What is the oldest computer.....

[mrvette]

that yawl seen in operation??

I remember a filed trip to the David Taylor Model Basin.....US Navy R&D facility for ship design, and there behind glass wall was a UNIVAC computer, using 6SN7 twin triode tubes in banks arranged like spokes on a wheel and stacked about 5' high very strange looking, but I laughed when seeing the individual electron tubes, as the same was used in my electronic geek hobby.....

the long tank like a swimming pool and the ship models was neat too.....

also the other trip to the local ATT switching center, and seeing a #1 crossbar in action, and the individual stepper relays, of which I still have one....

and the automobile batteries they used to backup in case of power failure....

[Antfarmer2]

Here are some pics for you.


https://www.google.com/search?q=pict...w=1280&bih=752

[Uncle Meat]

I had the pleasure of being SA on an AT&T 3B2 system years ago. Probably the oldest system I've used or seen in person. It used 9-track tapes.

U.M.

[StaticCling]

I had a TRS80 when I was a kid.

[VITE1]

Back in the late 60s my Dad company, New York Life, put in a large main frame computer to run actuarial tables. Took up one floor about a NY city black square.

[TripleBlack]

Originally Posted by Uncle Meat

I had the pleasure of being SA on an AT&T 3B2 system years ago. Probably the oldest system I've used or seen in person. It used 9-track tapes.

U.M.

Then you probably know what this is. I did a fair amount of 3B2 SA stuff as well. I worked for AT&T and maintained the first ones sent out to the sales branches. I kept one and had it in the attic for years but think I finally tossed it. Had it set up as a Usenet node unbeknownst to my management.

BTW, the photo is of a 1 MB memory card. I have two that were removed when we got our new 2 MB cards. Disk drive choices on the 3b2-300 model were 10, 32, and 72 MB. 3 raw images from my Canon DSLR would not fit on the 72 MB drive. Now we have terabyte SD cards.

[TripleBlack]

My first exposure to a computer was in a Fortran class in college around 1972. We had an IBM 1130 that only had a card reader for input. Learned early on I had no interest in being a key punch operator.

[mrvette]

Bought an old ATT service van, and in all the shelving down lo where hard to see was a couple of circuit cards.....

DSC Communications Corp 300-1148=900 card.....on the board....on the connector is 2345 ELCO 26 8477 on the box it says SLPQ0P96AG

The other larger card has ATT MC97 776-A1 and a sticker EXP date 11/3/11

[DAB]

slide rule count?

[mrvette]

Originally Posted by DAB

slide rule count?

NO, but a slip stick does......

[StaticCling]

I had a TRS80 when I was a kid

[MidLifeinMI]

Originally Posted by TripleBlack

My first exposure to a computer was in a Fortran class in college around 1972. We had an IBM 1130 that only had a card reader for input. Learned early on I had no interest in being a key punch operator.

Had to do the punchcard thing for an 1130 back in college also; Fortran and Cobol classes in the late 70's. Turn in a stack of 200-300 cards, wait 2-3 hours, then get a printout back that showed you made a single typo on a single card, and need to resubmit.

[TripleBlack]

Originally Posted by MidLifeinMI

Had to do the punchcard thing for an 1130 back in college also; Fortran and Cobol classes in the late 70's. Turn in a stack of 200-300 cards, wait 2-3 hours, then get a printout back that showed you made a single typo on a single card, and need to resubmit.

Exactly, though our department was small enough you usually didn't have to wait too long. Sometimes you could even drop your cards in the reader and run your own job. Part way though the class we got a single card punch that had a buffer - no holes punched until you finished the entire card. All the other punches punched as soon as you pressed a key... I scoured a printout of my final project for days before discovering a single character near the end of one of the cards. I killed a lot of trees back then.

[Aerovette]

I have no idea what it was, but on a field trip in about the 6th grade (1972ish) we all watched a computer work. I remember that the guy operating it, gave me a printout on perforated paper of Snoopy on his Sopwith camel. I'll bet it took 30 minutes to print that out.

[99 pewtercoupe]

1973 I was an operator on an IBM 360. Loading cards, changing tapes, etc
My first full time job after graduating from high school. Worked a swing shift, two weeks on a shift then rotate. A year of that taught me I had better go to college so I could get a better job

https://goo.gl/images/QMcQRD

[Cybercowboy]

Some IBM mainframe at the University of Illinois (Bloomington) back around 1973 or so. My dad was going to school there and would take me to the computer lab and have me feed in punch cards. I remember that they could make the printer print out "naked pictures" of women in ASCII, so edgy.