There was a recent episode of the new TV series "Timeless" that involved this era, and in fact had the Katherine G. Johnson<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katherine_Johnson> "character". In this show she and the main characters fairly easily got themselves access to the computer room and "fed a virus" in to the mainframe using paper tape! I'm guessing the TV show was a bit less realistic than the movie...! :-)
Frank ________________________________ From: IBM Mainframe Discussion List <IBM-MAIN@LISTSERV.UA.EDU> on behalf of David Boyes <dbo...@sinenomine.net> Sent: Friday, January 13, 2017 9:38 AM To: IBM-MAIN@LISTSERV.UA.EDU Subject: Hidden Figures It's interesting to note that this mailing list indirectly contributed to the movie. The directors contacted several people on this list whose experience goes back to the days when 7090s walked the earth, and we were able to correct a number of issues about what would have been possible or permitted with such a machine. It's really weird to see how personal computers have influenced people's assumptions about what is and is not possible. NASA's 7090 was strictly access-controlled, and there would have been no ability to touch the hardware, certainly not by applications programmers. The directors had a hard time comprehending the idea of leased machines and charging by the CPU meter -- they didn't believe it until I was able to show them paperwork from that era that laid out IBM's expectations of customer and FE responsibilities and the charging model. So, pat yourselves on the back -- we kept things accurate. The movie's worth seeing. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to lists...@listserv.ua.edu with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to lists...@listserv.ua.edu with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN