In 1971, at 4 A.M. in the morning, I was working on a keypunch machine in the bowels of the Computer Science Building at Carnegie-Mellon University. It was a tedious process to write a computer program, as each punch card carried only a single line of code.
After the finished cards were entered into the reader, there would be a long delay as the mammoth IBM 360 labored under the workload of jobs awaiting execution. During that idle time, discussions naturally ensued among the students watching the lone line printer and waiting to see the finished product of their efforts.
In our conversations, we talked about the future. We talked about how one day, we might be able to connect to the computer from home, and avoid the graveyard shift in the keypunch room.
We dreamed about computers in various locations being connected, and that one day they would have the ability to share data with each other. Of course, when we thought of data, we only considered cold, hard numbers and strings of text. Photos, videos, and music were beyond the realm of our comprehension.
Now, nearly forty years later, connectivity occurs in every aspect of our lives. The availability of cheap memory storage, extremely high speed connections combined with incredible bandwidth has created a HAL-like monster that is overtaking our lives.
And while it is theoretically possible to turn the machines off and walk away, in reality it won’t happen. We are a society that is completely dependent on our technology. I wonder what would happen if I really tried to give it all up and turn the computer off for good?
I’d probably get a response like this from my laptop:
“I’m sorry, I can’t do that Richard!”
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Thank you Richard for your work in creating the technology we have today. In my opinion the tools can be used for great good . . . that is up to all of us. Human nature being what it is today can use these tools to help or hurt . . . let us hope humanity makes the right choice.
Richard.....listen to your laptop.
Richard, interesting thoughts this morning. My oldest always says... be careful what you wish for. I was turned off for a few days at the house, no internet or phone, cable problems. It was frustrating. Yes, the blackberry told me when I had an email, but my service with the phone at the house is bad news. I half enjoyed it, LOL.
Richard,
Are we feeling a bit Luddite today? It happens to all of us just after a pc failure.
Rich
Those were the days my friend....wasn't that a song from almost that era? Amazing how things have evolved. I think back to the one phone in the house and my granny's party line. Wow, progress?
It's hard to imagine what might happen in the next 40 years.
Richard:
I was a key-punch operator for about a week for a high school job. I could not take the tedium of it.
Is your computer talking to you? I know my Blackberry is talking to me and I am never quite sure why...
Ah, FORTRAN... I have to give you kudos though, my collegiate colleagues and I didn't discuss the possibilities and the future. We just wanted to finish the latest logic path and get back to the dorm...and how expensive computer time was back then!
Richard, I worked for a NASA contractor back then where a NASA scientist was plotting the dark side of the moon. The computers used were CDC 6400's the latest state-of-the art technology. It had 64K of memory and filled a huge room with it peripheral equipment. My Smart Phone has more capacity. Technology has come a long way. It will be interesting to see what the next generation of computers will bring.
Richard, My has technology changed in price, performance and our daily lives. It will be wild to see how it changes as we go forward. It's definitely a challenge of when to turn it off. I find getting the kids to bed needs to be their time, so I walk away from 8pm on, for their sakes. It's too addictive, to be sure! But not as addictive as a night time hug from a child:-) All the best, Michelle
Funny how one simple set of numbers in your post instantly took me back to a place in time that seems like yesterday, but the 25th anniversary is around the corner. 1985 was the year I went to work at the newspaper and working typesetting ad copy on a microtek 360. I could take that machine apart and put it back together. We had a repair kit in the closet that was a box of parts that would make the whole and "tech support" talked me through many a repair.
For me, for how technology has changed and touched and shaped my life, it can only be considered a blessing.
Frank...
I actually strayed from academia far too early ... my late cousin had a P.h.d. in physics and did extensive research at CMU and did some amazing work. As a matter of fact, his name was Frank too! THX
Barbara...
lol!
Andrea...
And you always have your cows to keep you company! lol and thanks.
I wonder what would happen if I really tried to give it all up and turn the computer off for good?
Hyperventilating when I read that, lol.
I can't even imagine what the future will bring when it comes to technology. Great post Richard!
Richard, In the early days of my real estate career, the office had one computer...it was on the comptroller's desk and served an accounting and bookkeeping function. I did envision having a 4-G network in my pocket, and not being able to function without Internet access back then. Funny how times have changed?
Technology has come a long way and continues to advance by leaps and bounds. It will likely be the death of us all, but at least we Tweet to each other as the world comes to a fiery end.
Richard ~ Now your making me feel my age. I can now relate to my parents who told us how spoiled we were and I just didn't get it. Now I know... Thanks for the story, I enjoyed it.
Richard,
It is amazing that you were a part of the beginning of such a movement that has literally changed the lives of soooo many.
Hi Richard: Your post reminded me of the saying: "be careful what you wish for".
:)
OMG ... I remember keypunch machines working for the USAF in Berlin, they were in a sound-proofed room because they were so dang noisy ... but the very latest in high tech efficiency.
Since the next 3 years is supposed to be the peak cycle for solar flares, increasing the opportunity for satellite components to be seriously fried --- we may soon NOT be online with cell phones, GPS and other techy items we've integrated into our lives.
I remember sending a box of cards through and waited until the batch job spit out an error code . Thank goodness we have progressed from that.
2001: Space Odyssey was more prescient than we thought. I was so glad when we got punch card capability to replace paper tape. I also hated programming those card machine boards.
Richard, I enjoyed reading your post...but got a great laugh at the end.......
I’d probably get a response like this from my laptop:
“I’m sorry, I can’t do that Richard!”
I knew you were the Grandfather of the internet. 1971!!! I was thinking about the next deer to shoot or fish to catch. That is if Dad didn't have me pitching bales of hay!
I think it was Microsoft and people like Bill Gates who wanted a wire into everyones house. I think they are close.
Ah memories. I was with the SEC in the 1970s and started using e-mail at that time. I inventoried my FOIA files on a D-Base program much to the amazement of my colleagues who arranged their files in the office in stacks and boxes. I was there when the first Prospectus was received by computer, the then new EDGAR program. Fascinating.
I embraced the computer when I met it and embraced the Internet when I met it in 1994. Still do.
I remember saying to co-workers in 1995 when I put up my first web site "The Intrnet will change the world". They didn't believe me then. They do now.
Now, I just got my DSL restored today after working on a dial-up for 10 days. Give me my computer and give me speed and I'm happy.
I wasn't involved in it but I remember the commercials on TV touting keypunching as the next great career.
Hi Richard, You're a funnjy guy. No wonder " HAL " likes you better than the other droids ! Hope your Holiday Season is the best ever !
Great story. Reminds me of the first real estate office that I visited in 1986 and the agent connected the receiver of the telephone and communicated with a computer that told her if the house we were looking on the huge fat book was available or not. I thought she had the future in her hands.
Your post brought back memories for many of us. In 1973 I learned what a "cursor" was while I sat at a desk at my first real job and input accounting info. It seemed to take forever .. we've come a long way but I'm not convinced it's all good. Instead of learning to play with each other, kids now just go online and spend most of their time indoors. I refuse to join into the noise of Twitter because I don't want to be bombarded with info from virtual strangers. Love my internet presence and it's working for me, but leave the unnecessary intrusion into my life out of it. Hal and I will never be best friends!
What a great look at the speed we live at today. When in college, I remember students up at 2 am to get the two shared hours they had to do their work with a main frame in Houston. Some of this has happened so fast that I am not sure we all realized what just happened. At this point I don't think we could function without the computer.
Guy makes a good point. I don't think we could function as a nation without the computer and the Internet.
I for one am quite concerned about Internet vulnerability.
That was 1978 for me. It's pretty amazing how quickly things have developed.
Oh I too remember those keypunch card days at college! One flub and you had to start alll over. It's amazing (and scary) to sit back and think about how much technology dominates us today. I would like to believe in the resourcefulness of human beings to take over if every computer crashed, but I certainly have my doubts. Those of us with pre-technology experience might be able to lead the rest of society to a short term solution, but once we are gone.. well... let's not go there!
Ah the old days!!! I keep waiting for Hal to inhabit my computer!
This was a fun post. I took keypunch clases at Pasadena City College in 1971, right out of high school. Hated it. But I loved the challenges of the computer. Went on to work on some of those huge Burroughs computers. Took up half a building and had to be kept in icelandic conditions. My how we have progressed. Thanks for the memories.
Richard I was in School in 1971 trying to study and maybe stay out of the army but I did not and used my first computer until the late 80's Finally in 1997 I spent $4,000 to have a custom made hot rod computer that I managed to upgrade and add stuff to until 2006. Amazing and my friend an IT guru finally said it was time to "let it go..." I bought another desktop and it was cool but when I bought a Macbook Pro last year I really saw the difference. Nice story and I enjoyed the trip down memory lane (without all the CRASHES as well as all the weirdness tha Lenn mentions with dial up! Now if I could find some of that ganja we had in college...
Richard: I am ready for a computer silenced week. All these advances have made it nearly impossible to truly "get away from it all."
Computers are definitely here to stay. Some days we can't live with them or without them.
Richard, that is just amazing, what a comparison! I am amazed at how far we have come. And I love my computer and being connected -- I feel lost when I am away from it for too long! :-) Many of my friends live in here! ;-)
And Richard, in the early days of the IBM 360 I don't even think we could imagine the pocket size computing power with mobile access to the Internet either.
interesting CONCEPT - THERE WAS A TV SHOW OUT A FEW YEARS AGO THAT i LIKED - FORGOT THE NAME...BUT THE CONCEPT WAS A neutron BOMB OR SOMETHING WIPED OUT ALL OF THE computer data AND WE WERE VERY ARCHAIC IN ALL THINGS CIVILIZATION.
(sorry for the caps)
As I read though, my mind wondered to those early days when data was on cards...I remember my mom bringing them home and we would fold the corners in, spray painting them green and make Christmas Trees out of them...
Thanks for the memory - mom was great that way and I miss her - especially now.
Merry Christmas,
John
Great memories of the past - Fortran, COBOL, SPK, Lisp, Pascal, BASIC, bubble cards, card readers, PETs, Commodore 64, tape recorders, 8" disks, 5 1/4" disks and so much more.
I think that what I find most surprising about the comments is that it's not just the "lids" that are embracing technology these days. We were all cutting edge before it was cool to be wired.
Here a glass raised to the generation of engineers and visionaries that lifted us up out of the industrial age into the most amazing rime in human history.
Richard - When I worked at the Knights of Columbus in the mid 70's we had a entire floor dedicated to the machines that were fed all of the information keypunched each day. Looking back I was so excited when we went from manual typewriters to the IBM selectric. Oh my how things have changed!
I tried to unplug once... It was tough. I first had to drive to a place where there was no power.. then I had to wait for all of the batteries to die. Then it was easy.
Not that long ago I was filling in loan applications all by hand, INCLUDING every tradeline (account numbers, addresses, limits, balances, etc.). A day or two with the cell phone and computer off is like Nirvana ... that would be vacation at home. As awesome as it is, it is that hard to pull away.
Unplugged? Hmmmm...
I'm waiting till I can go on another cruise and see if I can live without the computer for a week. Of course there is the Blackberry that you can get access to e-mail in certain ports if you have an international phone. I remember I could use my phone in St. Thomas and checked up on what was happening!
I can also remember when I bought a fax machine for my home office in 1991 and paid some $800 for a thermal paper machine....wish I would of kept it...could probably sell it on eBay for some bucks!
And I read the other day there is more technology in a Blackberry that was on the entire Lunar Module that first landed on the moon.
One day cars will fly....
Richard - I won't tell you how old I was in 1971, but I remember in the late 70's that my stepdad (who was a systems analyst) had to work with those infernal punchcards. We had a TRS-80 as our first home computer - yikes!
Wow! 1971, those were the days...not that I remember much...LOL but yes...we wanted all the answers with technology and now we have lightening speed answers...but we do have a vulnerability too. Take the good with the bad I guess? And be glad computers are little smaller these days? ;-)
Hi Richard,
You really were working on the start of something big. We work with alot of IBM clients. In the 90's there was a group move we helped out on and most all of them worked on the "Star Wars" chip. It amazes me how we have advanced. We've come a long way Baby!
I think that if we turn the computers off, the world as we know it will come to a screeching halt!
Richard,
I was just joking on sitting at a key punch ...doing programs in the mid 70's. I also laugh, My little phone had more computor strenght then a entire 2000 sf computor room of the 70's...I love the tech we now have...I totally did not keeping my cards in the perfect order ...to get a simple program correct...it is great to have our current computor strenghts..
IBM 360 and punch cards, those were the days.
I was asking someone in the office how to do something in Excel, mentioned I could probably still do it if FORTRAN, they didn't know what I was talking about.
I'm with Lenn this one, writing this on a laptop and don't have to have lead and trail cards with special characters.
Wow, I remember... I worked for a title company downtown Seattle in the early 90's... I was heading up the customer service department. I created a 6 PC peer to peer network for the department using Windows for WorkGroups... They thought I was rather 'out there'... I bought a new HP Laptop just a while back, I think you're right... It thinks for itself and pretty much tells me how I'm going to do things! (haha)
Survive without computers? Our entire economy wouldn't survive without them. Wasn't that the fear of the Y2K bug? And, how much more depending have we become on them in the 9+ years since?
So much technology definitely has its pluses and minuses. I can home from work earlier, but I work more hours. It's quite a trade off.
Richard, were you in Pittsburgh then? My stomping grounds as a Mt. Lebanon gal... ah we were just talking about this last night at a girls night out... how things have changed! When I first got into the business my BIC advised me to stop playing on the computer! She changed her thoughts as she saw the potential...
Thom I got sold that exact fax machine but I only had to pay $700 (and they were Canadian dollars) but I thought Lee was going to kill me! I too have embraced our computer advances with gusto from the first one we bought in the 80's (DOS system) to today! I just want to live long enough to experience some of the neat stuff coming down the pike!
Great post!