At the time I joined the Columbia Gas Company (NiSource now) Research Department in 1968 they had just installed a new main frame computer,the IBM System/360/40.
The 2016 movie, "Hidden Figure" tells the real life story of three Africian-American women who contributed to the 2016 John Glenn's 1962 orbital mission. An IBM main frame computer deplicted in the movie was very similar to the IBM 360 that I began working with in 1968.
The computer was in a special room with a raised floor for the wiring and the air conditioning. Air was needed as the computer generated lots of heat. The computer I am writing these memories on has 223GB of memory, a CD, serveral zip drive, and a monitor to input program and display results, all of which is about hundreds of times more powerful than the computer I was using in 1969.
The System 360/40 consisted of:
- 64K of memory
- hard drive
- tape drive,
- high spread chain printer, and
- punch card reader to input a program.
Back then I have to write the program on coding paper, take the paper to a keypunch machine and type in the code on cards one at a time, a very slow process although touch typing did help. But if you made a mistake you have to eject the current card, take it out of the tray, hit the NEW CARD key and start over again. Today, you type a program on a monitor screen and if you make a mistake you use the BACKSPACE key to erase it and type in the correct code. Must faster.
After getting the program typed up I would write up a request for computer service, wrap it around the deck of card, and submit it the computer operator. We could not run the computer ourselves where as today we do it on a PC or the PC is attached to the main frame and the job is automatically submitted, run, and return to you.
The computer operator would take one job at a time and put it into the card reader and run the program. The program was printed on the huge chain-driven printer along with the results. Generally, no matter how careful you were you make mistakes so the program would not run. Then you looked at the results or error codes, the listing of the program and tried to figure out what was wrong. If you did, it was back to the keypunch, more typing and then submitting the program all over again.
We had about four programmers in RD so everyone could not get their program running at the same time. There was no such thing as a virtual computer, one that can run many programs as the same time. Today this is done by a PC which can run many programs at the same time and switching back and forth like when someone is running a spreadsheet, graphics editor, and on the internet at the same time.
I can't recall if the Research Department ever replaced the Model 40 with a Model 65 but it sure does look familiar.
