Memory lane

 

IBM 1130 - circa 1970

 

Since Southern Man posted a picture of the first computer he worked on, it inspired me to post the first computer I worked on.  The college I attended actually paid me (just minimum wage) to develop software - not for a class, but for the college to use. I had no idea what I was doing.  I had taken one course in programming, and earned a C.  But, they were desperate.  I worked in Fortran, and had a whopping 8K of memory.   I produced software for both accounts payable and payroll.  The payroll system was used until they got a new machine (an HP) in the late 70's.

 

If you look at the picture, you see the  computer on the left, with the disks on a rack on the top.  One would open the blue door to remove and insert the disks. Too bad the picture is too small to see, but just above the keyboard is a row of toggle switches for input, and above that are lights that show the binary content of all of the main registers. Just to the right is the IBM 1132 printer, capable of a blinding 80 lines per minute.  You could hear each letter strike separately.  On the far right is the card reader.