Yes, I also remember the 1620 and the barrow loads of cards that we all lugged around. I also remember the advent of the PDP6, first time sharing machine and the VC of the day was quoted as saying that it would satisfy the university's computing needs for the next ten years - in less than six months it was fully loaded with jobs 24/7. Then came the Cyber 76 which seemed a step into a real new age. And now we all have more power, memory and speed sitting on our desktops, if not the peripherals, phew! Severin Crisp
On 22/08/2013, at 2:04 PM, Geoff and Kaye <k...@kgweb.org.au> wrote: > David > > On 22/08/2013, at 10:23 AM, David Noel wrote: > >> -- Thanks for blast from the past. I worked at UWA for 24 years, starting in >> 1964, and was one of the early users of the PDP-6 -- in those days users >> came in with their punch cards, mag tapes, or paper tapes and sat at the >> console themselves to operate the beast. It was a huge step up from the IBM >> 1620 accounting machine, which did run on punched cards, but was programmed >> by plugging wires into a logic frame. I actually did the Macro course at Mt >> Lawley Tech -- by then it may have been to use on the PDP-10, the language >> was the same. > > Ah, yes, the IBM1620. Not only punched card input but punched card output as > well. I wrote my first program on it (I seem to remember that the program > calculated the area of a triangle - very sophisticated) in a language called > FORGO - a cut-down version of FORTRAN (IBM was always behind everyone else). > > You may not know that the 1620 console has been restored and should by now be > on display in Computer Science at UWA. There are plans to also restore and > display the Cyber76 console. I seem to remember that the PDP6 went to a > museum on Wireless Hill? > > Sorry about the off-topic; getting nostalgic in my old age. > > Geoff > ---------------------- > Geoff and Kaye > k...@kgweb.org.au > > > > > -- The WA Macintosh User Group Mailing List -- > Archives - <http://www.wamug.org.au/mailinglist/archives.shtml> > Guidelines - <http://www.wamug.org.au/mailinglist/guidelines.shtml> > Settings & Unsubscribe - > <http://lists.wamug.org.au/listinfo/wamug.org.au-wamug> ____________________________________________________ Assoc Prof R Severin Crisp, FAIP, FIP, CPhys 15 Thomas St, Mount Clarence, Albany, 6330, Western Australia ph (08) 9842 1950 ( Int'l +61 8 9842 1950) mail to: sevcr...@westnet.com.au ____________________________________________________
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