Dad was a pioneer in using computers for stress analysis problem solving when he designed ships. I remember going to his office and looking at these HUGE machines that took up entire walls of huge rooms. Big shiny cabinets full of hardware; spinning magnetic discs that would start and stop and start again as if they had a mind of their own, machines that would take huge stacks of computer cards and zip them in one end and out the other at the apparent speed of light, big sheets of green and white paper zipping out of huge printers as their print heads whirred and clicked their way across and down each page. It was amazing to watch, and how proud I was of my dad for being able to handle these monsters with such apparent ease. I remember when he came home at night he would have boxes and boxes of these punch cards that he had produced for his various engineering programs. Each card stack had its name written across the edges of the cards so that as a stack, rubber-banded together, you could read their name. Kind of like you would write on the edge of a book. It had to be 8 alphanumeric characters or less. I always wondered what would happen if he dropped a stack - how would he put them back together?
Here's a picture of a typical machine that he used to work with; I believe that it is a Univac 1108 Multi-Processor System. It probably has less power than most hand-held programmable calculators that you can buy today, but what a beast it was in 1968 and what a beast tamer my dad was as he programmed it like clock work to build the finest and sturdiest sea going vessels.
Pagewriters (3), operators consoles (2), and a wall full of central processing units
1 comment:
Awesome pics - I remember seeing these. I remember him taking me to the office and showing me these huge machines. At that time, I had no idea how much these machines would be integrated into our lives - our EVERYTHING - in coming decades. Dad was a pioneer in getting them to 'speak'. More later. Great pics ....
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