Computer History: DATA PROCESSING Introduction (1972) (IBM 360, Burroughs, CDC, MICR, punch cards)

[@codingprograms2078]

I think every programmer should watch this video. It gives you a clearer understanding of what you were getting into.

[@GeneralThargor]

this 'magnetic disk' wizardry will never take off, crazy what people used to think!

[@Spoooce]

Crazy to me that there was remote computing being done with technology basically from the 60s, that’s so cool

[@zoltanberkes8559]

That time they already had almost everything in mainframe computers: memory virtualization, virtualized intermediate program code, pipelined, superscalar, SIMD instruction execution, channel based I/O etc. Even computer graphics (display, CAD, 3D) existed in its early stage. Few years later Xerox had highly developed WYSIWYG document editing machines. Those things needed 2-3 decades to become everyday's technology.

[@amitraam1270]

07:00 When programming was done with rewiring a breadboard-like device.. Suddenly I feel very good about my first kit, which had a hexadecimal keypad.

[@ScottSavageTechnoScavenger]

hex keypad??? Kim1??? Cosmac Elf??

[@michaelbauers8800]

Yes, do tell! I figured something like a Kim-1, but would be curious to know

[@heavyaccept]

Thanks a lot for uploading this historical footage! Glad to learn about the old mega-computers!

[@scottcass4243]

I was reading punched cards into & taking out blue bar fanfold paper off the printer 8 hours a day. Minimum wage was about $2.00 an hour. Computer operators made about $5.00. Put lots of tennis shoes on my kids. No regrets.

[@captainkeyboard1007]

Those were the "good-old" days.

[@jms019]

Who’d have thought computers could do all this

[@freaker126]

looking at all the paper, I'm assuming how many trees the computer has actually saved. :p

[@martincox4520]

The guy with the coffee cup is a systems programmer!! Sys progs rule

[@prairiewolfedogg]

This is indeed a fascinating review of computing history in more ways than one. Yes, the advances in technology over the last half century put us beyond the realm of science fiction as it was envisioned in the early 70s. However, pbservations about societal and cultural differences over time, even as shown here in this narrow subject, are no less striking. For example, the ladies and gents staffing these data processing centers are for the most part normal weight, what today we would describe as slim. What a contrast from our present age. Also, the business attire shown here, men in suit coats, dress shirts, ties, and women wearing actual dresses (with pearls!) scream super professional, even elegant, compared to today's sloppy casual styles in the workplace. Yes, technology has progressed far more than most people could have imagined, but who would have ever guessed that the same civilization that produced this technological miracle, over the same 50 years, would devolve into a fractious, solipsist Götterdämmerung?

[@ComputerHistoryArchivesProject]

Hi @prairiewolfedogg, you make some very good points. The computer tech became more efficient and "leaner" while some people became less professional looking and sloppy. A very interesting contrast. Thanks! VK at CHAP

[@bullpup1337]

extrapolate 20 years and the ipad kids from today will be carting around on mobility aids in pyjamas like in wallee….

[@prairiewolfedogg]

@@bullpup1337 That prediction had not occurred to me, but you are correct that child obesity (and for adults) is increasing each year. First, the bad habit was snacking whilst watching television, then snacking when on the computer, then snacking whilst using the ipad / ipod / mobile phone, etc. Technology is making us more self indulgent.

[@cjimcook]

The white shirt and tie was a uniform imposed on IBM personnel regardless of whether they were in sales or engineering back at HQ. It spilled over into customer installations.

[@martincox4520]

I started on a 360/40 with 2314 disk drives 10MB each 16KB supervisor DOS. The site still used a tabulator and sorter One the first programs I wrote in RPG was to stacker select certain cards from a large deck we had 2540 card reader/punch that two read stacks two punch stacks and reader/punch stack.

[@ComputerHistoryArchivesProject]

At last, a fellow RPG programmer. Nice! ~

[@martincox4520]

@@ComputerHistoryArchivesProject I also went on to PL/1 and god's own language assembler. We used BATS to link to a real 2780!

[@BobDiaz123]

That sounds like the same things I encountered back when I went to college, except for RPG. I did work with FORTRAN, COBOL, AND IBM Assembly. By the end of the 70s I got an Apple III Computer. It was wonderful!!!

[@deepsleep7822]

@@ComputerHistoryArchivesProject : RPG II, count me in.

[@michaelbauers8800]

RPG gives me hives, unless it's Dungeons and Dragons. I once took a class in it, back in the 80s, just to learn it. I will stick to C++ and Python :)

[@MilMike]

I am a developer - seeing how they programmed everything back then is just crazy! They prepared breadbords for these punching machines which were then used to calculate stuff. They even didn't have monitors but printers. We have it so good nowadays. I should be more thankful for such things like a usb stick or a monitor ;)

[@ComputerHistoryArchivesProject]

Hi MilMike, yes, can certainly relate to that. Even doing assembler on punch cards would make one go a little crazy after a while. Glad you found our channel. Hope you enjoy more of our vintage tech films! ~ Victor

[@Frisky0563]

Card you imagine working with these cards to store and review data? Man

[@gill8779]

@@Frisky0563 I used to be a punch card operator for a bank in the UK when I was 16. I remember the change to magnetic tape & worked on those machines until I was 29 (I am now 66) A long time ago lol.

[@gill8779]

@@ComputerHistoryArchivesProject I was a punch card operator in the 70's. I remember them being phased out to magnetic tape & i think the machine that took over (in the bank that I worked at) was IBM Kode. It was a long time ago as I am 66 now.

[@davidgrisez]

A lot of things have changed over the years. I was born in 1951 and saw a lot of the older computer equipment seen in this video. Now computers have advanced incredibly over my lifetime. The computer equipment that I have sitting on my dining room table would not too many years ago had been considered a supercomputer.

[@zoltanberkes8559]

1972? That time command controlled, time shared multitasking computers existed fot 8-9 years. Even UNIX was 2 years old.

[@joellenrhodes456]

I've got 2 disc's from the old 7600 from Lawrence Berkeley lab. They are my deck tables

[@ComputerHistoryArchivesProject]

Hi @joellenrhodes456, that sounds very innovative! Would love to see a picture of that. : )

[@softdorothy]

11:05 Wow, 20 columns, 16 rows.

[@jkomshi9977]

Great video... but didn't see much/any re Burroughs... you might consider history split between business and science processing where IBM, CDC, etc focused more on Engineering and soace launch, Versus Burroughs, NCR focus on Goverment Logistics and Banking. One focus on FORTRAN and Math, the other on COBOL and Business Data Processing along with peripheral devices in support of specialties (check sorters, magnetic ledger cards, versus science instruments that HP and TI split off into. By no means of a distraction from this great work, but out growth)

[@ComputerHistoryArchivesProject]

J Komshi, great point about Burroughs. They were quite a major player. A big name too, until the Sperry-Burroughs merger (aka takeover). We do have several Burroughs computer videos here on our channel if you are interested. They are somewhat rare to find. Thank you for the feedback! ~ Hunter, CHAP

[@CMDRScotty]

I wonder what the difference between the productivity\GDP per hour is between this method and modern ones?

[@phil4977]

Yet in 2023 any photocopier in any office is a nightmare

[@kevinhoward9593]

seems like punch cards were the norm for about 30 years.

[@五十嵐秀雄-k3d]

私は日本人ですいません、私も日本に搬入されていた、IBM360の保守の教育をうけ、日本全国の保守を担当していました、とてもなつかしい、動画をありがとうございます。

[@ComputerHistoryArchivesProject]

(Google translated: " I'm Japanese, I was also brought to Japan, I was educated in the maintenance of IBM360, and I was in charge of maintenance all over Japan, very nostalgic, thank you for the video.") --- Thank you for your feedback. Glad you enjoyed this video! - VK

[@fredfarnackle5455]

Interesting, however I think this is older than 1972. I was working at the IBM factory in southern England from 1970 to 1972 where we were building complete IBM System 370 mainframes - among other things.

[@ComputerHistoryArchivesProject]

Perhaps.... about what year would you place it? just curious...

[@uriituw]

I bought a new MacBook Pro, and all my punches cards keep getting stuck!

[@marcwolf60]

In my early computing days at school I never had the advanced maths they thought that was needed for the computer courses. All the Matrixes, Arcs Tans, Cosines etc. But I knew away from the ivory tower universities computers were doing simple Add, Subtracts, Multiplication, and Division. Also sorting, storing, and string maniplation. I argued long and hard that the future of computers was not in the advanced sciences, but mundane clerical work. Yes I was laughed at, riduculed, and left to make my own computing journey. Self taught I had a career from 1978 to 2000 till I retired early. I was 14 in 74 when I made mu predictions. I wonder how many of my friends who did the uni track were dissapointed that their advanced math knowledge was... never used.

[@ComputerHistoryArchivesProject]

Hi @marcwolf60, that is a pretty interesting story, and I can see your logic behind it. Very cool. Sounds like you ended up with a very good career! Nice work! ~ Victor, at CHAP

[@FiXiT5313]

So cool!!😀

[@michaelbauers8800]

I didn't realize people pronounced collating as CAUL-ating. I always said COE-lating

[@lyon7481]

Finally, I know the reason why there's a function called "print" in many programming languages since it really prints something Lol

[@michaelbauers8800]

Indeed! I always find it amusing, to think of all the code behind a simple printf statement. Printf prints to file object of some kind. Say I run the program via some Linux "terminal" window. The terminal window provides the input and output to a command shell process. I run a C++ program, and it does a printf. That code is tied to low level UNIX file code, and writes to file descriptor 1, as memory serves, standard out. That file descriptor is mapped to some fake hardware terminal device in some way. The terminal window somehow intercepts the data written, I forget how. It uses XWindows. Which has APIs to write text. The text writing could be rather complicated, because some sort of font data has to be rendered to pixels. Eventually somewhere in there, you have to talk to some device driver to write to a screen buffer. Eventually the graphics card has to access the buffer via some sort of DMA. It then has to convert that to a protocol like DVI or HDMI. Where firmware in the computer monitor converts that protocol to lighting up LCD elements on a display. I always wonder how many lines of code are actually run. 1000? 10000? More? A lot is the only answer I can give. Just to write "Hello, World!" or something like that.

[@kuzadupa185]

Anyone have any good videos where I can learn about how computers at this time were connected to one another via radio waves? Or phone cables? Although im much more interested in the radio tech.

[@kowalskidiazdegeras9190]

Somebody has to make a strong doge vs weak doge meme with 1960's hard drives vs current hard drives (because back then they swapped disks on a same reading machine whereas today if there is a single drop of dust it desteoys itself)

[@adilsongoliveira]

When I was an intern in the early 80s, I worked for a state-owned steel company and I helped to replace the plates for an old 5Mb harddrive. We open it's top and used an specific tool to remove the old (usually because it was scratched by the reading/writting head) and put on a new one. I remember they costed an insane amount of money.

[@softdorothy]

Interesting. Saw a lot more women in the first half - punch cards. A lot more dudes when we get to computers in the second half.

[@m13v2]

most women in the movie were just entering data, but about half of the software developers were women until the 70ties. programming was considered a lower task then and women were hired if they could knit or play chess. then they began to make it a „respected“ profession and kicked the women out, insisting on academic titles etc. which is super sad as programming is rather a craft and about people and communication. some say it’s been the white male nerds, but true nerds don’t care about gender, race, etc. they care about nerdy stuff and some of those women were super nerdy. a great loss.

[@Albrecht8000]

Today (2021) the smartphones in our pocket has more calculating power than this giant electronic brain. Greeting from germany

[@cobaltno51]

your usb-c cable is probably more powerful. greetings from sh!

[@oldtwinsna8347]

Those old machines had very little computing power relative to today. Even today's lowest power microcontroller, such as one that controls a strip of blinking LED lights, has way more computing power.

[@zoltanberkes8559]

Your smartphone has way more compute power than supercomputers in the 80's! Perhaps it even have more compute power than all of them combined.

[@Albrecht8000]

@@zoltanberkes8559 Really??? Wow! 😮