I believe that one of the great improvements is online research. I used to have to go to the library and read microfilmed articles for my research papers, now I sit at my computer and get full articles through ERIC and never move. No more double vision when I leave and I can save the articles ot my hard drive. It is a different world. My college students are young and do not realize how lucky they are. Thanks for the great historical perspective, Jennefer ----- Original Message ----- From: Sandi Gorin <sgorin@glasgow-ky.com> Date: Wednesday, July 12, 2006 10:14 Subject: [SCKY] HOW FAR WE'VE GONE! - NON-GENEALOGY To: SOUTH-CENTRAL-KENTUCKY-L@rootsweb.com > This is not genealogy, but without it, none of us would have > access to > the web, belong to research lists, etc. > > 25 years ago this year, IBM introduced the 5150 home computer - 1981. > Big deal? Well, yes! For you youngsters on the list, those of us who > have been around a long time in the computer world (1968 for me)... > this was the first important step in bringing the world of > genealogy etal > into our homes. > > When I started out in the computer biz in 1968, it took an > entire room to > house > the computer system that we now have sitting in a desktop or > laptop. Floors > with > water vats under it to keep the humidity at the correct level; > the computer > room > enclosed in glass walls with little pollution zappers catching > every little > particle of dust .. > the operators only with the authorization to enter the sacred computer > room itself - huge tape drives; very heavy disk packs. No software > to zip through our genealogy, but punched cards produced by > programmerswho sat for hours with pen and paper writing in a > machine language to > make the computer do what you wanted it to. You wrote the > instructions,key punchers typed it, verifiers re-punched it to > catch errors; the huge > card decks taken into the inner sanctum; the print outs produced > IF the > program ran correctly - if not, huge print outs brought back to the > programmer with "core dumps" in hexadecimal or other machine language > code. Then the programmers working with those dumps to try to figure > out why the program didn't work - correcting - repunching - re- > verifying - > re-running. Sometimes for a LONG time! > > When the personal computer was introduced by IBM and other > competitors,it was a mass of cables (worse than today!), and as > you can see by the specs > in the URL I gave you ... very little memory and capabilities. > BUT, we > thought this was the greatest thing since sliced bread. We wrote > our own > genealogy programs in a language called Basic - a horrid little > thing - but > it worked. Every piece of data had to be hard entered into the > system - if > you had enough memory to use it! And - then all of a sudden, the > computerworld exploded into what we are familiar with today. > From 5 1/2 inch > "floppies" > to 3 1/2 inch not so floppies, zip drives, external and internal hard > drives ... > and now so much that the average person can't keep up with it. > Thus, sitting > on my desk and yours is a personal computer that back in the > 1960's on > would have taken an entire room of wires, vats, drives, tapes, > flashinglights, > dust zappers ... it means more to us "oldsters" I guess who have > been there > with the key punchers and the box after box of punched cards > (which sometimes > got dropped!). > > And, as an aside - being one of the very first female > programmers for the > State of > IL - women were NEVER allowed in the computer room. We couldn't touch > anything > as it was felt we would contaminate something. And a female > programmer? Why > no, > you had to be a male with a college degree in Computer > Processing - women > didn't have > the logic necessary to program a computer. Thankfully, I broke > that barrier > as did many > thousands of other women when offices ran out of males with college > educations and > they found that women made excellent programmers - we paid > attention to > detail and > had the patience to work our way through core dumps! > > This is just a little extra that I thought you might enjoy. I > know I did > handstands, > almost literally (I was younger!) when the first software > program was > introduced > to "do genealogy". PAF and Family Tree were two of the earliest > but had their > own limitations for awhile. What a joy to throw out the Basic > coding and > get down > to business of tracking the family tree! And then ... the > internet ... > rootsweb, etc. > We've come a long way baby! Sandi > > http://www-03.ibm.com/ibm/history/exhibits/pc25/pc25_fact.html > > Sandi's Puzzlers: > http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~gensoup/gorin/puz.html > SCKY Links: http://www.public.asu.edu/~moore/Gorin.html > GGP: http://ggpublishing.tripod.com/ > > > > ==== SOUTH-CENTRAL-KENTUCKY Mailing List ==== > >