>My only college computer class was FORTRAN. We used punch cards, not CRTs. You did NOT want to drop that deck.
>

In 1974 I began working for Ampex Corporation, as an electronics engineer in the Calibration and Metrology Departments in Redwood City, California. They used an IBM 360 mainframe with a FORTRAN program to control the 30,000 pieces of electronics and mechanical test and measurement equipment. It was done in FORTRAN as that was the only language the programmer knew who did the program. Not a good choice!

The system used a TTY terminal (LA 20) to input data. If one character was typed into the wrong physical position, all the data would be corrupted! The typist did not have any idea which column she was entering data into. At night all the data was copied onto tape backup and sent to the Archives, in Oakland, California. If you look at a map you will see where Redwood City and Oakland are in relation to each other – across the San Francisco Bay, and then some.

When there was a need to retrieve the daily archived data (which was often), we had to put in a request to do so. It took one week after receiving approval to have the data set available. Then we had to wait for the programmer to have time as he had many other duties besides us. Nothing was timely and it drove me crazy.

I put in a request to have a new system, with dumb terminals and local data. We were stuck with the IBM 360 and corporate mentality. The request was put in 1977, and I was told it would take five years before the project would start. We had many meetings to insure we would receive what was needed.

In 1981 I became the department engineer and manager. It took six months of my spare time at home to write a dBase II program to fulfill our departments needs. I also constructed two S-100 Computers for the task, and hired two clerks to type in the 30,000 records. My Vice President was very impressed with the results. The system saved us so much time and money it was unreal! We could do forecasting and track each piece of equipment, which was essential for our DOD contracts. My VP even purchased a 10 Meg hard disk ($5000) for the S-100, which was not in my budget. The system worked great.

When IT found out what I had done they were very upset. They explained that they were about to start my request and it would take about a year to complete. I said no thank you. There is something about Corporate Mentality that is so ridged as to be disgusting! I could write a book on that topic and there would be a great deal of humor in it.












>>I played with this in high school http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2092/2397460141_585d99eb80_o.jpg
>>
>>My first computer class in college was the first time they had CRT terminals. They had removed all but two of the card read machines and posted signs to get everything off of cards. By the end of the year, the card readers were gone.
>>
>>>Just can believe I've started with this :)
>>>
>>>http://www.masswerk.at/google60/