I saw my first real computer in Indianapolis Indiana at Porter Business College circa 1968. An IBM 360/20 with 4K memory. It was the size of kitchen refrigerator. Punch cards were the only input device. It had an attached line printer to list programming errors and a large red button labeled "Abort". I was still a teen at the time and wasn't really sure I could handle the very new vocabulary and technology. It was not a walk in the park.
In the 1970's I was assigned to an IBM 360/50 mainframe with 256K ferrite memory. Memory wiring I could hold in my hand. It had new movable hard drives (DASD) that took two hands to load.
In the late 1970's came the IBM 370 series mainframe and it's OS operating system that could support telephone line terminals for sending and receiving data at a dazzling 30 characters per second (300 baud).
In early 1980 all that changed for me with the introduction of the my first desktop microcomputer called an IBM PC (5150). It came with 16K of memory and two floppy disc drives.
It was a significant device as I could have my own stand alone computer on my desk. I could independently "Compile/Link/Go" during software development while not paying connect charges to the mainframe.
In the 1990's came the Internet. The World Wide Web (www) allowed us all to connect with the world.
Now it's the new millennium and the cloud technology continues. Today I'm working on a smart phone app while developing a training DVD.
Home
