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Re: History--early remote on-line computer access

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hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com writes:

> The NYT of 11/28/1962, pg 57, reported that users remotely
> accessed a Honeywell computer via terminals.  No card
> punching in advance was necessary.
> 
> They utilized a Western Union Telex terminal, a Teletype model
> 32 (three row Baudot* machine).
> 
> The computer was located at a Honeywell site in Newton, MA.
> Users were located in Minneapolis, New York City, and Boston.
> 
> While computers had remote batch access in the 1950s, I
> wonder if this 1962 attempt was the first on-line interactive
> effort.

A friend who had a summer job at MIT in '63 worked at a hardcopy
terminal connected to a (the? :-) central computer. (time share? I'm
not sure of the correct term for the tech used.) When a higher
priority job ran, the terminal would print WAIT and become
unresponsive for a bit.

Her permanent colleagues reported that during the Cuban missle crisis,
all the terminals connected to the computer printed WAIT and went
quiet.  People usually squirreled away in dim rooms encoutered each
other wandering the halls, WAITing and WAITing, finally went home for
the night.  Only twigged to the cause when they listened to the news.

Allegedly, this was because the Pentagon had coopted *all* the cycles
over some kind of data link from D.C.

Told to me in '63.  Others afc'ers may have more informed
recollections.

> * Presumably the computer had to convert the Baudot
> Letters and Figures shift codes inward and outward, but
> that wasn't too hard to do via software.

-- 
Mike Spencer                  Nova Scotia, Canada

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History--early remote on-line computer access hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com - 2016-06-06 14:33 -0700
  Re: History--early remote on-line computer access Mike Spencer <mds@bogus.nodomain.nowhere> - 2016-06-07 02:30 -0300
    Re: History--early remote on-line computer access Charlie Gibbs <cgibbs@kltpzyxm.invalid> - 2016-06-07 16:49 +0000
    Re: History--early remote on-line computer access Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com> - 2016-06-07 10:44 -0700
    Re: History--early remote on-line computer access Michael Black <et472@ncf.ca> - 2016-06-07 13:47 -0400
    Re: History--early remote on-line computer access Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com> - 2016-06-07 10:54 -0700
    Re: History--early remote on-line computer access hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com - 2016-06-07 13:17 -0700
      Re: History--early remote on-line computer access Morten Reistad <first@last.name.invalid> - 2016-06-08 00:23 +0200
      Re: History--early remote on-line computer access Dave Garland <dave.garland@wizinfo.com> - 2016-06-07 19:22 -0500
        Re: History--early remote on-line computer access hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com - 2016-06-08 12:11 -0700
      Re: History--early remote on-line computer access jmfbahciv <See.above@aol.com> - 2016-06-08 12:25 +0000
        Re: History--early remote on-line computer access "Charles Richmond" <numerist@aquaporin4.com> - 2016-06-11 10:37 -0500
          Re: History--early remote on-line computer access jmfbahciv <See.above@aol.com> - 2016-06-12 12:27 +0000
            Re: History--early remote on-line computer access Rich Alderson <news@alderson.users.panix.com> - 2016-06-16 17:11 -0400
              Re: History--early remote on-line computer access usenet@only.tnx (Questor) - 2016-06-17 07:37 +0000
                Re: History--early remote on-line computer access Rich Alderson <news@alderson.users.panix.com> - 2016-06-17 16:53 -0400
      Re: History--early remote on-line computer access JimP <solosam90@gmail.com> - 2016-06-08 10:35 -0500
      Re: History--early remote on-line computer access "Joe Morris" <j.c.morris@verizon.net> - 2016-06-18 08:35 -0400
  Re:History--early remote on-line computer access Sarr Blumson  <sarr.blumson@alum.dartmouth.org> - 2016-06-07 12:20 -0400

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