Posted on 07/04/2009 5:35:25 PM PDT by sionnsar
In 2009, portability is the default state of affairs with computers, since laptops outsell desktop PCs. But in the 1960s, the typical computer was a room-filling mainframe; minicomputers, which were merely the size of a refrigerator, were the small computers of the day.
Which didn’t mean that folks weren’t craving the concept of mobile computing even back then. I was just rummaging through Google’s invaluable archive of several decades of Computerworld, and came across a short item from March 1968 on carrying cases for the typewriter-like Teletype terminals that were then used to interface with mainframes and minis. Anderson Jacobson sold the cases both separately and as a package with a Teletype pre-installed. (Sadly, the Computerworld story doesn’t say how much you had to pay for one of these portable Teletype systems. Maybe if you had to ask, you couldn’t afford one.)
One model of Teletype weighed a trim 75 pounds in its case; another, was an even more featherweight 65 pounds. The cases offered optional wheels in case you wanted to roll your Teletype along. The gent in the photo below didn’t need the wheels–I wonder if he tried to store his Teletype below the seat in front of him when he traveled by airplane?
Of course, putting a Teletype in a case didn’t really give you access to a mainframe’s mighty computing power anywhere; the Teletype had to be plugged in and connected via a dial-up modem (with an acoustic coupler that attached to your telephone’s handset). What it did was help you move a big, bulky piece of equipment from place to place with a little less difficulty. But the yen to go mobile was there. Wonder how the guy in the photo would have reacted if you’d shown him even the most mundane notebook from 2009?
Well, let's ask him. He's probably still alive. :D
My Dad worked for GEIS and he often brought one of these home to fool around with. The first ones you actually typed up your batch file on ticker tape and then dailed into the compiler and uploaded the batch file. This was pretty much the same as any data center except that instead of punch cards you had a ticker tape.
The laptop (mine), circa 1986.
Probably. I still know one AndJac employee from that time.
First CALCULATOR I ever used was in 1967, in the physics department of the college I attended; size of a big typewriter — it took a whole minute for it to give the answer to a square root. It’s hard to imagine those times, even though I lived them.
I used a 150 BAUD acoustic coupler (with the suction cups and the little box to keep external noise from interrupting) to a Hazeltine terminal about the size of today’s kitchen microwave — and was glad to have it! It beat the heck out of driving into the office at midnight!
I guess that qualifies me for your Geezer Geek list...?
This reminds me of the ancient modem they tried out a few weeks back, it had a wooden case! It was 300 baud or something
We still have an Osborne.
You are killing me here — I remember all that stuff.
>>This reminds me of the ancient modem they tried out a few weeks back, it had a wooden case! It was 300 baud or something<<
And IIRC, it worked! The RS-232 standard still stands.
Back when I carried a briefcase it contained snacks, a couple of pens, and a very realistic rubber giant flying bug.
I read recently that the typical cellphone of today has about the same amount of computing power as the Apollo 11 lunar module had.Amazing!
I’m too young to remember these things. Sometimes I wish I was old. This is one of those times.
yes it did work, amazing
My first experience with a minicomputer was with a DEC PDP 11/45 that you booted via paper tape.
God forbid anything happened to that tape :) We stored two fresh duplicates in a bank vault.
>> Back when I carried a briefcase it contained snacks, a couple of pens, and a very realistic rubber giant flying bug.
Did you ever see “Falling Down”, with Mike Douglas?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falling_Down
IIRC, the contents of HIS briefcase came into play in the movie...
The first “desktop computer” I used was a Wang in the mid to late 1970’s. It had about an 8” green screen with tiny dots that made up the letters and numbers showing on it. They were easiest to see in dim light, so we had to remove half the lights in the room that it was kept in. It did not have a hard drive or floppy discs. It has an ordinary cassette tape for storing programs. It had 8K of memory (which was a costly upgrade from the 4K standard). With a pinwheel printer, it cost nearly $20,000. Of course, we had to write our own programs in Fortran.
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