I started with the stuff before that....
Does it go to 11?
IBM Mainframes
Mainframes photo album
Ah, the memories.....
When I got out of the army in 1967, I took a very low paying job at a major insurance company in Chicago. I started out as a ‘control clerk’ setting up jobs to run on the computers and them moved into operations where we had an IBM 705 computer as well a 1401, 1410, 360/50 and a 360/65.
I worked my way up into operations and then into programming. When I retired back in 2000 after an auto accident, I owned my own consulting company.
I never went college, entering the Army shortly after graduation from high school and everything I learned, I did on my own from experimenting and personal reading and OJT (On the Job Training). During my time in operations, I started learning 1401 autocoder and wrote a few simply programs for our 1401.
We had an IBM 360/30 which ran MCC (Multiple Compatability Control) which used a ‘load mode’ tape of 1401 programs which it was able to retrieve programs from to run them under 1401 compatability on the 360/30.
We couldn't use that ‘lode mode’ tape on our 360.50 even though it was able to run 1401 programs in compatability mode as well. We had to load each 1401 program from cards if we wanted to run them on that machine.
I wrote a simple 1401 program which we loaded into that machine which could read the load mode tape and then execute those programs on the 360/40 bringing them in from tape rather than from cards.
From operations, I went into programming working my way up from trainee to programmer, to programmer analyst, through systems specialist and finally to systems engineer.
Those days are long gone where someone could come in with no knowledge or experience and work their way to the top of the career field. Today, that only happens in new fields with new equipment where there is no readily available trained workforce available for hire.
I remember one company where they hired a new college graduate with a degree in computer science to work as a ‘Systems Analyst’. They had to send that person to a two year school to learn basic COBOL and IBM DB/DC programming before they could even use her. I never did see her do anything, she was always ‘away at school’.