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Big computers, big hair: the women of Bell Labs in the 1960s

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  Big computers, big hair: the women of Bell Labs in the 1960s Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com> - 2016-02-13 09:47 -0800
    Re: Big computers, big hair: the women of Bell Labs in the 1960s hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com - 2016-02-13 10:57 -0800
      Re: Big computers, big hair: the women of Bell Labs in the 1960s pechter@mongo.(none) (William Pechter) - 2016-02-13 19:29 +0000
      Re: Big computers, big hair: the women of Bell Labs in the 1960s "Charles Richmond" <numerist@aquaporin4.com> - 2016-02-15 18:10 -0600
    Re: Big computers, big hair: the women of Bell Labs in the 1960s Quadibloc <jsavard@ecn.ab.ca> - 2016-02-13 11:56 -0800
      Re: Big computers, big hair: the women of Bell Labs in the 1960s hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com - 2016-02-13 14:38 -0800

#159247 — Big computers, big hair: the women of Bell Labs in the 1960s

Big computers, big hair: the women of Bell Labs in the 1960s -- in
pictures
http://www.theguardian.com/technology/gallery/2016/feb/13/future-women-the-bell-lab-computer-operators-of-the-1960s-in-pictures-women-in-computing

so picture is front panel of 360/50, not so large, largest memory size
was 512kb, so either description is wrong or they had some sort of
special add-on to get the other 512kb (IBM LCS 2361 came in 1mbyte
increments)

360-50 functional characteristic
http://bitsavers.informatik.uni-stuttgart.de/pdf/ibm/360/funcChar/A22-6898-1_360-50_funcChar_1967.pdf

648MB ... would be three 8drive 2314 strings assuming 2314 drive is
27mbytes.

-- 
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

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#159253

On Saturday, February 13, 2016 at 12:49:09 PM UTC-5, Anne & Lynn Wheeler wrote:


> http://www.theguardian.com/technology/gallery/2016/feb/13/future-women-the-bell-lab-computer-operators-of-the-1960s-in-pictures-women-in-computing

The secretary had a Selectric typewriter.  Those machines were so awesome.

Someone gave me a nice one, but I never use it and have no space for
it.  It's gonna go out in the trash; I don't know of anyone would who
want it or use it.  At work, they have a few typewriters but just sit
around unused, everything is done on the computer these days.  Forms
are filled out by .pdf, and almost all correspondence is via email.

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#159258

In article <2200693b-66cf-404b-bb32-ec0f2c3ed6c6@googlegroups.com>,
 <hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com> wrote:
>On Saturday, February 13, 2016 at 12:49:09 PM UTC-5, Anne & Lynn Wheeler wrote:
>
>
>>
>http://www.theguardian.com/technology/gallery/2016/feb/13/future-women-the-bell-lab-computer-operators-of-the-1960s-in-pictures-women-in-computing
>
>The secretary had a Selectric typewriter.  Those machines were so awesome.
>
>Someone gave me a nice one, but I never use it and have no space for
>it.  It's gonna go out in the trash; I don't know of anyone would who
>want it or use it.  At work, they have a few typewriters but just sit
>around unused, everything is done on the computer these days.  Forms
>are filled out by .pdf, and almost all correspondence is via email.
>

I'd kill for one at times.
I'd even clean my office out to make room for one. (I even liked the
proportional Executive IBM model I used to have at my college newspaper
better.)

Sometimes with labels and sticky backed stuff I'd prefer the typewriter to 
gumming up my printers.  Also, there's something great about the keyboard on
the Selectric, vt100 and those model M keyboards I still buy.

Bill
-- 
-- 
Digital had it then.  Don't you wish you could buy it now!
pechter-at-gmail.com  http://xkcd.com/705/

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#159458

<hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com> wrote in message 
news:2200693b-66cf-404b-bb32-ec0f2c3ed6c6@googlegroups.com...
> On Saturday, February 13, 2016 at 12:49:09 PM UTC-5, Anne & Lynn Wheeler 
> wrote:
>
>
>> http://www.theguardian.com/technology/gallery/2016/feb/13/future-women-the-bell-lab-computer-operators-of-the-1960s-in-pictures-women-in-computing
>
> The secretary had a Selectric typewriter.  Those machines were so awesome.
>
> Someone gave me a nice one, but I never use it and have no space for
> it.  It's gonna go out in the trash; I don't know of anyone would who
> want it or use it.  At work, they have a few typewriters but just sit
> around unused, everything is done on the computer these days.  Forms
> are filled out by .pdf, and almost all correspondence is via email.
>

No, no!!! There are "typewriter collectors" who still value the IBM 
Selectics.  I subscribe to a couple of Yahoo! groups about the Selectrics. 
Please do *not* throw them away!

-- 

numerist at aquaporin4 dot com

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#159260

On Saturday, February 13, 2016 at 10:49:09 AM UTC-7, Anne & Lynn Wheeler wrote:

> so picture is front panel of 360/50, not so large, largest memory size
> was 512kb, so either description is wrong or they had some sort of
> special add-on to get the other 512kb (IBM LCS 2361 came in 1mbyte
> increments)

As I recall, companies like Fabri-Tek and ITEL let you put more memory in your 
IBM 360 than IBM officially allowed.

John Savard

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#159281

On Saturday, February 13, 2016 at 2:56:26 PM UTC-5, Quadibloc wrote:


> As I recall, companies like Fabri-Tek and ITEL let you put more memory in your 
> IBM 360 than IBM officially allowed.

Yes, I think IBM's memory restrictions on low-end S/360 was due to marketing
reasons, not technical limitations.

I suspect many model 30 sites could've gotten along by just adding memory
beyond 64k rather than upgrading to model 40.

Certain applications, like SORT, were dynamic and utilized whatever core
memory was available to it.  So, even adding just 256k could speed
processing.  In some applications, storing a reference table in core
instead as an ISAM file would go a lot faster.  However, I'm not sure
if S/360-DOS could take full advantage of extra memory for larger I/O
buffers to speed I/O (you could shrink it to save memory, but I'm not
sure if you could expand it.)

The flip side is that back in S/360 days, core memory was still rather
expensive.  People talked in 32K chunks.  Our -40 had 128k, and we added
64k to it.  It had room to had 128k to it, but we didn't need that much
and it would cost too much.

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