IBM vintage computer promotional film 1970

[Homer J Simpson]

[raptor1956]

When I started at IBM in 1982 at the Fishkill Micro Electronics plant we still had semiconductor production equipment being run by SLT, the precursor to TTL.  The first uP controlled production tool we had, an SVG brush cleaner, was driven by a Z-80 and that uP was still driving products from SVG well into the 90's.

You don't get from punch cards to 256GB thumb drives in one step.  In the early 80's when I got into the semiconductor business the feature sizes were many microns and getting much smaller required new ways of wafer handling to reduce particulate contamination. 

One step at a time.

If tomorrow morning we wake up to discover ALL are modern technology is gone and we had to start over again it would take many decades to get back to where we are even though we have the knowledge to do it.  How do you machine something with 10um precision if all you have is a file?


Brian

[Brumby]

I still remember the big deal when the 3380 made its mark.  1GB in a single box.  Awesome stuff.

[techie1234]

In college we did most of our CS work on IBM mainframes (well, an Amdahl) - lots of assembler, channel programming for DASD access, JCL, CICS, etc. I've still got opcodes and EBCDIC lodged somewhere in my memory...

[Brumby]

BAL, BALR, BCT, BCTR, BR, B
MVI, MVC, MVCL, MVO
AP, SP, SRP...

Register 11....

.......

Now I'm going to have to find my yellow card...........................

[techie1234]

BAL, BALR, BCT, BCTR, BR, B
MVI, MVC, MVCL, MVO
AP, SP, SRP...

Register 11....

.......

Now I'm going to have to find my yellow card...........................

Let us not forget the illusive but powerful HCF (Halt and Catch Fire).

Attached is something I must have done in the early 1990s - looks like it was getting something out of a PDS.

[Brumby]

Oh good grief .... I just started reading that like it was yesterday.  It's been close to 30 years.