Memory then and now

[Puddleduck]

I just came across this about the processing of the 1961 census and found it interesting. When I think of the machines I used in industry when there was very little memory / processing power today's cheapest mobile phones are amazing!

"An IBM 705 mainframe computer that processed the results results of the 1961 census and it would have filled a room. If it was the top of the range model it would have had 80k of memory, that’s 10 times the memory of one of the first home computers I used at university (in 1978), and 5 times the minimum memory of the first IBM PC (launched in 1981), it’s trifling in modern terms (you’d need 100,000 times as much memory to run Windows 11). The 700-series of computers was valve-based – before long it would be chips with everything."

 

[Odd-no-more]

The first computer I had ran Widows 3.1 it had a 50 mb hard drive and 3mb ram. It had two slots one for for 5 inch floppy and one for 3.5 inch floppy

 

[Puddleduck]

My first computer needed a cassette player attached to it and the operating system was DR DOS. Anyone remember that?

 

[olley]

Dirty Dos

 

[Orion]

Is this thread shaping up to be an IT version of the Monty Python ‘Four Yorkshiremen’ sketch?

In that case….

Well the first computer I had were that Colossus thing with vacuum tubes, performing Boolean an t’other counting operations. T’were the first one from Tommy Flowers with the switches a plugs, not the the later version with the shift registers!

And before anyone claims to have had an original Babbage Difference or Analytical Engine, I know that would be untrue because Ada Lovelace told me so.

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[dunnah01]

Is this thread shaping up to be an IT version of the Monty Python ‘Four Yorkshiremen’ sketch?

In that case….

Well the first computer I had were that Colossus thing with vacuum tubes, performing Boolean an t’other counting operations. T’were the first one from Tommy Flowers with the switches a plugs, not the the later version with the shift registers!

And before anyone claims to have had an original Babbage Difference or Analytical Engine, I know that would be untrue because Ada Lovelace told me so.

You wer' lucky. We 'ad to finish our punched cards at 'alf pas' ten, 'alf an 'our 'fore we started 'em

 

[Orion]

You wer' lucky. We 'ad to finish our punched cards at 'alf pas' ten, 'alf an 'our 'fore we started 'em

‘Punched cards’? You wer’ a privileged softie then. We ‘ad t’enter ours on t’abacus.

 

[vkr15s]

My first computer was an abacus !

 

[Gromett]

If it was the top of the range model it would have had 80k of memory, that’s 10 times the memory of one of the first home computers I used at university (in 1978)

The first computer I had access to was a Commodore PET which had 4K so that had 20 times the memory. But my first personal computer I owned a few years later had 1K it being a ZX-80 which was 1/80th of the memory.
Thankfully got back up to 3.5K a few years later with a VIC20

Interesting times back then. When a person could know and understand an entire computer from the transistor up to the entire codebase. I miss those simpler times in some ways.

 

[Jez1966]

Not a lot of people know this....
In 1951 the world's 1st computer used for business purposes was the Lyons Electronic Office, or LEO.
Created by J. Lyons & Co Ltd who ran tea shops, restaurants making and selling bakery products all over the UK.
J. Lyons & Co created a separate company to sell Leo, so becoming the worlds first business computer company.

LEO - The world's first 'Electronic Office' - Archives of IT

The world’s first computer used for business purposes was the Lyons Electronic Office, or LEO.…

archivesit.org.uk

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[meanders]

My first computer needed a cassette player attached to it and the operating system was DR DOS. Anyone remember that?

Digital Research also produced CP/M that was an operating system for small computers that preceded DOS by some years in the mid 70's, and GEM being a graphical interface similar to Windows that shipped with the Atari and Amstrad machines if I remember correctly.

I suspect therefore your first machine was probably an Atari.

 

[Puddleduck]

Digital Research also produced CP/M that was an operating system for small computers that preceded DOS by some years in the mid 70's, and GEM being a graphical interface similar to Windows that shipped with the Atari and Amstrad machines if I remember correctly.

I suspect therefore your first machine was probably an Atari.

It was an ORIC-1 which I sold just a few years ago for more than I originally paid for it.

Working for a leading University in the 1990s we used Digital Research products as one of the university developers considered the products far superior to microsoft.

 

[Bailey58]

Is this thread shaping up to be an IT version of the Monty Python ‘Four Yorkshiremen’ sketch?

In that case….

Well the first computer I had were that Colossus thing with vacuum tubes, performing Boolean an t’other counting operations. T’were the first one from Tommy Flowers with the switches a plugs, not the the later version with the shift registers!

And before anyone claims to have had an original Babbage Difference or Analytical Engine, I know that would be untrue because Ada Lovelace told me so.

You wer' lucky. We 'ad to finish our punched cards at 'alf pas' ten, 'alf an 'our 'fore we started 'em

‘Punched cards’? You wer’ a privileged softie then. We ‘ad t’enter ours on t’abacus.

My first computer was an abacus !

Huh! Technology indeed, you lot did have it easy. My first computer at 2 years old was learning to do sums on me fingers and toes and only 20 fingerbytes of hard drive. Memory? About 2 Ram and that was remembering the number of sheep in me picture book!

I ran out of memory at 20 digits

 

[Brains]

My first work computer, 1984.
Stride Super Micro.
It ran 4 VDU (11" Green) screens and a dot matrix printer at the same time !!!!
Operating system was DOS with Saharah software.
It ran a ship database with space for the records of 20,000 ships and about 100 searchable data fields and 10,000 characters of text data per record.

I was the head of IT.
I was appointed purely on the basis that I had the time to get to understand the machine and I was the youngest and cheapest person in the office

We later upgraded the computer to run 8 x VDU's and a golf ball printer so that it could be used as what we would now call a word processor.

Later versions, the MX1000 series, which came out in 1990 could be linked to telex lines and later fax and refiler lines to enable text messages to be sent around the world straight from the desk !!

It made a radical change in the industry, as you no longer needed a large noisy expensive Telex Room.
(A lot of highly skilled people lost jobs they had had for decades.)

The last of the old MX1500 UNIX driven series, by then linked to PC's, were still in operation up until about 2012, and to the end could still beat a top of the range server with data production and the ability to send messages, by any format all over the world, including to ships at sea.
It was probably not until 2015 that the might of the modern windows based servers could beat the old 1990's UNIX servers.

 

[Jim]

The first computer I had wasn't really a computer it was an Amstrad PCW 8512 a Wordprocessor, with two floppies, one with the program, the other for saving stuff on.

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[Gromett]

The first computer I had wasn't really a computer it was an Amstrad PCW 8512 a Wordprocessor, with two floppies, one with the program, the other for saving stuff on.

Brilliant little computers. There was one in the corner of the typing classroom at school. Only the top girls were allowed to use that once they had reached a certain WPM on the manual typewriter.
As I wasn't one of the "top girls" as I didn't do shorthand I wasn't even allowed to use any of the electric typewriters.

That typing class was the most useful thing I did at school. I probably shouldn't dis physics and maths though
Even back then in 1985-87 I knew I wanted to do computers.

 

[Brains]

My first work computer, 1984.
Stride Super Micro.
It ran 4 VDU (11" Green) screens and a dot matrix printer at the same time !!!!
Operating system was DOS with Saharah software.
It ran a ship database with space for the records of 20,000 ships and about 100 searchable data fields and 10,000 characters of text data per record.

I was the head of IT.
I was appointed purely on the basis that I had the time to get to understand the machine and I was the youngest and cheapest person in the office

We later upgraded the computer to run 8 x VDU's and a golf ball printer so that it could be used as what we would now call a word processor.

Later versions, the MX1000 series, which came out in 1990 could be linked to telex lines and later fax and refiler lines to enable text messages to be sent around the world straight from the desk !!

It made a radical change in the industry, as you no longer needed a large noisy expensive Telex Room.
(A lot of highly skilled people lost jobs they had had for decades.)

The last of the old MX1500 UNIX driven series, by then linked to PC's, were still in operation up until about 2012, and to the end could still beat a top of the range server with data production and the ability to send messages, by any format all over the world, including to ships at sea.
It was probably not until 2015 that the might of the modern windows based servers could beat the old 1990's UNIX servers.

I even found a photo and full spec here!

 

[Emmit]

Is this thread shaping up to be an IT version of the Monty Python ‘Four Yorkshiremen’ sketch?

In that case….

Well the first computer I had were that Colossus thing with vacuum tubes, performing Boolean an t’other counting operations. T’were the first one from Tommy Flowers with the switches a plugs, not the the later version with the shift registers!

And before anyone claims to have had an original Babbage Difference or Analytical Engine, I know that would be untrue because Ada Lovelace told me so.

Was she related to Linda Lovelace?

 

[meanders]

First computer I had access too was an EMIDEC 2000 ( I believe it was the sole upgraded EMIDEC 1100) in 1967. Huge machine over two floors at EMI in Hayes. Apart from the actual operator screens all inputs were punch tape or punch cards. Anything we apprentices wanted to do had to be in a set of punch cards, in the right order. They were generally run overnight, so even the simplest coding error could take several passes (days) to correct. To be honest, I don't really remember too much about it as I went into a different field of electronics at that time, including high grade audio. I really should remember as it was only a couple of years or so ago!

EMI computers by then was part of ICT, that in turn became ICL now wholly owned by Fujitsu.

 

[bigwood]

This talk of early computers reminds me that our first one was a system sold by Tiny.
To me it seemed a big deal but as time went by we became close friends with a repair man. I thought it was my poor computer skills but he said the system was limited and as standard it was open to viruses.

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