Re: Early Computers (was Market pressures for more reliable software)

Re: Early Computers (was Market pressures for more reliable software)

[robin]

"Gary Labowitz" <garyl@enter.net> writes: 
> Most shops in the early days were
> centralized computing. And most of those were centralized development as
> well. [Definition: centralized -- a single computer at a centralized
> location. All computing is done on that computer. Users go physically to
> that computer site and either submit jobs directly to the machine, being
> given time on the machine to use it, or submit jobs to a checkpoint from
> which operators submit the jobs for the user. If the site was large enough
> to have several computers they were clustered in the same general area and
> users selected which of the computers would be used for their individual
> jobs.]

Multiple computers were not always situated in the one place,
although some sites that had *identical* systems
had them together for backup and maintenance purposes.

> I can remember back to 1962 (when I started with IBM) but built my first
> computer in 1956.

And what was that?

> Your turn.
> Gary

Re: Early Computers (was Market pressures for more reliable software)

[robin]

"Marin David Condic" <marin.condic.auntie.spam@pacemicro.com> writes: 
> Well, the point was, at one time lots (if not most or all) of the computing
> was done in some centralized manner. You had a mainframe to which you
> connected and on that mainframe was where you had your data and programs.

I think that you are speaking about a time much later than
early computers.

Early systems did not have their programs and data on the machine --
they simply weren't large enough.

Program libraries had to be kept on paper tapes and cards,
and loaded into the machine when they were to be run.

Terminals just didn't exist.

> That had the advantage (as Micro$oft will tell you) that you could access
> your data from anywhere on any piece of equipment (a dumb terminal at the
> time) and if some piece of software you used was supported by the central
> location, you instantly got updates as they were made.
> 
> Eventually, this model began to wane because of the prevalence of mini and
> microcomputers. People now had their software stored on their *own* personal
> machine. You didn't need to ask permission of some central DP organization
> to get something done (change software, update data, make backups, get more
> disk quota, etc.) You just up and did it - including deciding if you wanted
> to buy a new version of some software product or just live with what you
> have.

> 
> MDC
> --
> Marin David Condic
> Senior Software Engineer
> Pace Micro Technology Americas    www.pacemicro.com