When I was studying computer science at Stuttgart university from 1977 on,
there were several ways to work with the Telefunken TR 440 mainframe:
- closed shop by IBM 029 keypunch; you gave the cards to the operators
(that is,
batch runs); you had to wait one hour to get your listings back. Most of
the
time, there were simple syntax errors, so you spent an hour and had to
start all over again
- time sharing dialogue using General Electric (?) teletypes with paper tape
and hardcopy paper (editing was possible, but you had to retype the lines)
- time sharing using small display terminals, text only (20 * 48 chars)
- or large terminals, including vector graphics feature and mouse (!)
But: for some 150 students, there were only 6 teletypes, 15 small
display terminals, and 2 (!) large ones, which furthermore didn't
work all the time. So it was really hard to get your work done;
and: the machine was closed down every day at 7 pm. The night
shift was reserved for higher priority tasks.
But anyway: great fun at that time.
Some years later (1984), I worked at the same university with an IBM 3083
on my master thesis (VM/HPO, IIRC), but the machine was so occupied running
several hundred students' CMS machines during the day shift, that I
regularly
started work at 10 pm until 5 am - because that was the time when response
time etc. was acceptable.
Kind regards
Bernd
Am 09.09.2013 15:56, schrieb John McKown:
I used keypunches in college. I then graduated to a hardcopy terminal, but
not a KSR-33 or ASR-33. The school had some really nice DECWriters for the
non-IBM DEC System 20. And 2741s for the IBM. I adored the 2741s, which
were basically an IBM Selectric typewriter with a serial interface. In
college, we didn't use TSO. We used Wylber. It as actually a very nice
system. Especially compared to punching cards (which often required
punching out some other student who was keying in their program as they
were developing it) and looking a paper output.
I actually did use an ASR-33 (KSR-33 with paper tape attachment) at TCU
(Texas Christian University in Ft. Worth, TX) connected to some other
computer in my senior high school year. Now that was a literal pain to key
with. Talk about "hitting" the keys. That monster had very stiff keys and a
long stroke to activate them.
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