil and paper. The calculator saved me, but I wound up in the refinery instead of the lab, which is where they put the people who were good at math. I wanted the lab. Oh, well. It was very strange, being one of the first two women process operators. The other woman was much older, married, and better at dealing with the static from the men. |
