Tuesday, January 27, 2009

PC's distant relative

A distant relative to today's computers.

UNIVAC commercial from 1956

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3 comments:

Mercury said...

TEST

January 27, 2009 at 7:40 PM
Timray said...

i remember this well but as i was running out the door to play baseball i had no clue it would come to this. i meet with friends i have known since we were in the 4th grade and we always find it amazing how we keep in touch through email to the point we rarely call each other. entering college in the late 60's i took a course in computers and when they used the punch cards....industry was gearing up to the use of those computers to simple computation to running lathes to aid machinists. my how we have grown....

January 27, 2009 at 7:47 PM
Mercury said...

Tim:

It is sometimes incomprehensible the achievements of the PC. Everyday data storage capacity, RAM, serious and playful software is offered. The day I walked out of the computer store with a new computer it was outdated and rapidly losing value. Information now will force a new web and it is cool conversing with friends and colleagues. I think back to my university life and wonder how much swifter academic data would have been delivered in place of interlibrary loans and constant twisting the chairman's arm to dip into the budget to buy this or that book, subscribe to a rather obscure journal, or worse borrow from his personal library.

The first experience I had with a computer similar to the one above was through a college buddy who was into computer science...rotating reels of 2" magnet tape, flow sheet diagrams, punchcards, mechanical sorters...spooky and alien names like Cobol and Fortran.

I went back to my messy office and read Wittgenstein.

January 29, 2009 at 5:08 PM

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