Date: Thu, 8 Aug 1996 01:29:22 -0700
Reply-To: cpsr-history@Sunnyside.COM
Originator: cpsr-history@cpsr.org
Sender: listserv-reply-errors@Sunnyside.COM
Precedence: bulk
From: "keith reid-green" 
To: "Multiple recipients of list cpsr-history@cpsr.org" 
Subject: CM> Scientific American: calculating census history.
X-Listprocessor-Version: 9.1 -- List Server by Sunnyside Computing, Inc.
X-Comment:  Discussion of history of computing
X-Info:  For listserv info write to listserv@cpsr.org with message HELP
X-Message-Id: <847614029961.LTK.013@cpsr.org>
X-UIDL: 839517089.017


Sender: "keith reid-green" 
Subject: re: Scientific American

Peter da Silva wrote "Add Scientific American to the list of sources for
our community memory."

I remember the article on fluid computers in SciAm.  Also, I wrote a piece
for Scientific American entitled "The History of Census Tabulation" in the
Feb, 1989 edition, and still have a few offprints of the article.  If
anybody wants a copy, send your address directly to me at
KReid-Green@ets.org and I will mail you one--offer subject to availability.

Keith Reid-Green
Educational Testing Service
KReid-Green@ets.org
______________________________________________________________________
            Posted by David S. Bennahum (davidsol@panix.com)
                    Moderator: Community Memory
            http://www.reach.com/matrix/community-memory.html
         A CPSR Project -- http://www.cpsr.org -- cpsr@cpsr.org
 Materials may be reposted in their *entirety* for non-commercial use.
 Want to receive the day's postings bundled together into one message?
 It's easy.  Send a note to listserv@cpsr.org that reads:
                       SET CPSR-HISTORY MAIL DIGEST
______________________________________________________________________
Date: Thu, 8 Aug 1996 01:37:56 -0700
Reply-To: cpsr-history@Sunnyside.COM
Originator: cpsr-history@cpsr.org
Sender: listserv-reply-errors@Sunnyside.COM
Precedence: bulk
From: "Kip Crosby, CHAC" 
To: "Multiple recipients of list cpsr-history@cpsr.org" 
Subject: CM> Orignal Community Memory & PCC
X-Listprocessor-Version: 9.1 -- List Server by Sunnyside Computing, Inc.
X-Comment:  Discussion of history of computing
X-Info:  For listserv info write to listserv@cpsr.org with message HELP
X-Message-Id: <1352192119474.LTK.013@cpsr.org>
X-UIDL: 839517089.028


Sender: "Kip Crosby, CHAC" 
Subject: Re: CPSR-HISTORY digest 49

>Sender: "Laurence I. Press" 
>Subject: Community Memory
>I visited the CM project in the early 70s.  Lee Felsenstein and others
>had an SDS timesharing system in a converted industrial building in
>San Francisco....They had ttys
>in a few places in the Bay Area.
>They had a lot of trouble keeping the TSS up as I recall.

See ANALYTICAL ENGINE 3.1 (Nov. '95) for more on this.  Our best information
is that CM's SDS 940 was scrapped in 1988, ah, sigh.  As the custodians of
the last (?) remaining SDS 930, we would dearly love to acquire the rackful
that made a 930 into a 940; but we have scant hope, it was a scarce piece at
best.

That 940 was donated to Resource One by Transamerica Leasing after it
finished a stint at SRI, where it had been the control computer for Shakey
the Robot.  Lee says that Shakey was "shaky" because the 940's DMA channel
was wired to the wrong voltage, and when Resource One got it they diagnosed
and rewired it.

>I think a lot of the inspiration came from Bob Albrecht with his
>People's Computer Center in Menlo Park.  PCC offered walk-in computer
>access and a news paper.  (In fact Jim Warren, Dennis Allison and Bob,
>started Dr. Dobbs at PCC).

PCC was also involved with (was the parent of?) a company called Dymax which
published, among other things, Bob's _My Computer Likes Me When I Speak In
Basic._ ....on page 61 of which it says "Please recycle this book."  I'm
just as glad somebody didn't.

>Bob's example inspired me to put TTYs in
>some schools and a public library in LA -- mostly games, BASIC
>classes, car pool matching (remember the gas crisis? -- I wrote a
>program which searched concentrically out from Thomas Map book
>coordinates to find people with nearby destinations and homes), etc.

Mind telling us some more about that?

>Sender: John Oliver 
>Subject: 2-D text editing and interactive games
>Sometime around 1967 or 1968 the Astronomy department at UCLA purchased
>some abolutely wonderful "TV Typewriters"....When the "Interrupt" key was
pressed, >the entire contents of the core was shipped downstairs to a 360
(either mod 90
>or mod 91 ... I forget), and swapped with whatever the channel adaptor had
>waiting.

If that was the same 360 that ended up as the pet of the UCLA Computer Club,
it was a Model 91.
__________________________________________
Kip Crosby                 engine@chac.org
      http://www.chac.org/index.html
Computer History Association of California
______________________________________________________________________
            Posted by David S. Bennahum (davidsol@panix.com)
                    Moderator: Community Memory
            http://www.reach.com/matrix/community-memory.html
         A CPSR Project -- http://www.cpsr.org -- cpsr@cpsr.org
 Materials may be reposted in their *entirety* for non-commercial use.
 Want to receive the day's postings bundled together into one message?
 It's easy.  Send a note to listserv@cpsr.org that reads:
                       SET CPSR-HISTORY MAIL DIGEST
______________________________________________________________________
Date: Thu, 8 Aug 1996 01:43:18 -0700
Reply-To: cpsr-history@Sunnyside.COM
Originator: cpsr-history@cpsr.org
Sender: listserv-reply-errors@Sunnyside.COM
Precedence: bulk
From: Nelson Winkless 
To: "Multiple recipients of list cpsr-history@cpsr.org" 
Subject: CM> People's Computer "Something"
X-Listprocessor-Version: 9.1 -- List Server by Sunnyside Computing, Inc.
X-Comment:  Discussion of history of computing
X-Info:  For listserv info write to listserv@cpsr.org with message HELP
X-Message-Id: <2134250437797.LTK.013@cpsr.org>
X-UIDL: 839517089.023


Sender: Nelson Winkless 
Subject: CM> People's Computer Something

We've seen references here to People's Computer Club, People's Computer
Company, and in one of Larry Press's recent postings, People's Computer
Center...all, I think, talking about the same organization. Did the
organization really have more than one name going?

It was known to me as People's Computer Company, and before first visiting their
upstairs office on El Camino Real in Menlo Park (must have been in 1976), I
always pictured the staff in quilted uniforms, marching with fists upraised.
Actually, the place was full of pleasant people, having fun, apart from the
usual economic stress.

Their tabloid-format publication was a vigorous journal featuring lots of
pictures of dragons. Indeed, Bob Albrecht, whose formal position was never
quite clear, but who seemed to be the leader of PCC, was widely known as
Dragon Bob Albrecht. Bob published -- with a co-author?--a little book
called "My Computer Likes Me When I Speak in BASIC," which sold at least
100,000 copies, I believe, and would have been classed formally as a
best-seller in the regular book trade. I published a couple of articles in
PCC under names I have forgotten, one of which was illustrated by my
daughter, who probably still has clippings.

My impression was that PCC was involved early in efforts to get kids off the
streets and onto computers, making a grassroots effort to promote general
computer awareness and competence in our brave new era.

Does somebody have a less muddled recollection of what PCC was about?

--Nels
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Nelson Winkless                   Email: correspo@swcp.com
ABQ Communications Corporation    Voice: 505-897-0822
P.O. Box 1432                     Fax:   505-898-6525
Corrales NM 87048 USA             Website: http://www.swcp.com/correspo
______________________________________________________________________
            Posted by David S. Bennahum (davidsol@panix.com)
                    Moderator: Community Memory
            http://www.reach.com/matrix/community-memory.html
         A CPSR Project -- http://www.cpsr.org -- cpsr@cpsr.org
 Materials may be reposted in their *entirety* for non-commercial use.
 Want to receive the day's postings bundled together into one message?
 It's easy.  Send a note to listserv@cpsr.org that reads:
                       SET CPSR-HISTORY MAIL DIGEST
______________________________________________________________________
Date: Thu, 8 Aug 1996 01:48:00 -0700
Reply-To: cpsr-history@Sunnyside.COM
Originator: cpsr-history@cpsr.org
Sender: listserv-reply-errors@Sunnyside.COM
Precedence: bulk
From: "Michael S. Hart" 
To: "Multiple recipients of list cpsr-history@cpsr.org" 
Subject: CM> Early interactive games.
X-Listprocessor-Version: 9.1 -- List Server by Sunnyside Computing, Inc.
X-Comment:  Discussion of history of computing
X-Info:  For listserv info write to listserv@cpsr.org with message HELP
X-Message-Id: <94532378579.LTK.013@cpsr.org>
X-UIDL: 839517089.021


Sender: "Michael S. Hart" 
Subject: Re: CM> Early interactive games.


The Tic-Tac-Toe game most people remember around here
was at the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago,
and my recollection is also that it was part of "Bell
Labs" exhibit, which was always quite nice.

Of course, the friendly operators have been replaced,
by robots, etc. and even when you do get a human now,
they can't "route you through Milwaukee" when all the
connections to O'hare are jammed from downtown.

Michael S. Hart
The Original Cybrarian
______________________________________________________________________
            Posted by David S. Bennahum (davidsol@panix.com)
                    Moderator: Community Memory
            http://www.reach.com/matrix/community-memory.html
         A CPSR Project -- http://www.cpsr.org -- cpsr@cpsr.org
 Materials may be reposted in their *entirety* for non-commercial use.
 Want to receive the day's postings bundled together into one message?
 It's easy.  Send a note to listserv@cpsr.org that reads:
                       SET CPSR-HISTORY MAIL DIGEST
______________________________________________________________________
Date: Thu, 8 Aug 1996 01:52:54 -0700
Reply-To: cpsr-history@Sunnyside.COM
Originator: cpsr-history@cpsr.org
Sender: listserv-reply-errors@Sunnyside.COM
Precedence: bulk
From: ac959@freenet.carleton.ca (Peter Martin)
To: "Multiple recipients of list cpsr-history@cpsr.org" 
Subject: CM> "toy" computers: Heath-Kit 1963.
X-Listprocessor-Version: 9.1 -- List Server by Sunnyside Computing, Inc.
X-Comment:  Discussion of history of computing
X-Info:  For listserv info write to listserv@cpsr.org with message HELP
X-Message-Id: <1462221388373.LTK.013@cpsr.org>
X-UIDL: 839517089.030


Sender: ac959@freenet.carleton.ca (Peter Martin)
Subject: Re: CM> "toy" computers

>
>
>Sender: lauren@vortex.com (Lauren Weinstein)
>Subject: "toy" computers
>
>Greetings.  Ah yes, the "toy" computers.  I also had (indeed, still
>have) the book explaining how to build your own digital computer
>from wooden dowels, paper clips, and other assorted "found around the
>house" items.  I know exactly where that book sits; I'll try dig it up.

Heath Kit sold an almost-toy computer kit. I was given one as an Xmas
present in 1963 or 64.

My recollections are vague, but I recall it was a slab of pegboard,
several circular "dials", a few flashlight bulbs, and the requisite
battery holder and wires.

I put it all together and it worked as (only as, I think) a simple
arithmetic calculator. Didn't even play tic-tac-toe!

Perhaps others on this list remember the thing?

(BTW, poor Heath Kit. Great company for hobbyists that fell on evil days
when chips replaced tubes. I wonder if they're still around.)

--
Peter Martin            *****           Garden Books of Sandy Hill
#1 -131 Osgoode St      *****           P.O. Box 20559
Ottawa ON K1N 6S5       *****           Ottawa ON K1N 1A3
(613) 237-4180          *****           (613) 565-2595
______________________________________________________________________
            Posted by David S. Bennahum (davidsol@panix.com)
                    Moderator: Community Memory
            http://www.reach.com/matrix/community-memory.html
         A CPSR Project -- http://www.cpsr.org -- cpsr@cpsr.org
 Materials may be reposted in their *entirety* for non-commercial use.
 Want to receive the day's postings bundled together into one message?
 It's easy.  Send a note to listserv@cpsr.org that reads:
                       SET CPSR-HISTORY MAIL DIGEST
______________________________________________________________________
Date: Thu, 8 Aug 1996 01:56:56 -0700
Reply-To: cpsr-history@Sunnyside.COM
Originator: cpsr-history@cpsr.org
Sender: listserv-reply-errors@Sunnyside.COM
Precedence: bulk
From: John R Levine 
To: "Multiple recipients of list cpsr-history@cpsr.org" 
Subject: CM> 1D vs. 2D editing
X-Listprocessor-Version: 9.1 -- List Server by Sunnyside Computing, Inc.
X-Comment:  Discussion of history of computing
X-Info:  For listserv info write to listserv@cpsr.org with message HELP
X-Message-Id: <2053880373614.LTK.013@cpsr.org>
X-UIDL: 839517089.037


Sender: John R Levine 
Subject: 1D vs. 2D editing

> ps -- a bit pedantic perhaps, but I am not sure "2-d editing" is a
> good term, because you are still editing a 1-d text string which is
> displayed in 2-d with word wrap.  You cannot select an arbitrary
> rectangle with a word processor.

Funny you should mention that.

I'm aware of two largely independent lines of development of of screen
text editors, one with a 2D "deck of cards" modem and the other with a 1D
"papertape model".  The 2D model started with Ned Irons work at IDA in
Princeton, and moved with him to Rand (Rand Editor), Yale, and Interactive
Systems in Santa Monica.  All of these editors really treated the text as
a quarter plane, and supported rectangular cut and paste.  This model
made it easy to speed up remote editing by putting a lot of the editing
functions in a terminal.  At Yale in the late 1970s we had an editor
running on our 11/45 Unix with the front end an 11/05 with a dozen home
brew bitmap screens and keyboards.  Worked great, modulo hardware
glitches in screen RAM and keyboards.  At Interactive in about 1980 we
had the INtext, a Perkin-Elmer terminal with custom ROM and keycaps to
support INed, a descendant of the Rand editor.  The INtext supported
full screen interactive editing over line at a time Telenet connections a
big win financially compared to character at a time connections.

The 1D model started with scope Teco at MIT and evolved fairly directly
into emacs and indirectly into vi.  For reasons having little to do with
the merits of the underlying models, emacs and vi became very popular
largely because they were easy to customize to the flock of random
terminals found in most university computer science environments.

Word processors have for the most part developed separately, with their
own models of text.  Word Perfect is paper tape with markup codes, MS
Word is a tree of document, paragraph, character, with styles and formats
applied at each level.

Regards,
John Levine, johnl@iecc.com, Trumansburg NY
Primary Perpetrator of "The Internet for Dummies"
and Information Superhighwayman wanna-be
______________________________________________________________________
            Posted by David S. Bennahum (davidsol@panix.com)
                    Moderator: Community Memory
            http://www.reach.com/matrix/community-memory.html
         A CPSR Project -- http://www.cpsr.org -- cpsr@cpsr.org
 Materials may be reposted in their *entirety* for non-commercial use.
 Want to receive the day's postings bundled together into one message?
 It's easy.  Send a note to listserv@cpsr.org that reads:
                       SET CPSR-HISTORY MAIL DIGEST
______________________________________________________________________
Date: Thu, 8 Aug 1996 02:01:12 -0700
Reply-To: cpsr-history@Sunnyside.COM
Originator: cpsr-history@cpsr.org
Sender: listserv-reply-errors@Sunnyside.COM
Precedence: bulk
From: Weston Triemstra 
To: "Multiple recipients of list cpsr-history@cpsr.org" 
Subject: CM> Early interactive games.
X-Listprocessor-Version: 9.1 -- List Server by Sunnyside Computing, Inc.
X-Comment:  Discussion of history of computing
X-Info:  For listserv info write to listserv@cpsr.org with message HELP
X-Message-Id: <920072952871.LTK.013@cpsr.org>
X-UIDL: 839517089.034


Sender: Weston Triemstra 
Subject: CM> Early interactive games.

Les Earnest writes:
    I vaguely recall that someone at Bell Labs built a relay computer that
    played tic-tac-toe sometime in the late 1940s or early 1950s.  The
    TX-0 computer at MIT also had a tic-tac-toe game when I started
    playing with it in 1959.  It displayed the board on its CRT and you
    selected moves by pointing with a lite pen.

       Do recall deciding that if you went first you could not lose (unless
       you made a mistake) and if you went second, you could not win.

    I don't understand this.  If both sides play correctly it always ends
    in a draw.

It's true that if both sides play correctly it always ends in a draw
with tic-tac-toe, however if you add another dimension ... I wrote a 3-D
tic-tac-toe game in BASIC on a commodore pet 40 in 1987 where if the
computer went first it always won, it was for my highschool computer
science class. I can mail the moves to anyone interested, the manoevre
requires grabbing the centre cube first.

........................................................................
                                            n e t SIGN communications
    weston triemstra                              110 west hastings
    weston@netsign.com                            vancouver, bc v6b 1g8
                         "the future was now"     canada
........................................................................
______________________________________________________________________
            Posted by David S. Bennahum (davidsol@panix.com)
                    Moderator: Community Memory
            http://www.reach.com/matrix/community-memory.html
         A CPSR Project -- http://www.cpsr.org -- cpsr@cpsr.org
 Materials may be reposted in their *entirety* for non-commercial use.
 Want to receive the day's postings bundled together into one message?
 It's easy.  Send a note to listserv@cpsr.org that reads:
                       SET CPSR-HISTORY MAIL DIGEST
______________________________________________________________________
Date: Thu, 8 Aug 1996 02:05:06 -0700
Reply-To: cpsr-history@Sunnyside.COM
Originator: cpsr-history@cpsr.org
Sender: listserv-reply-errors@Sunnyside.COM
Precedence: bulk
From: "David E. Anderson" 
To: "Multiple recipients of list cpsr-history@cpsr.org" 
Subject: CM> Community Memory, Resource 1.
X-Listprocessor-Version: 9.1 -- List Server by Sunnyside Computing, Inc.
X-Comment:  Discussion of history of computing
X-Info:  For listserv info write to listserv@cpsr.org with message HELP
X-Message-Id: <1429428056105.LTK.013@cpsr.org>
X-UIDL: 839517089.029


Sender: "David E. Anderson" 
Subject: re: Community Memory

The facility at the warehouse was Resource 1, inside of Project 1, the
warehouse.  Loft living was unusual then, cyber-hippies even more so.  Project
Artaud was a more arts-oriented place which pre-dated Project 1 and Project 2
followed both.

I remember studying SNOBOL at Resource 1.  There were some junior high or high
school kids in the class with me - Once I overheard them saying they wouldn't
tell adults what they were doing (programming) because it would scare them...
They're probably millionaires now ;-)

One of the teletype terminals of Community Memory was also installed in a room
at the collective house I lived in, Dwight House, home of "The Village" in
Berkeley. The system was newsgroup-like, as I too remember.  The idea was to
create a shared high-tech infrastructure with some of the flavor of the food
coops that were very active at the time, community oriented, volunteer-based
and decentralized.

Dave
--
David E. Anderson/New Media Support/Oracle Corporation 415-506-6307 fax: 7809
______________________________________________________________________
            Posted by David S. Bennahum (davidsol@panix.com)
                    Moderator: Community Memory
            http://www.reach.com/matrix/community-memory.html
         A CPSR Project -- http://www.cpsr.org -- cpsr@cpsr.org
 Materials may be reposted in their *entirety* for non-commercial use.
 Want to receive the day's postings bundled together into one message?
 It's easy.  Send a note to listserv@cpsr.org that reads:
                       SET CPSR-HISTORY MAIL DIGEST
______________________________________________________________________
Date: Thu, 8 Aug 1996 02:09:31 -0700
Reply-To: cpsr-history@Sunnyside.COM
Originator: cpsr-history@cpsr.org
Sender: listserv-reply-errors@Sunnyside.COM
Precedence: bulk
From: "Mike O'Brien" 
To: "Multiple recipients of list cpsr-history@cpsr.org" 
Subject: CM> early display-orieneted editors, "expensive typewriter."
X-Listprocessor-Version: 9.1 -- List Server by Sunnyside Computing, Inc.
X-Comment:  Discussion of history of computing
X-Info:  For listserv info write to listserv@cpsr.org with message HELP
X-Message-Id: <2012064695364.LTK.013@cpsr.org>
X-UIDL: 839517089.032


Sender: "Mike O'Brien" 
Subject: Re: CM> early display-orieneted editors, "expensive typewriter."

Larry Press says:

> ps -- a bit pedantic perhaps, but I am not sure "2-d editing" is a
> good term, because you are still editing a 1-d text string which is
> displayed in 2-d with word wrap.  You cannot select an arbitrary
> rectangle with a word processor.  Perhaps terms like "display" vs
> "line-oriented" are better.

        Well, then there's the Rand editor, first programmed up at Rand
by Walt Bilofsky, with Peter Weiner's connivance, which was based on
Ned Irons' ideas from Yale.  Still in use today, the Rand editor is a
"white-space" editor which does indeed let you select an arbitrary
rectangle, and do pretty much whatever you want with it, including
drawing an ASCII box around it.  I'm using the Rand editor to write
this message.  Rand historically hot-wired the keyboards of all its
terminals to make editor commands a single keypress of a labeled key;
now we editor users make do with the "standard keyboard" of control
characters.  However, we found the learning curve of computer-naive
users to be very easy, given the hot-wired keyboards and the editor's
support for moving the cursor wherever you want, regardless of the
location of the end of the line.  It also makes typing in tabular
data a breeze.  You can open up a space in a single column.

Mike O'Brien
______________________________________________________________________
            Posted by David S. Bennahum (davidsol@panix.com)
                    Moderator: Community Memory
            http://www.reach.com/matrix/community-memory.html
         A CPSR Project -- http://www.cpsr.org -- cpsr@cpsr.org
 Materials may be reposted in their *entirety* for non-commercial use.
 Want to receive the day's postings bundled together into one message?
 It's easy.  Send a note to listserv@cpsr.org that reads:
                       SET CPSR-HISTORY MAIL DIGEST
______________________________________________________________________
Date: Thu, 8 Aug 1996 02:13:41 -0700
Reply-To: cpsr-history@Sunnyside.COM
Originator: cpsr-history@cpsr.org
Sender: listserv-reply-errors@Sunnyside.COM
Precedence: bulk
From: "Suzanne M. Johnson" 
To: "Multiple recipients of list cpsr-history@cpsr.org" 
Subject: CM> TVEDIT
X-Listprocessor-Version: 9.1 -- List Server by Sunnyside Computing, Inc.
X-Comment:  Discussion of history of computing
X-Info:  For listserv info write to listserv@cpsr.org with message HELP
X-Message-Id: <1309391616619.LTK.013@cpsr.org>
X-UIDL: 839517089.035


Sender: "Suzanne M. Johnson" 
Subject: TVEDIT

Regarding the editor known as TVEDIT.  I still consider it a model for other
"word processors" to live up to...and I've not yet found one that does.  I
certainly have never seen another editor or word processor thanked by an
author and acknowledged as contributing greatly to making a book possible.

In the book "Godel, Escher, Bach:  An Eternal Golden Braid", by Douglas R.
Hofstadter, Vintage Books Edition, 1980, the following is contained in the
"Words of Thanks", (pg xx):
        "This brings me to Pentii Kanerva, the author of the text-editing
program to which this book owes its existence.  I have said to many people
that it would have taken me twice as long to write my book if I hadn't been
able to use "TV-Edit", that graceful program which is so simple in spirit
that only Pentii could have written it.  It is also thanks to Pentii that I
was able to do something which very few authors have ever done: typeset my
own book.  He has been a major force in the development of computer
typesetting at IMSSS.  Equally important to me, however, is Pentii's rare
quality:  his sense of style.  If my book looks good, to Pentii is due much
of the credit."

        I do have TVEDIT documentation, and other related
materials..including (I think in storage) a videotape made  of the Context
system.  Context was a timeshared computer at Stanford (early '80s) running
Tenex or Tops-20 that was designed to support text creation across the
breadth of the Stanford community. TVEDIT was a very optimized editor, using
carefully selected "dumb" terminals.  The number of users of this type that
one computer could support made it an extremely cost effective way to
provide computer cycles for text preparation...and, I'll bet it still would
be.

                Suzanne
__________________________________________________
Suzanne M. Johnson           Sunnyvale, California
              johnson@rahul.net
______________________________________________________________________
            Posted by David S. Bennahum (davidsol@panix.com)
                    Moderator: Community Memory
            http://www.reach.com/matrix/community-memory.html
         A CPSR Project -- http://www.cpsr.org -- cpsr@cpsr.org
 Materials may be reposted in their *entirety* for non-commercial use.
 Want to receive the day's postings bundled together into one message?
 It's easy.  Send a note to listserv@cpsr.org that reads:
                       SET CPSR-HISTORY MAIL DIGEST
______________________________________________________________________
Date: Thu, 8 Aug 1996 02:21:50 -0700
Reply-To: cpsr-history@Sunnyside.COM
Originator: cpsr-history@cpsr.org
Sender: listserv-reply-errors@Sunnyside.COM
Precedence: bulk
From: "A. Padgett Peterson P.E. Information Security" 
To: "Multiple recipients of list cpsr-history@cpsr.org" 
Subject: CM> Keypunchers and cards
X-Listprocessor-Version: 9.1 -- List Server by Sunnyside Computing, Inc.
X-Comment:  Discussion of history of computing
X-Info:  For listserv info write to listserv@cpsr.org with message HELP
X-Message-Id: <822855273109.LTK.013@cpsr.org>
X-UIDL: 839517089.036


Sender: "A. Padgett Peterson P.E. Information Security"

Subject: Keypunchers and cards

Dan rote:
>The other predominate width in the late 60's was the line printer width of 132
>positions.  Print position 1 (on IBM's printers anyway) was reserved for paper
>control.  A blank moved to the next print line, a 0 doubled spaced, and a 1
>ejected the next page.

Think that was a line printer standard or at least all the DEC printers I
saw around them followed it also.

Recall programming many keypunches (forget the designation but this was the
unit that had a small drum in the middle that was programmable. You took
a punch card and ran it through typing various caharacters on the line
(surely someone here remembers the codes) and put it on the drum so that
as a new card fed in from the hopper on the right, it would automatically
register on col 2. When programming in FORTRAN the statement number went
in 2-6 and the statement started in col 7.

For some reason the statement had to stop on 78 and not 80 but I do not
recall why (this was a few years ago). Do know that as each field
was complete you just hit a key and it would automatically index to the
next programmed field.

Also recall that it could be set to automatically print a character or series
on the card but do not think it could autoincrement.

As memory serves, once managed an all-time best of 600 cards in an hour.
Since that was one every 10 seconds it must have had a *lot* of very short
statements.

                                        Warmly,
                                                Padgett

ps for years I carried a "Collins Computer Diary", a small daily calendar
   that was about 2 1/2"x5". In the front there was a history/glossary
   of computer terms and tables of everything from Baudot to EBCDIC. Very
   handy and always used to find a source in the UK to send me one.
   Unfortunately in 1994 it was "decontented" (only ASCII table), in 1995
   it became quite garish, and for 1996 it was discontinued for poor sales
   (no wonder). Just a bit of trivia.
______________________________________________________________________
            Posted by David S. Bennahum (davidsol@panix.com)
                    Moderator: Community Memory
            http://www.reach.com/matrix/community-memory.html
         A CPSR Project -- http://www.cpsr.org -- cpsr@cpsr.org
 Materials may be reposted in their *entirety* for non-commercial use.
 Want to receive the day's postings bundled together into one message?
 It's easy.  Send a note to listserv@cpsr.org that reads:
                       SET CPSR-HISTORY MAIL DIGEST
______________________________________________________________________
Date: Thu, 8 Aug 1996 02:25:32 -0700
Reply-To: cpsr-history@Sunnyside.COM
Originator: cpsr-history@cpsr.org
Sender: listserv-reply-errors@Sunnyside.COM
Precedence: bulk
From: LESPEA@muze.com (Leslie Pearson)
To: "Multiple recipients of list cpsr-history@cpsr.org" 
Subject: CM> Where Wizards Stay Up Late: book info.
X-Listprocessor-Version: 9.1 -- List Server by Sunnyside Computing, Inc.
X-Comment:  Discussion of history of computing
X-Info:  For listserv info write to listserv@cpsr.org with message HELP
X-Message-Id: <1841519093331.LTK.013@cpsr.org>
X-UIDL: 839517089.025


Sender: LESPEA@muze.com (Leslie Pearson)
Subject: Where Wizards Stay Up Late


Where Wizards Stay Up Late: The Story Behind The Creation of The Internet
Katie Hafner and Matthew Lyons
ISBN: 0-684-81201-0
Trade Cloth
Simon and Schuster Trade 8/96 $24.00

Leslie Pearson
(lespea@muze.com)
______________________________________________________________________
            Posted by David S. Bennahum (davidsol@panix.com)
                    Moderator: Community Memory
            http://www.reach.com/matrix/community-memory.html
         A CPSR Project -- http://www.cpsr.org -- cpsr@cpsr.org
 Materials may be reposted in their *entirety* for non-commercial use.
 Want to receive the day's postings bundled together into one message?
 It's easy.  Send a note to listserv@cpsr.org that reads:
                       SET CPSR-HISTORY MAIL DIGEST
______________________________________________________________________
Date: Thu, 8 Aug 1996 02:29:59 -0700
Reply-To: cpsr-history@Sunnyside.COM
Originator: cpsr-history@cpsr.org
Sender: listserv-reply-errors@Sunnyside.COM
Precedence: bulk
From: peter@baileynm.com (Peter da Silva)
To: "Multiple recipients of list cpsr-history@cpsr.org" 
Subject: CM> Community Memory & PCC.
X-Listprocessor-Version: 9.1 -- List Server by Sunnyside Computing, Inc.
X-Comment:  Discussion of history of computing
X-Info:  For listserv info write to listserv@cpsr.org with message HELP
X-Message-Id: <1463759121598.LTK.013@cpsr.org>
X-UIDL: 839517089.027


Sender: peter@baileynm.com (Peter da Silva)
Subject: Re: CM> Community Memory.

> Any PCC recollections out there?

I never ran into PCC, but a guy at UCB (I forget his name now) wrote a copy
of the PCC's "public caves" system, and I was inspired to use that as the
model for a BBS I ran for several years. It was sort of like today's "MUDs",
albeit one person at a time (one phone line). You could build rooms (dig
caves) in any of 10 directions (an 8-arm compass, up, and down), and each room
had a description and a chain of messages that were "written on the walls".
______________________________________________________________________
            Posted by David S. Bennahum (davidsol@panix.com)
                    Moderator: Community Memory
            http://www.reach.com/matrix/community-memory.html
         A CPSR Project -- http://www.cpsr.org -- cpsr@cpsr.org
 Materials may be reposted in their *entirety* for non-commercial use.
 Want to receive the day's postings bundled together into one message?
 It's easy.  Send a note to listserv@cpsr.org that reads:
                       SET CPSR-HISTORY MAIL DIGEST
______________________________________________________________________
Date: Fri, 9 Aug 1996 01:07:36 -0700
Reply-To: cpsr-history@Sunnyside.COM
Originator: cpsr-history@cpsr.org
Sender: listserv-reply-errors@Sunnyside.COM
Precedence: bulk
From: "Wesley J. Miller ((8-444) 919-254-9774)" 
To: "Multiple recipients of list cpsr-history@cpsr.org" 
Subject: CM> Nine Questions on Machine History.
X-Listprocessor-Version: 9.1 -- List Server by Sunnyside Computing, Inc.
X-Comment:  Discussion of history of computing
X-Info:  For listserv info write to listserv@cpsr.org with message HELP
X-Message-Id: <88110959855.LTK.013@cpsr.org>
X-UIDL: 839600992.026


Sender: "Wesley J. Miller ((8-444) 919-254-9774)" 
Subject: Machine History

I'm a short-timer in the world of computing; I started with FORTRAN-66 on punch
cards about 1978 using WATFIV and FORTRAN-H.

As I read the recollections of folks who came into computing before and about
the same time as I, I am remembering all those stories I heard and questions I
only ever got partially answered.  So, here is a list of questions that I hope
will start a few memories flowing and get some history nailed down for all of
us short timers.

1. The first "personal computer" I used was a Datapoint 1134.  I know the
last digit represented the number of floppy drives installed.  I also
remember that the machine had 16K of memory on four 4K memory cards that
plugged into the processor cards on which I was told there was an 8080 -- not
the chip but a hardwired-from-discretes equivalent which Datapoint used
because Intel couldn't get the 8080 out in time.  Questions:  Was it in fact
an "8080"?  Was it Datapoint that drove Intel to develop the 8080?

2.  It's easy to see that EBCDIC came from punch card encoding.  Where did
ASCII come from?  Why did someone choose to rewrite the coding standard when
both EBCDIC and ASCII seem perfectly capable of doing the same thing?

3.  Just why is it that some folks say IBM never got time-sharing right?
They've sold a LOT of TSO, after all. (No, this is NOT a debate on
market-share = got-it-right)

4.  I personally think TSO is about the most user-hostile environment/op-sys
on earth.  I first used IBM's CMS version 2 as an op-sys about 1982.  I still
use it (even as I type this note).  Yes it's old and character only but it
is SO much easier to use than TSO.  What's the history of CMS?  Why did it
never replace TSO?  Unix?

5.  Yes, I use UNIX.  Yes, I like it--yes, I hate it.  Where did the
let's-make-it-so-cryptic-no-one-can-intuitively-figure-it-out mentality
and naming conventions come from?  TYPE ... | FiND .... sure seems
a lot more obvious to me than CAT ... | GREP ...

6.  IBM numbers bits from left to right; the MSB is bit 0.  Who decided to
do this dumb thing?  Same is true of byte and character string numbering.

7.  Who decided that token-ring and ethernet addresses are sent in opposite
orders?  LSB-first vs. MSB-first?

8.  Why are people trying to shoehorn FORTRAN into an array handling language?
Why aren't they using APL/2 instead?

9.  And finally, for now, who designed and why do we use the file system used
by DOS, MAC, Unix and I don't know what else?  Specifically, these file systems
treat all text files as one long string with records indicated by wasting
the two characters 0D and 0A.  Mainframes and even my dear departed Datapoint
1134 used a full blown file system where records are stored as records.  Each
record either points to the next/last record or has a length indicator.  No
characters are wasted.  Same question really applies to C and DOS ASCII-Z
strings.  Who decided 00h wasn't a datum?  Ever try to pick apart non-text
data and not be able to use those nice routines that think the 00's aren't
data?

Wesley J. Miller

[Moderator's Note: In answering these questions, I urge you to remember to
keep your posts grounded in people, rather than de-contextualized
speculation -- i.e. tell us stories you know of first-hand, or head from
someone who was involved in these decisions.]
______________________________________________________________________
            Posted by David S. Bennahum (davidsol@panix.com)
                    Moderator: Community Memory
            http://www.reach.com/matrix/community-memory.html
         A CPSR Project -- http://www.cpsr.org -- cpsr@cpsr.org
 Materials may be reposted in their *entirety* for non-commercial use.
 Want to receive the day's postings bundled together into one message?
 It's easy.  Send a note to listserv@cpsr.org that reads:
                       SET CPSR-HISTORY MAIL DIGEST
______________________________________________________________________
Date: Fri, 9 Aug 1996 01:13:34 -0700
Reply-To: cpsr-history@Sunnyside.COM
Originator: cpsr-history@cpsr.org
Sender: listserv-reply-errors@Sunnyside.COM
Precedence: bulk
From: Nelson Winkless 
To: "Multiple recipients of list cpsr-history@cpsr.org" 
Subject: CM> Adam Osborne, Hot Pigs, Cool Ice.
X-Listprocessor-Version: 9.1 -- List Server by Sunnyside Computing, Inc.
X-Comment:  Discussion of history of computing
X-Info:  For listserv info write to listserv@cpsr.org with message HELP
X-Message-Id: <1978130094413.LTK.013@cpsr.org>
X-UIDL: 839600992.027


Sender: Nelson Winkless 
Subject: CM> Adam Osborne

Just a quick image--

At the 1977 National Computer Conference in Dallas, National
Semiconductor threw a splendid reception on the top floor of
a downtown bank building. The affair featured huge ice sculptures
and two (count them, two) roast suckling pigs on delicacy-laden
tables at opposite ends on the hall.

As we entered the venue, Dallas belles tied brightly colored
western bandannas around our necks to give the proper cowboy
flavor to our appearance. Since most of us were wearing suits,
the effect was a trifle odd.

Adam Osborne, a tall, spare fellow, was wearing a dark,
pinstriped suit, and he was a distinctive figure, visible from
any part of the room in his stripes and bright neckerchief.

Actually, Adam wasn't alone in pinstripes. His fellow Englishman
John Peers ("the Monty Python of the Computer Industry") of
Logical Machine Company was also in pinstripes, looking just as
peculiar, if not quite as tall as Adam.

Apart from some pleasantries delivered by Charlie Sporck of
National the evening featured the spectacular crash of one of the
ice sculptures, its base presumably melting faster than expected,
owing to exposure to hot pig. One of Byte Shop founder Paul Terrell's
numerous brothers also sampled the wares at Mr. Sporck's bar
so diligently, that he lost his way, and wandered harmlessly out of
the building into the late-night Dallas streets. He couldn't explain
who he was, or what he was doing, but a cop, noticing the bright rag
around his neck, followed a trail of similarly marked people, and
brought the dazed wanderer back to the party.

That was the first time I saw Adam. The image sticks firmly in the
memory.

--Nels Winkless

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Nelson Winkless                   Email: correspo@swcp.com
ABQ Communications Corporation    Voice: 505-897-0822
P.O. Box 1432                     Fax:   505-898-6525
Corrales NM 87048 USA             Website: http://www.swcp.com/correspo
______________________________________________________________________
            Posted by David S. Bennahum (davidsol@panix.com)
                    Moderator: Community Memory
            http://www.reach.com/matrix/community-memory.html
         A CPSR Project -- http://www.cpsr.org -- cpsr@cpsr.org
 Materials may be reposted in their *entirety* for non-commercial use.
 Want to receive the day's postings bundled together into one message?
 It's easy.  Send a note to listserv@cpsr.org that reads:
                       SET CPSR-HISTORY MAIL DIGEST
______________________________________________________________________
Date: Fri, 9 Aug 1996 01:18:34 -0700
Reply-To: cpsr-history@Sunnyside.COM
Originator: cpsr-history@cpsr.org
Sender: listserv-reply-errors@Sunnyside.COM
Precedence: bulk
From: Josh Hodas 
To: "Multiple recipients of list cpsr-history@cpsr.org" 
Subject: CM> Early interactive games
X-Listprocessor-Version: 9.1 -- List Server by Sunnyside Computing, Inc.
X-Comment:  Discussion of history of computing
X-Info:  For listserv info write to listserv@cpsr.org with message HELP
X-Message-Id: <1080365102713.LTK.013@cpsr.org>
X-UIDL: 839600992.046


Sender: Josh Hodas 
Subject: Re: CM> Early interactive games

> > Sender: Les Earnest 
> > Subject: CM> Early interactive games.
> >
> > Padgett Peterson writes:
> >    In 1956 or possibly early 1957 I visited the Franklin Institute in
> >    Philadelphia and one of the exhibits was a "computer" that played
> >    tic-tac-toe. My memory says it was a Univac but that is becoming
> >    increasingly unreliable. What I do recall is that it was big and
> >    the display was a tic-tac-toe matrix with illuminated "X"s and "O"s.

This brought back fond memories for me of a different initiation.
It seems to me that my irst contact with computers must have
been in the IBM building in New York. I cannot say for sure at
what age this happened. I would suspect somewhere between the ages
of 6 and 10, which would be roughly 1970-1974.

They used to have a display set up with a cluster of TTY's on which
you could play twenty-questions with the computer. I think there
may also have been a tic-tac-toe setup similar to the one Padgett
described as well.

I have very fond memories of these visits (I think we went almost
any time we were in that part of Manhattan), and I think
they may well have had alot to do with my eventual career choices
(though I was not the sort of kid who immediately went home and tried
to figure out how computers worked and built tic-tac-toe players
from matchboxes).

(Of course my other fond memory of that period was visits to the
Monsanto Mill showroom where they had a demonstration of fiber/
cloth manufacturing. Perhaps if computers hadn't worked out
I'd have gone into fabric production...)

The mention of TTYs brings up another thing. Last year in my intro
CS class I was going through the standard diagram of the prototypical
computer (you know the one: input unit ----> computer ----> output unit)
and how what was meant by input and output had changed over the years.
It suddenly became clear to me that the students had no idea what
a printing terminal was and couldn't even conceive of a non-glass TTY.

Josh
______________________________________________________________________
            Posted by David S. Bennahum (davidsol@panix.com)
                    Moderator: Community Memory
            http://www.reach.com/matrix/community-memory.html
         A CPSR Project -- http://www.cpsr.org -- cpsr@cpsr.org
 Materials may be reposted in their *entirety* for non-commercial use.
 Want to receive the day's postings bundled together into one message?
 It's easy.  Send a note to listserv@cpsr.org that reads:
                       SET CPSR-HISTORY MAIL DIGEST
______________________________________________________________________
Date: Fri, 9 Aug 1996 01:22:59 -0700
Reply-To: cpsr-history@Sunnyside.COM
Originator: cpsr-history@cpsr.org
Sender: listserv-reply-errors@Sunnyside.COM
Precedence: bulk
From: Brad Wieners 
To: "Multiple recipients of list cpsr-history@cpsr.org" 
Subject: CM> Book Alert: Where Wizards Stay Up Late.
X-Listprocessor-Version: 9.1 -- List Server by Sunnyside Computing, Inc.
X-Comment:  Discussion of history of computing
X-Info:  For listserv info write to listserv@cpsr.org with message HELP
X-Message-Id: <1002790160978.LTK.013@cpsr.org>
X-UIDL: 839600992.038


Sender: Brad Wieners 
Subject: Re: CM> Book Alert: Where Wizards Stay Up Late.

As far as I know _Wizards_ is due in stores no later than Septmeber 1.
(Official pub date is Aug. 20).  If you're going to review it, you might
hit Kerri Kennedy at S & S up for a review copy.  (212) 698 7537

_Wizards_ also receives a favorable notice from Stewart Brand in the Sept.
issue of _Wired_.

Having also read a preprint copy, my only complaint is that it could have
been a better _story_.  Hafner and Lyon manage to fill us in on the
employment histories of an impressive number of people, (so much so I felt
like I needed a flow chart to keep track of them all), but few complete
characters emerge. But my desires as a reader aside, I have little doubt it
will be a sourcework on the Net.

BW
______________________________________________________________________
            Posted by David S. Bennahum (davidsol@panix.com)
                    Moderator: Community Memory
            http://www.reach.com/matrix/community-memory.html
         A CPSR Project -- http://www.cpsr.org -- cpsr@cpsr.org
 Materials may be reposted in their *entirety* for non-commercial use.
 Want to receive the day's postings bundled together into one message?
 It's easy.  Send a note to listserv@cpsr.org that reads:
                       SET CPSR-HISTORY MAIL DIGEST
______________________________________________________________________
Date: Fri, 9 Aug 1996 01:28:25 -0700
Reply-To: cpsr-history@Sunnyside.COM
Originator: cpsr-history@cpsr.org
Sender: listserv-reply-errors@Sunnyside.COM
Precedence: bulk
From: "Mike O'Brien" 
To: "Multiple recipients of list cpsr-history@cpsr.org" 
Subject: CM> Early interactive games, EDSAC simulator for Mac/PC.
X-Listprocessor-Version: 9.1 -- List Server by Sunnyside Computing, Inc.
X-Comment:  Discussion of history of computing
X-Info:  For listserv info write to listserv@cpsr.org with message HELP
X-Message-Id: <880454593304.LTK.013@cpsr.org>
X-UIDL: 839600992.041


Sender: "Mike O'Brien" 
Subject: Re: CM> Early interactive games, EDSAC simulator for Mac/PC.

> Sender: Les Earnest 
> Subject: CM> Early interactive games.
> I vaguely recall that someone at Bell Labs built a relay computer that
> played tic-tac-toe sometime in the late 1940s or early 1950s.  The
> TX-0 computer at MIT also had a tic-tac-toe game when I started
> playing with it in 1959.  It displayed the board on its CRT and you
> selected moves by pointing with a lite pen.

        Such a machine graced the "demo hall" of the Buhl Planetarium in
Pittsburgh throughout the '50s and '60s, at least.  It was one of the
seminal influences of my childhood.  It was housed in a plastic case so
you could see all the telephone switching relays firing.  It's the first
computer I ever consciously used, and the last one which played
Tic-Tac-Toe slower than I did.  What's odd is that most of the kerchunking
of the relays (you could hear groups of them firing in distinct phases)
occurred AFTER the machine made its move.  I remember being puzzled about
that at the time, and I guess I still am.  Could it be that it was
precomputing?

        Pittsburgh, at least at that time, lacked a science museum (it
still may not have one) but the Buhl filled the bill rather well.
______________________________________________________________________
            Posted by David S. Bennahum (davidsol@panix.com)
                    Moderator: Community Memory
            http://www.reach.com/matrix/community-memory.html
         A CPSR Project -- http://www.cpsr.org -- cpsr@cpsr.org
 Materials may be reposted in their *entirety* for non-commercial use.
 Want to receive the day's postings bundled together into one message?
 It's easy.  Send a note to listserv@cpsr.org that reads:
                       SET CPSR-HISTORY MAIL DIGEST
______________________________________________________________________
Date: Fri, 9 Aug 1996 01:36:21 -0700
Reply-To: cpsr-history@Sunnyside.COM
Originator: cpsr-history@cpsr.org
Sender: listserv-reply-errors@Sunnyside.COM
Precedence: bulk
From: wandd@netcom.com (Dirk H van Nouhuys)
To: "Multiple recipients of list cpsr-history@cpsr.org" 
Subject: CM> J.C.R. Licklider and Doug Engelbart
X-Listprocessor-Version: 9.1 -- List Server by Sunnyside Computing, Inc.
X-Comment:  Discussion of history of computing
X-Info:  For listserv info write to listserv@cpsr.org with message HELP
X-Message-Id: <1498916295780.LTK.013@cpsr.org>
X-UIDL: 839600992.047


Sender: wandd@netcom.com (Dirk H van Nouhuys)
Subject: Re: J.C.R. Licklider and Doug Engelbart

I wrote:
      It's been mentioned here before but it bears repeating that several of the
      features we associate with interactive use of personal computers were
      developed first in a timesharing environment by the Doug Engelbart group
      at SRI in the late 60's and early 70's. These include the mouse,
hypertext,
      and two-dimensional editing. (This use of the screen two-dimensionally (as
      opposed to the previous standard, line by line) did not involve
graphics or
      menus in the Engelbart group.)

Les Earnest commented
   While Engelbart's group did do some pioneering work, they were not the
   first to do two-dimensional editing.  A display-oriented timesharing
   system called Zeus was developed at Stanford University by John
   McCarthy in the 1964-66 period based on a DEC PDP-1 computer with 8 or
   so Philco CRT displays attached and included a 2-D text editor called
   TVEDIT.  I'm sure that Engelbart's group knew of that work inasmuch as
   they were located just two miles away and visited occasionally.

I should first explain that I worked in the Engelbart group (The
Augmentation Research Center to use its formal name in later days) from
 1971 through its move to Tymshare in 1978 and until 1980.

I've been cudgeling my brain about this. Les is right. I have seen the
statement I made above, I think in print, but it is wrong, and my memory
is we did not make it at the time. I didn't see the Stanford system until
Suppes' time


I wrote:
      Note that machines with a tiny fraction of the power of your desktop
      computer were "supporting" 30 or more people. Response was horrendous.

Les commented:
   Not necessarily.  Our DEC-10 timesharing system could happily carry a
   load of 30 or more people doing a mixture of editing and computing,
   with fraction-of-a-second response times for editing.

I don't doubt it. But they were not running Augment, which was a Big
System, vaguely comparable to Microsoft Office, but in some ways more
 powerful though lacking spreadsheet or database functions. My memory is
 that at that time it was around 400,000 lines of code. It was slow.

By the way, it was later called Augment, but at first called NLS, which,
strangely, stood for On-line System, since an OLS existed at the time.


I wrote:
      Later on in the 70's all the work
      in Menlo Park was being done on machines at BBN in Boston or ISI in Los
      Angeles through the (then called)ARPANet, partly to save money and
      partly to prove it was possible. It was barely possible.  [. . .]

Les commented:
   I find this remark puzzling, in as much as SRI had substantial computer
   facilities from the 1960s on.  Perhaps a few people there used
   computers elsewhere via the ARPAnet, but not anyone I knew.

It didn't make sense to many of us either, but it was done for the reasons I
mentioned. I'm not sure whether Les refers to SRI machines or
Augmentation Research Center machines. ARC was always psycho-socially
rather isolated from the rest of SRI and depended on its own machines.


 I wrote:
      Engelbart was fully aware of the problems of time sharing for interactive
      work with the computer power and network bandwidth of the time and
      would have preferred to work on what would now be called personal
      computers, but was dragged into it by Licklider and others who were
      interested in the development of time sharing and controlled his funding.

Les Commented:
   This remark makes no sense to me -- at the time that ARPA started
   funding Engelbart's group and for about another decade there was no
   such thing as a personal computer, hence it is rather unlikely that
   Lick dragged him away from working on that nonexistent device.

By personal computer I meant one that an individual could use
interactively, for example a PDP-8. Engelbart foresaw the day when
 machines that could run his system would be available to at least some
 individuals and would have liked  to work toward that.

ARC was required to make copious reports to ARPA, the Rome Air
Development Center, and the National Science Foundation, where most of
this information is spelled out in detail. I even have some in boxes
somewhere. Information about ARC, including it's copious e-mail
archives, were housed in a collection at Stanford in the  care of Henry
Lowood the last time I heard. I joined after the celebrated demo, but I still
know people that were presnt; I'll try to get some one to write about it for
this group. I believe Engelbart himself is still active through Stanford.

[Moderator's Note:  Perhaps someone on this list knows Doug well enough to
ask him to contribute to this thread -- his relationship with ARPA,
Licklider and ARCs mission.  It would be terrific to read Doug's thoughts
on all this.]
______________________________________________________________________
            Posted by David S. Bennahum (davidsol@panix.com)
                    Moderator: Community Memory
            http://www.reach.com/matrix/community-memory.html
         A CPSR Project -- http://www.cpsr.org -- cpsr@cpsr.org
 Materials may be reposted in their *entirety* for non-commercial use.
 Want to receive the day's postings bundled together into one message?
 It's easy.  Send a note to listserv@cpsr.org that reads:
                       SET CPSR-HISTORY MAIL DIGEST
______________________________________________________________________
Date: Fri, 9 Aug 1996 01:49:22 -0700
Reply-To: cpsr-history@Sunnyside.COM
Originator: cpsr-history@cpsr.org
Sender: listserv-reply-errors@Sunnyside.COM
Precedence: bulk
From: "Chris.P.Burton" 
To: "Multiple recipients of list cpsr-history@cpsr.org" 
Subject: CM> Noughts and Crosses - Tic Tac Toe (MENACE)
X-Listprocessor-Version: 9.1 -- List Server by Sunnyside Computing, Inc.
X-Comment:  Discussion of history of computing
X-Info:  For listserv info write to listserv@cpsr.org with message HELP
X-Message-Id: <1909394650561.LTK.013@cpsr.org>
X-UIDL: 839600992.044


Sender: "Chris.P.Burton" 
Subject: Noughts and Crosses - Tic Tac Toe

In message <584865613924.LTK.013@cpsr.org> cpsr-history@Sunnyside.COM writes:
>
> Sender: Ross 
> Subject: Re: CM> Early interactive games.
>
> > Sender: Les Earnest 
> > Subject: CM> Early interactive games.
> >
> > Padgett Peterson writes:
> >    In 1956 or possibly early 1957 I visited the Franklin Institute in
> >    Philadelphia and one of the exhibits was a "computer" that played
> >    tic-tac-toe. My memory says it was a Univac but that is becoming
> >    increasingly unreliable. What I do recall is that it was big and
> >    the display was a tic-tac-toe matrix with illuminated "X"s and "O"s.
> >
> > I vaguely recall that someone at Bell Labs built a relay computer that
> > played tic-tac-toe sometime in the late 1940s or early 1950s.  The
> > TX-0 computer at MIT also had a tic-tac-toe game when I started
> > playing with it in 1959.  It displayed the board on its CRT and you
> > selected moves by pointing with a lite pen.

I built an electromechanical N&C machine in 1953 while at University.
The fashion then (as it is now?) was to give everything an acronym
so"MENACE" stood for Mechanical/Elecrical Noughts And Crosses Engine.
As a confirmed hoarder, thank goodness I have kept it, in working order
all these years - it is currently on display at the Computer
Conservation Society exhibition at Bletchley Park in the UK.

I know many other such engines were built at the time. Donald Davies
for one in the UK, and others in the USA I was aware of. Any other
amateur builders of the time want to speak up?

[... interesting EDSAC material snipped...]

--
Chris P. Burton,  Wern Ddu, Llansilin, Oswestry, Shropshire, SY10 9BN, UK
Tel+fax: +44 1691 791274    A member of The Computer Conservation Society
______________________________________________________________________
            Posted by David S. Bennahum (davidsol@panix.com)
                    Moderator: Community Memory
            http://www.reach.com/matrix/community-memory.html
         A CPSR Project -- http://www.cpsr.org -- cpsr@cpsr.org
 Materials may be reposted in their *entirety* for non-commercial use.
 Want to receive the day's postings bundled together into one message?
 It's easy.  Send a note to listserv@cpsr.org that reads:
                       SET CPSR-HISTORY MAIL DIGEST
______________________________________________________________________
Date: Fri, 9 Aug 1996 01:56:12 -0700
Reply-To: cpsr-history@Sunnyside.COM
Originator: cpsr-history@cpsr.org
Sender: listserv-reply-errors@Sunnyside.COM
Precedence: bulk
From: Paul Ceruzzi 
To: "Multiple recipients of list cpsr-history@cpsr.org" 
Subject: CM> Timesharing & History (cont.)
X-Listprocessor-Version: 9.1 -- List Server by Sunnyside Computing, Inc.
X-Comment:  Discussion of history of computing
X-Info:  For listserv info write to listserv@cpsr.org with message HELP
X-Message-Id: <1718011834971.LTK.013@cpsr.org>
X-UIDL: 839600992.040


Sender: Paul Ceruzzi 
Subject: Timesharing & History (cont.)


I do not claim that Liklider, Fano, et al, were not visionaries; I only
say that the time-sharing model of computing they had was flawed. That,
among other things, helps us understand why the announcement of a $400
bag of parts, the Altair, in 1975 caused such a furor. People really
wanted a system they could call their own and do with as they wished,
even it it meant using it as a doorstop (which was about all you could
do with an Altair unless you were really talented with a soldering iron
& sweep oscilloscope).

See my recent article in _History & Technology_, 13 (1996), 1-31.

I'll go out on a limb & predict that the $500 so-called "Internet
Appliance" will fail for this same reason.
______________________________________________________________________
            Posted by David S. Bennahum (davidsol@panix.com)
                    Moderator: Community Memory
            http://www.reach.com/matrix/community-memory.html
         A CPSR Project -- http://www.cpsr.org -- cpsr@cpsr.org
 Materials may be reposted in their *entirety* for non-commercial use.
 Want to receive the day's postings bundled together into one message?
 It's easy.  Send a note to listserv@cpsr.org that reads:
                       SET CPSR-HISTORY MAIL DIGEST
______________________________________________________________________
Date: Fri, 9 Aug 1996 02:02:46 -0700
Reply-To: cpsr-history@Sunnyside.COM
Originator: cpsr-history@cpsr.org
Sender: listserv-reply-errors@Sunnyside.COM
Precedence: bulk
From: SteveElde@aol.com
To: "Multiple recipients of list cpsr-history@cpsr.org" 
Subject: CM> IBNUC
X-Listprocessor-Version: 9.1 -- List Server by Sunnyside Computing, Inc.
X-Comment:  Discussion of history of computing
X-Info:  For listserv info write to listserv@cpsr.org with message HELP
X-Message-Id: <172648034364.LTK.013@cpsr.org>
X-UIDL: 839600992.037


Sender: SteveElde@aol.com
Subject: IBNUC

Does anybody know about IBNUC?  This is a contraction of "IBM Nucleus", and
the way I heard it described, it was what we now call ROM.  Any information
will be appreciated.

Steve Elder
steveelde@aol.com
______________________________________________________________________
            Posted by David S. Bennahum (davidsol@panix.com)
                    Moderator: Community Memory
            http://www.reach.com/matrix/community-memory.html
         A CPSR Project -- http://www.cpsr.org -- cpsr@cpsr.org
 Materials may be reposted in their *entirety* for non-commercial use.
 Want to receive the day's postings bundled together into one message?
 It's easy.  Send a note to listserv@cpsr.org that reads:
                       SET CPSR-HISTORY MAIL DIGEST
______________________________________________________________________
Date: Sat, 10 Aug 1996 01:04:30 -0700
Reply-To: cpsr-history@Sunnyside.COM
Originator: cpsr-history@cpsr.org
Sender: listserv-reply-errors@Sunnyside.COM
Precedence: bulk
From: "Peter H. Salus" 
To: "Multiple recipients of list cpsr-history@cpsr.org" 
Subject: CM> early display-orieneted editors, "expensive typewriter."
X-Listprocessor-Version: 9.1 -- List Server by Sunnyside Computing, Inc.
X-Comment:  Discussion of history of computing
X-Info:  For listserv info write to listserv@cpsr.org with message HELP
X-Message-Id: <247034076265.LTK.013@cpsr.org>
X-Status: 
X-UIDL: 839776397.027


Sender: "Peter H. Salus" 
Subject: Re: CM> early display-orieneted editors, "expensive typewriter."


As a pedantic historian, I feel it necessary to carry
Mike O'Brien's paragraph about the Rand Editor a step
further.

Ned Irons created the screen editor and command
interface for the CDC 6600 at the IDA in Princeton
in 1967 (IDASYS).  Irons went to Yale in 1969,
where he wrote a new (similar) editor on the
PDP-10 in 1971 (Yale Editor).  When Peter Weiner, head of
CS at Yale, left to become head of IS at Rand, he
contracted Walt Bilofsky to implement an editor
called ``re'' (1974).  The first Rand Editor was in C
on UNIX v5 (later v6).  There were extensions in 77
(when it was renamed ``ned'' -- New Editor *and*
Ned Irons) by Bilofsky and in 78 (when Bruce Borden
wrote FFIO and Dave Crocker the FFIO library into ned).
In 1979, Dave Yost went to work for Rand and rewrote most
of ned.  This went further in 1980 with the aid of
Rick Kiessig and Mark Horton.  Yost left Rand in 81, but
continued on the editor, which was renamed the Grand
Editor, while employed by Davis Polk and Wardwell in NY.
In 1988 he published ``The Grand Editor Book.''  I
ran the Grand Editor, v.3.1, at USENIX in 1988.

Peter H. Salus
______________________________________________________________________
            Posted by David S. Bennahum (davidsol@panix.com)
                    Moderator: Community Memory
            http://www.reach.com/matrix/community-memory.html
         A CPSR Project -- http://www.cpsr.org -- cpsr@cpsr.org
 Materials may be reposted in their *entirety* for non-commercial use.
 Want to receive the day's postings bundled together into one message?
 It's easy.  Send a note to listserv@cpsr.org that reads:
                       SET CPSR-HISTORY MAIL DIGEST
______________________________________________________________________
Date: Sat, 10 Aug 1996 01:10:36 -0700
Reply-To: cpsr-history@Sunnyside.COM
Originator: cpsr-history@cpsr.org
Sender: listserv-reply-errors@Sunnyside.COM
Precedence: bulk
From: John Oliver 
To: "Multiple recipients of list cpsr-history@cpsr.org" 
Subject: CM> Keypunchers and cards
X-Listprocessor-Version: 9.1 -- List Server by Sunnyside Computing, Inc.
X-Comment:  Discussion of history of computing
X-Info:  For listserv info write to listserv@cpsr.org with message HELP
X-Message-Id: <833394932635.LTK.013@cpsr.org>
X-Status: 
X-UIDL: 839776397.039


Sender: John Oliver 
Subject: Re: CM> Keypunchers and cards

At 02:22 AM 8/8/96 -0700, you wrote:
 ...
>Recall programming many keypunches (forget the designation but this was the
>unit that had a small drum in the middle that was programmable. You took
>a punch card and ran it through typing various caharacters on the line
>(surely someone here remembers the codes) and put it on the drum so that
>as a new card fed in from the hopper on the right, it would automatically
>register on col 2. When programming in FORTRAN the statement number went
>in 2-6 and the statement started in col 7.
I spent many happy (?) hours programming the 026 and later the 029
keypunches ... the alternate program feature allowed a great deal of
flexability in the use of the skip, autodup, char/numeric shift, and other
instructions available.

Minor note: I believe that all Fortran card formats used 1-5 as the
statement number, 6 as the continuation number, statement in 7-72, and card
number in 73-80.
--
John Oliver http://www.astro.ufl.edu/~oliver
 ... keeper of the [Netscape Navigator] UFAQ
     http://www.astro.ufl.edu/~oliver/faq/
______________________________________________________________________
            Posted by David S. Bennahum (davidsol@panix.com)
                    Moderator: Community Memory
            http://www.reach.com/matrix/community-memory.html
         A CPSR Project -- http://www.cpsr.org -- cpsr@cpsr.org
 Materials may be reposted in their *entirety* for non-commercial use.
 Want to receive the day's postings bundled together into one message?
 It's easy.  Send a note to listserv@cpsr.org that reads:
                       SET CPSR-HISTORY MAIL DIGEST
______________________________________________________________________
Date: Sat, 10 Aug 1996 01:14:04 -0700
Reply-To: cpsr-history@Sunnyside.COM
Originator: cpsr-history@cpsr.org
Sender: listserv-reply-errors@Sunnyside.COM
Precedence: bulk
From: baird@VV.COM (Jonathan B. Baird)
To: "Multiple recipients of list cpsr-history@cpsr.org" 
Subject: CM> "toy" computers: Heath-Kit 1963.
X-Listprocessor-Version: 9.1 -- List Server by Sunnyside Computing, Inc.
X-Comment:  Discussion of history of computing
X-Info:  For listserv info write to listserv@cpsr.org with message HELP
X-Message-Id: <15308418843.LTK.013@cpsr.org>
X-Status: 
X-UIDL: 839776397.029


Sender: baird@vv.com (Jonathan B. Baird)
Subject: Re: CM> "toy" computers: Heath-Kit 1963.

>(BTW, poor Heath Kit. Great company for hobbyists that fell on evil days
>when chips replaced tubes. I wonder if they're still around.)

        A quick check of http://www.heathkit.com says that they are...

                                Jonathan
 _
 \\\   _   /            Jonathan B. Baird
  \\\ //  /             baird@vv.com
   \\//  /              http://www.vv.com/
    \/ \/ .COM          http://www.vv.com/~baird
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
______________________________________________________________________
            Posted by David S. Bennahum (davidsol@panix.com)
                    Moderator: Community Memory
            http://www.reach.com/matrix/community-memory.html
         A CPSR Project -- http://www.cpsr.org -- cpsr@cpsr.org
 Materials may be reposted in their *entirety* for non-commercial use.
 Want to receive the day's postings bundled together into one message?
 It's easy.  Send a note to listserv@cpsr.org that reads:
                       SET CPSR-HISTORY MAIL DIGEST
______________________________________________________________________
Date: Sat, 10 Aug 1996 01:18:29 -0700
Reply-To: cpsr-history@Sunnyside.COM
Originator: cpsr-history@cpsr.org
Sender: listserv-reply-errors@Sunnyside.COM
Precedence: bulk
From: "William F. Anderson" 
To: "Multiple recipients of list cpsr-history@cpsr.org" 
Subject: CM> "toy" computers: Heath-Kit 1963.
X-Listprocessor-Version: 9.1 -- List Server by Sunnyside Computing, Inc.
X-Comment:  Discussion of history of computing
X-Info:  For listserv info write to listserv@cpsr.org with message HELP
X-Message-Id: <1721735400109.LTK.013@cpsr.org>
X-Status: 
X-UIDL: 839776397.046


Sender: "William F. Anderson" 
Subject: Re: CM> "toy" computers: Heath-Kit 1963.

I remember the kit, but I remember much earlier than 1963. By that time, I
had built a vacuum tube calculator. As I remember, it was made out of
masonite plug board with masonite dials. I built my first Heathkit radio in
1957, when I was in the sixth grade. That same year I made a bet with my
Father that I could get my amateur radio license by the end of the year. I
won, and he bought my first Heathkit transmitter. Heathkit was bought out
by another company and I am not sure if they are still in exsistence.

Bill Anderson
Author, Consultant
______________________________________________________________________
            Posted by David S. Bennahum (davidsol@panix.com)
                    Moderator: Community Memory
            http://www.reach.com/matrix/community-memory.html
         A CPSR Project -- http://www.cpsr.org -- cpsr@cpsr.org
 Materials may be reposted in their *entirety* for non-commercial use.
 Want to receive the day's postings bundled together into one message?
 It's easy.  Send a note to listserv@cpsr.org that reads:
                       SET CPSR-HISTORY MAIL DIGEST
______________________________________________________________________
Date: Sat, 10 Aug 1996 01:21:33 -0700
Reply-To: cpsr-history@Sunnyside.COM
Originator: cpsr-history@cpsr.org
Sender: listserv-reply-errors@Sunnyside.COM
Precedence: bulk
From: thvv@best.com (Tom Van Vleck)
To: "Multiple recipients of list cpsr-history@cpsr.org" 
Subject: CM> editors and tic-tac-toe
X-Listprocessor-Version: 9.1 -- List Server by Sunnyside Computing, Inc.
X-Comment:  Discussion of history of computing
X-Info:  For listserv info write to listserv@cpsr.org with message HELP
X-Message-Id: <1457397553292.LTK.013@cpsr.org>
X-Status: 
X-UIDL: 839776397.049


Sender: thvv@best.com (Tom Van Vleck)
Subject: editors and tic-tac-toe

I think it was Joe Ossanna who programmed tic-tac-toe for
Ken Thonpson's QED editor on CTSS, about 1967.  Might have been
Doug McIlroy though.  About the same time, Bill Gosper worte a
program in TECO to compute pi, using continued fractions.
Clearly both of these editors were Turing-equivalent, in principle
able to compute any function.  What other editors and command languages
of that era were able to do so?

Regarding Emacs: Bernie Greenberg's "Mother of all Emacs papers" is
available online at
  http://www.best.com/~thvv/mepap.html
it describes the history and implementation of Emacs in the late 70s.
______________________________________________________________________
            Posted by David S. Bennahum (davidsol@panix.com)
                    Moderator: Community Memory
            http://www.reach.com/matrix/community-memory.html
         A CPSR Project -- http://www.cpsr.org -- cpsr@cpsr.org
 Materials may be reposted in their *entirety* for non-commercial use.
 Want to receive the day's postings bundled together into one message?
 It's easy.  Send a note to listserv@cpsr.org that reads:
                       SET CPSR-HISTORY MAIL DIGEST
______________________________________________________________________
Date: Sat, 10 Aug 1996 01:25:02 -0700
Reply-To: cpsr-history@Sunnyside.COM
Originator: cpsr-history@cpsr.org
Sender: listserv-reply-errors@Sunnyside.COM
Precedence: bulk
From: "Julian Reitman" 
To: "Multiple recipients of list cpsr-history@cpsr.org" 
Subject: CM> Drum Memories
X-Listprocessor-Version: 9.1 -- List Server by Sunnyside Computing, Inc.
X-Comment:  Discussion of history of computing
X-Info:  For listserv info write to listserv@cpsr.org with message HELP
X-Message-Id: <772357872501.LTK.013@cpsr.org>
X-Status: 
X-UIDL: 839776397.053


Sender: "Julian Reitman" 
Subject: Re: Drum Memories

The recent comments on the IBM 650, its drum memory and why not disks
brought back experiences with the first drum in real time commercial
use. The TeleRgister "Reservisor" drum. This unit, actually two drums
coupled together, each writing and reading the same data, went into
service in 1952. The information density was 20 BITs per inch and the
synchronizing was from engraved tracks separate from the magnetic
media. These were large units. One was on display at the Smithsonian
for some time.
Maybe Paul Ceruzzi has the physical discription, but these were large
units, around twenty inches in diameter and three feet long.
All inforamtion was redundant and during their life they were not
uncoupled. Finally, the drums were very reliable compared to the
associated tube circuits.

Julian Reitman
______________________________________________________________________
            Posted by David S. Bennahum (davidsol@panix.com)
                    Moderator: Community Memory
            http://www.reach.com/matrix/community-memory.html
         A CPSR Project -- http://www.cpsr.org -- cpsr@cpsr.org
 Materials may be reposted in their *entirety* for non-commercial use.
 Want to receive the day's postings bundled together into one message?
 It's easy.  Send a note to listserv@cpsr.org that reads:
                       SET CPSR-HISTORY MAIL DIGEST
______________________________________________________________________
Date: Sat, 10 Aug 1996 01:28:50 -0700
Reply-To: cpsr-history@Sunnyside.COM
Originator: cpsr-history@cpsr.org
Sender: listserv-reply-errors@Sunnyside.COM
Precedence: bulk
From: "keith reid-green" 
To: "Multiple recipients of list cpsr-history@cpsr.org" 
Subject: CM> Keypunchers and cards
X-Listprocessor-Version: 9.1 -- List Server by Sunnyside Computing, Inc.
X-Comment:  Discussion of history of computing
X-Info:  For listserv info write to listserv@cpsr.org with message HELP
X-Message-Id: <972347300729.LTK.013@cpsr.org>
X-Status: 
X-UIDL: 839776397.057


Sender: "keith reid-green" 
Subject: re: CM> Keypunchers and cards

>Padgett Peterson said, "Recall programming many keypunches (forget the
designation >but this was the
>unit that had a small drum in the middle that was programmable. You took
>a punch card and ran it through typing various caharacters on the line
>(surely someone here remembers the codes) and put it on the drum so that
>as a new card fed in from the hopper on the right, it would automatically
>register on col 2. When programming in FORTRAN the statement number went
>in 2-6 and the statement started in col 7.
>
>For some reason the statement had to stop on 78 and not 80 but I do not
>recall why (this was a few years ago). Do know that as each field
>was complete you just hit a key and it would automatically index to the
>next programmed field."

Two of the keypunch machines that were programmable via a punched card on a
drum were the IBM 026 and the IBM 029.  Regarding the FORTRAN statement, it
ended on column 72 for two reasons.  The first is that columns 73 through
80 were for card sequence numbers--if anybody dropped a deck they could put
it back together by running a sorter on cols 73-80.  The real reason was
that the IBM 704, for which fortran was originally written, had a card
reader that was designed to load object programs.  A word was 36 bits long,
so you could get two words on one row in columns 1-72.  The card reader
couldn't read all 80 columns, only 1-72.  Somebody wrote a program that
would convert the row-wise reading process back into columns, so cards that
were keypunched column-wise, e.g., fortran statements or assembler language
programs, could be read from the card reader, but only the first 72
columns.

Keith Reid-Green
Educational Testing Service
KReid-Green@ets.org
______________________________________________________________________
            Posted by David S. Bennahum (davidsol@panix.com)
                    Moderator: Community Memory
            http://www.reach.com/matrix/community-memory.html
         A CPSR Project -- http://www.cpsr.org -- cpsr@cpsr.org
 Materials may be reposted in their *entirety* for non-commercial use.
 Want to receive the day's postings bundled together into one message?
 It's easy.  Send a note to listserv@cpsr.org that reads:
                       SET CPSR-HISTORY MAIL DIGEST
______________________________________________________________________
Date: Sat, 10 Aug 1996 01:33:00 -0700
Reply-To: cpsr-history@Sunnyside.COM
Originator: cpsr-history@cpsr.org
Sender: listserv-reply-errors@Sunnyside.COM
Precedence: bulk
From: "Siebuhr, Bryan" 
To: "Multiple recipients of list cpsr-history@cpsr.org" 
Subject: CM> Keypunchers and cards
X-Listprocessor-Version: 9.1 -- List Server by Sunnyside Computing, Inc.
X-Comment:  Discussion of history of computing
X-Info:  For listserv info write to listserv@cpsr.org with message HELP
X-Message-Id: <2035367413979.LTK.013@cpsr.org>
X-Status: 
X-UIDL: 839776397.060


Sender: "Siebuhr, Bryan" 
Subject: Keypunchers and cards


PADGET wrote - -
Recall programming many keypunches (forget the designation but this was
the
unit that had a small drum in the middle that was programmable. You took
a punch card and ran it through typing various caharacters on the line
(surely someone here remembers the codes) and put it on the drum so that
as a new card fed in from the hopper on the right, it would automatically
register on col 2. When programming in FORTRAN the statement number went
in 2-6 and the statement started in col 7.

For some reason the statement had to stop on 78 and not 80 but I do not
recall why (this was a few years ago). Do know that as each field
was complete you just hit a key and it would automatically index to the
next programmed field.

Also recall that it could be set to automatically print a character or
series
on the card but do not think it could autoincrement.
 ------------
In the mid-70's I was programming in Fortran on an XDS (as in Xerox Data
Systems) 930.  All of the code was punched onto 80 column cards with
Fortran statement numbers in cols 2-6, statements in cols 7-72, and a
sequence number in cols 73-80.  The cardpunch was an IBM 029 (?) and
could be programmed to autoincrement the sequence number.  Sometime the
programs would fill several card boxes at 2000 cards per box.

The presence of the sequence number saved many long hours that could have
been lost when a box of cards was dropped and cards went everywhich way.
 It didn't matter, you just picked up the cards, read them into a file
and sorted based on the sequence number before compiling.

Another advantage of having the sequence number was in updating code.
 Invariabley, after feeding cards into the hopper for 15 minutes and
compiling, there were errors.  Instead of having to re-read all the
previous cards, you could punch a small deck with deletes and adds based
on the sequence number, run this small deck against your original file
with a sort/merge, and then compile the result.

Bryan Siebuhr
Systems Programmer
The Evergreen State College
siebuhr@elwha.evergreen.edu
______________________________________________________________________
            Posted by David S. Bennahum (davidsol@panix.com)
                    Moderator: Community Memory
            http://www.reach.com/matrix/community-memory.html
         A CPSR Project -- http://www.cpsr.org -- cpsr@cpsr.org
 Materials may be reposted in their *entirety* for non-commercial use.
 Want to receive the day's postings bundled together into one message?
 It's easy.  Send a note to listserv@cpsr.org that reads:
                       SET CPSR-HISTORY MAIL DIGEST
______________________________________________________________________
Date: Sat, 10 Aug 1996 01:39:28 -0700
Reply-To: cpsr-history@Sunnyside.COM
Originator: cpsr-history@cpsr.org
Sender: listserv-reply-errors@Sunnyside.COM
Precedence: bulk
From: Austin Meredith 
To: "Multiple recipients of list cpsr-history@cpsr.org" 
Subject: CM> TV-EDIT, "Electric Pencil."
X-Listprocessor-Version: 9.1 -- List Server by Sunnyside Computing, Inc.
X-Comment:  Discussion of history of computing
X-Info:  For listserv info write to listserv@cpsr.org with message HELP
X-Message-Id: <1399218414366.LTK.013@cpsr.org>
X-Status: 
X-UIDL: 839776397.041


Sender: Austin Meredith 
Subject: Re: TV-EDIT

Despite what Douglas R. Hofstadter wrote in his book _Godel, Escher, Bach:
An Eternal Golden Braid_:

> I have said to many people that it would have taken me twice as long
> to write my book if I hadn't been able to use "TV-Edit",...

when I myself asked him, during that period, for his recommendation of a
word processor to use to write a book, I remember quite clearly that he
recommended not TV-EDIT but instead something I was never able to find,
called "Electric Pencil."

\s\ Austin Meredith , "Stack of the Artist of Kouroo" Project
______________________________________________________________________
            Posted by David S. Bennahum (davidsol@panix.com)
                    Moderator: Community Memory
            http://www.reach.com/matrix/community-memory.html
         A CPSR Project -- http://www.cpsr.org -- cpsr@cpsr.org
 Materials may be reposted in their *entirety* for non-commercial use.
 Want to receive the day's postings bundled together into one message?
 It's easy.  Send a note to listserv@cpsr.org that reads:
                       SET CPSR-HISTORY MAIL DIGEST
______________________________________________________________________
Date: Sat, 10 Aug 1996 01:45:18 -0700
Reply-To: cpsr-history@Sunnyside.COM
Originator: cpsr-history@cpsr.org
Sender: listserv-reply-errors@Sunnyside.COM
Precedence: bulk
From: rsaha@hqgate.orbital.com
To: "Multiple recipients of list cpsr-history@cpsr.org" 
Subject: CM> "toy" computers: Heath-Kit 1963.
X-Listprocessor-Version: 9.1 -- List Server by Sunnyside Computing, Inc.
X-Comment:  Discussion of history of computing
X-Info:  For listserv info write to listserv@cpsr.org with message HELP
X-Message-Id: <1684218303717.LTK.013@cpsr.org>
X-Status: 
X-UIDL: 839776397.058


Sender: rsaha@hqgate.orbital.com
Subject: Re: CM> "toy" computers: Heath-Kit 1963.

     A note on Heath-Kit.  I bought two Heath-Kits back in 1985. Both were
     also labeled Zenith.  ( I don't know if Zenith bought them, or if they
     always owned Heath-Kit).  One was a "Clapper" (Clap on-Clap off) type
     gizmo. The other was an alarm system that rang if you broke a light
     beam.  Both worked moderatly well until my dog found them...  There
     was only one place in St. Louis (where I grew up) that sold Heath-Kit
     at that time.

     Rahul

     --
     Rahul A. Saha
     Systems Engineer
     Taurus Launch Vehicle
     Orbital Sciences Corporation
     rsaha@orbital.com
 ______________________________________________________________________
            Posted by David S. Bennahum (davidsol@panix.com)
                    Moderator: Community Memory
            http://www.reach.com/matrix/community-memory.html
         A CPSR Project -- http://www.cpsr.org -- cpsr@cpsr.org
 Materials may be reposted in their *entirety* for non-commercial use.
 Want to receive the day's postings bundled together into one message?
 It's easy.  Send a note to listserv@cpsr.org that reads:
                       SET CPSR-HISTORY MAIL DIGEST
______________________________________________________________________
Date: Sat, 10 Aug 1996 01:50:42 -0700
Reply-To: cpsr-history@Sunnyside.COM
Originator: cpsr-history@cpsr.org
Sender: listserv-reply-errors@Sunnyside.COM
Precedence: bulk
From: "L.R. Zeitlin" 
To: "Multiple recipients of list cpsr-history@cpsr.org" 
Subject: CM> 80 char line, early programming memories.
X-Listprocessor-Version: 9.1 -- List Server by Sunnyside Computing, Inc.
X-Comment:  Discussion of history of computing
X-Info:  For listserv info write to listserv@cpsr.org with message HELP
X-Message-Id: <145204161441.LTK.013@cpsr.org>
X-Status: 
X-UIDL: 839776397.051


Sender: "L.R. Zeitlin" 
Subject: Re: CM> 80 char line, early programming memories.

      Louis Rader, President of GE computers in the late 60's and early
70's had been a Univac executive. When he was recruited to head up GE he
brought a number of engineers and executives with him. That probably is the
source of the 96 hole GE punch card.
______________________________________________________________________
            Posted by David S. Bennahum (davidsol@panix.com)
                    Moderator: Community Memory
            http://www.reach.com/matrix/community-memory.html
         A CPSR Project -- http://www.cpsr.org -- cpsr@cpsr.org
 Materials may be reposted in their *entirety* for non-commercial use.
 Want to receive the day's postings bundled together into one message?
 It's easy.  Send a note to listserv@cpsr.org that reads:
                       SET CPSR-HISTORY MAIL DIGEST
______________________________________________________________________
Date: Sat, 10 Aug 1996 01:56:55 -0700
Reply-To: cpsr-history@Sunnyside.COM
Originator: cpsr-history@cpsr.org
Sender: listserv-reply-errors@Sunnyside.COM
Precedence: bulk
From: rab@well.com (Bob Bickford)
To: "Multiple recipients of list cpsr-history@cpsr.org" 
Subject: CM> "toy" computers, also tvedit, LIFE program.
X-Listprocessor-Version: 9.1 -- List Server by Sunnyside Computing, Inc.
X-Comment:  Discussion of history of computing
X-Info:  For listserv info write to listserv@cpsr.org with message HELP
X-Message-Id: <39710598414.LTK.013@cpsr.org>
X-Status: 
X-UIDL: 839776397.059


Sender: rab@well.com (Bob Bickford)
Subject: "toy" computers, also tvedit


On the subject of toy computers, I have two items:

1. My college roommate, Mike Iddings, told me several times that he had
once "built a computer out of paper clips".  I think he tried to explain
it to me once, but lacking requisite materials he just had to wave his
hands a lot.  Does anyone know or recall the details?  I assume that there
must have been some kind of flip-flop element involved?

2. Speaking of flip-flops, I checked out a library book several times in
my high school freshman year, the title of which I no longer recall, but
it was about building your own computer.  I had been teaching myself about
electronics for a couple of years at that point, but still found some of
the discussion in the book a bit dense.  Eventually, I figured it all out:
the book was instructions for building a series of flip-flop based adders,
and using a telephone dial as the input device.  When I realized that the
long list of complicated instructions (the authors went into laborious
detail on everything down to soldering technique) and even longer list of
parts would only build a machine that added two numbers and displayed the
result in binary (lamps), when what I wanted to do was build a machine to
do the fascinating LIFE algorithm that I'd just read about in Scientific
American, well, I was a bit disappointed.  Within a year or two I learned
about TTL and integrated circuits, and recovered my enthusiam.


Regarding TV-Edit, I know I used a program by that name on the Intel
"MDS-230" microprocessor development system in 1979.  Does anyone know if
this is the same thing as has been discussed here (well, a port obviously,
if anything)?  I know I liked it a lot, nearly as much as I liked the
original CP/M WordStar.

--
Bob Bickford          rab@well.com
"Professional Wild-Eyed Visionary"
Coordinator, National Libertarian Party's Anti-CDA Campaign
______________________________________________________________________
            Posted by David S. Bennahum (davidsol@panix.com)
                    Moderator: Community Memory
            http://www.reach.com/matrix/community-memory.html
         A CPSR Project -- http://www.cpsr.org -- cpsr@cpsr.org
 Materials may be reposted in their *entirety* for non-commercial use.
 Want to receive the day's postings bundled together into one message?
 It's easy.  Send a note to listserv@cpsr.org that reads:
                       SET CPSR-HISTORY MAIL DIGEST
______________________________________________________________________
Date: Sat, 10 Aug 1996 02:00:29 -0700
Reply-To: cpsr-history@Sunnyside.COM
Originator: cpsr-history@cpsr.org
Sender: listserv-reply-errors@Sunnyside.COM
Precedence: bulk
From: Fred Cisin 
To: "Multiple recipients of list cpsr-history@cpsr.org" 
Subject: CM> Keypunchers and cards
X-Listprocessor-Version: 9.1 -- List Server by Sunnyside Computing, Inc.
X-Comment:  Discussion of history of computing
X-Info:  For listserv info write to listserv@cpsr.org with message HELP
X-Message-Id: <753131636628.LTK.013@cpsr.org>
X-Status: 
X-UIDL: 839776397.061


Sender: Fred Cisin 
Subject: Re: CM> Keypunchers and cards

> Recall programming many keypunches (forget the designation but this was the
> unit that had a small drum in the middle that was programmable. You took
> a punch card and ran it through typing various caharacters on the line
> (surely someone here remembers the codes) and put it on the drum so that
> as a new card fed in from the hopper on the right, it would automatically
> register on col 2.

Those were the 26 series (old, rounded, black) and 29 series (sleek
modern, beige).  There were a few deviant models, such as verifiers,
interpreters, etc.


> When programming in FORTRAN the statement number went
> in 2-6 and the statement started in col 7.

In FORTRAN, a 'C' in column 1 meant that it was a comment.  But I guess
that REAL programmers didn't comment :-)    Any code in column 6 meant
that the card was a continuation of the previous card.


> For some reason the statement had to stop on 78 and not 80 but I do not
> recall why (this was a few years ago).

Actually 72.   That was mostly so that you could put a series of
consecutive numbers in the final columns.  Then, WHEN one of the
operators dropped your deck, you could use an 82 sorter to put it back in
order.  But most people just put a diagonal line on the deck of cards
with a magic marker - any deviation in the line meant that the cards were
out of order.  Any revisions to the program then required a new line,
until the deck was so marked up that you had to make a duplicate copy.


> Also recall that it could be set to automatically print a character or series
> on the card but do not think it could autoincrement.

SOME (but not most) could. And there were more bizarre goodies available.
At GSFC (Goddard Space Flight Center), I spent an unpleasantly large
amount of time operating a Gerber Data Digitizer (aka "that damned
etch-a-sketch") interfaced to a punch.  Turn the knobs to align the
crosshairs, hit the footpedal, and the punch punched a pair of 3 digit
coordinates.


> As memory serves, once managed an all-time best of 600 cards in an hour.
> Since that was one every 10 seconds it must have had a *lot* of very short
> statements.

In what number base?  If I did 10 seconds per card, then I got 6 cards a
minute, or 360 per hour.  But then, I was never very fast on the keypunch.

--
Fred Cisin       (510) 436-2663   Computer Information Systems Department
Merritt College         12500 Campus Drive      Oakland,  CA  94619
RE: Peralta district internet connection..  "Mir zul nor leben su zane."
                                              ("May we live so long.")
______________________________________________________________________
            Posted by David S. Bennahum (davidsol@panix.com)
                    Moderator: Community Memory
            http://www.reach.com/matrix/community-memory.html
         A CPSR Project -- http://www.cpsr.org -- cpsr@cpsr.org
 Materials may be reposted in their *entirety* for non-commercial use.
 Want to receive the day's postings bundled together into one message?
 It's easy.  Send a note to listserv@cpsr.org that reads:
                       SET CPSR-HISTORY MAIL DIGEST
______________________________________________________________________
Date: Mon, 12 Aug 1996 01:08:34 -0700
Reply-To: cpsr-history@Sunnyside.COM
Originator: cpsr-history@cpsr.org
Sender: listserv-reply-errors@Sunnyside.COM
Precedence: bulk
From: "William F. Anderson" 
To: "Multiple recipients of list cpsr-history@cpsr.org" 
Subject: CM> Nine Questions on Machine History.
X-Listprocessor-Version: 9.1 -- List Server by Sunnyside Computing, Inc.
X-Comment:  Discussion of history of computing
X-Info:  For listserv info write to listserv@cpsr.org with message HELP
X-Message-Id: <472554111313.LTK.013@cpsr.org>
X-UIDL: 839859838.029


Sender: "William F. Anderson" 
Subject: Re: CM> Nine Questions on Machine History.

I will try and answer your questions.

Bill Anderson
Author, Consultant

----------
> From: Wesley J. Miller ((8-444) 919-254-9774) 
> To: Multiple recipients of list cpsr-history@cpsr.org

> Subject: CM> Nine Questions on Machine History.
> Date: Friday, August 09, 1996 2:06 AM
>
>
> Sender: "Wesley J. Miller ((8-444) 919-254-9774)" 
> Subject: Machine History
>
> I'm a short-timer in the world of computing; I started with FORTRAN-66 on
punch
> cards about 1978 using WATFIV and FORTRAN-H.

Other than building a vacuum tube calculator in high school, my real
computer experience started in 1969. Coourtesy of the USAF, I started of in
AUTODIN working on RCA Spectra 70 Model 55. We first learned to program in
microcode with LIDMEN. Programs were punched on paper tape, and eight
deletes constituted a new program. Assembler was a high level language
compared to microcoding. My first real high level language was JOVIAL.

>
> As I read the recollections of folks who came into computing before and
about
> the same time as I, I am remembering all those stories I heard and
questions I
> only ever got partially answered.  So, here is a list of questions that I
hope
> will start a few memories flowing and get some history nailed down for
all of
> us short timers.
>
> 1. The first "personal computer" I used was a Datapoint 1134.  I know the
> last digit represented the number of floppy drives installed.  I also
> remember that the machine had 16K of memory on four 4K memory cards that
> plugged into the processor cards on which I was told there was an 8080 --
not
> the chip but a hardwired-from-discretes equivalent which Datapoint used
> because Intel couldn't get the 8080 out in time.  Questions:  Was it in
fact
> an "8080"?  Was it Datapoint that drove Intel to develop the 8080?
>
The 8080 was developed as a CRT controller for Datapoint was not accepted,
so Intel pushed as a general purpose microprocessor. As I mentioned before
on this list, my first home computer was an IMSAI 8080. While it normally
came with 2K or 4K of memory, I bought to 8K Dutronic memory boards. Of
course, in those days, everything was a kit. I remember that there were
1900 solder connections on each memory board.

If I remember correctly, the Z80 was designed to be a washing machine
controller.

> 2.  It's easy to see that EBCDIC came from punch card encoding.  Where
did
> ASCII come from?  Why did someone choose to rewrite the coding standard
when
> both EBCDIC and ASCII seem perfectly capable of doing the same thing?
>
In the 60's, there were multiple Holerith codes and even EBCDIC had
variations. Plus, there were other code sets such as Field Data Code.
Communications between different varieties of hardware required translation
tables. This creates a nightmare when you are trying to build a network as
diverse as AUTODIN. So, ASCII came into being as a standard communications
code between devices. Devices could use whatever internal code set they
desired as long as they communicated in ASCII. I was really surprised when
I got my IMSAI and saw ASCII as internal code set.

> 3.  Just why is it that some folks say IBM never got time-sharing right?
> They've sold a LOT of TSO, after all. (No, this is NOT a debate on
> market-share = got-it-right)
>
I can't answer this one. However, it does remind my of a little story. When
I was in the Air Force, I went to the IBM 370 product announcement at the
State Department. After this long presentation on the new features of the
370, the saleman, who was the moderator, got up and thanked for coming to
see the product announcement for the "new IBM system 360."

> 4.  I personally think TSO is about the most user-hostile
environment/op-sys
> on earth.  I first used IBM's CMS version 2 as an op-sys about 1982.  I
still
> use it (even as I type this note).  Yes it's old and character only but
it
> is SO much easier to use than TSO.  What's the history of CMS?  Why did
it
> never replace TSO?  Unix?

I hated TSO. When I was at Four Phase systems, they used another package
for which I forget the name at the moment. I do remember that when you type
help, you got the message "the great pumpkin helps those who help
themselves."

>
> 5.  Yes, I use UNIX.  Yes, I like it--yes, I hate it.  Where did the
> let's-make-it-so-cryptic-no-one-can-intuitively-figure-it-out mentality
> and naming conventions come from?  TYPE ... | FiND .... sure seems
> a lot more obvious to me than CAT ... | GREP ...
>
You have to thing of cat as a filter and then the name makes sense for it
is an abreviation of concatenate. I forgot what grep stands for.

> 6.  IBM numbers bits from left to right; the MSB is bit 0.  Who decided
to
> do this dumb thing?  Same is true of byte and character string numbering.

I don't know, but it does keep you on your toes.
>
> 7.  Who decided that token-ring and ethernet addresses are sent in
opposite
> orders?  LSB-first vs. MSB-first?
>
This comes from those machines that do reverse byte ordering.

> 8.  Why are people trying to shoehorn FORTRAN into an array handling
language?
> Why aren't they using APL/2 instead?
>
I never really got involved with FORTRAN or APL.

> 9.  And finally, for now, who designed and why do we use the file system
used
> by DOS, MAC, Unix and I don't know what else?  Specifically, these file
systems
> treat all text files as one long string with records indicated by wasting
> the two characters 0D and 0A.
In UNIX only the OA (linefeed). The idea being that text files are free
format files without any inherent structure. This allows any structure to
be imposed on the file by the application. The OA was used only in text
files that could be displayed or printed as is. What created constant
confusion is the use of OD and OA in DOS. By the time DOS appeared, most
devices had could deal with adding a carriage return to the sole linefeed.
Although, DOS is technically more correct as a linefeed is supposed to move
down one line and the carriage return takes you to the beginning of the
line. If you entered only a carriage return on a true ASCII device, you
would overtype the same line.

>  Mainframes and even my dear departed Datapoint
> 1134 used a full blown file system where records are stored as records.
Each
> record either points to the next/last record or has a length indicator.
No
> characters are wasted.  Same question really applies to C and DOS ASCII-Z
> strings.  Who decided 00h wasn't a datum?  Ever try to pick apart
non-text
> data and not be able to use those nice routines that think the 00's
aren't
> data?
According to ASCII 00h is a null character and is valid data. Sending nulls
was used to introduce delays when you where trying to communicate to a slow
device.
______________________________________________________________________
            Posted by David S. Bennahum (davidsol@panix.com)
                    Moderator: Community Memory
            http://www.reach.com/matrix/community-memory.html
         A CPSR Project -- http://www.cpsr.org -- cpsr@cpsr.org
 Materials may be reposted in their *entirety* for non-commercial use.
 Want to receive the day's postings bundled together into one message?
 It's easy.  Send a note to listserv@cpsr.org that reads:
                       SET CPSR-HISTORY MAIL DIGEST
______________________________________________________________________
Date: Mon, 12 Aug 1996 01:33:33 -0700
Reply-To: cpsr-history@Sunnyside.COM
Originator: cpsr-history@cpsr.org
Sender: listserv-reply-errors@Sunnyside.COM
Precedence: bulk
From: Michael Seadle 
To: "Multiple recipients of list cpsr-history@cpsr.org" 
Subject: CM> Nine Questions on Machine History.
X-Listprocessor-Version: 9.1 -- List Server by Sunnyside Computing, Inc.
X-Comment:  Discussion of history of computing
X-Info:  For listserv info write to listserv@cpsr.org with message HELP
X-Message-Id: <1993021061809.LTK.013@cpsr.org>
X-UIDL: 839859838.030


Sender: Michael Seadle 
Subject: Re: CM> Nine Questions on Machine History.


Regarding the history of VM:

Melinda Varian of Princeton wrote an excellent and substantial history of
VM, which she presented at a SHARE conference sometime in the 1980s.  I
don't think she's ever published it, but she might be persuaded to put it
on her home page on the Web.

She is also a major figure in the history of VM.  What VM systems
programmer has not memorized her "What your Mother Never Told You about
VM Maintenance"?

--Michael Seadle
______________________________________________________________________
            Posted by David S. Bennahum (davidsol@panix.com)
                    Moderator: Community Memory
            http://www.reach.com/matrix/community-memory.html
         A CPSR Project -- http://www.cpsr.org -- cpsr@cpsr.org
 Materials may be reposted in their *entirety* for non-commercial use.
 Want to receive the day's postings bundled together into one message?
 It's easy.  Send a note to listserv@cpsr.org that reads:
                       SET CPSR-HISTORY MAIL DIGEST
______________________________________________________________________
Date: Mon, 12 Aug 1996 01:50:51 -0700
Reply-To: cpsr-history@Sunnyside.COM
Originator: cpsr-history@cpsr.org
Sender: listserv-reply-errors@Sunnyside.COM
Precedence: bulk
From: Lawrence Zeitlin 
To: "Multiple recipients of list cpsr-history@cpsr.org" 
Subject: CM> Decimal computers, IBM 7072, Licklider.
X-Listprocessor-Version: 9.1 -- List Server by Sunnyside Computing, Inc.
X-Comment:  Discussion of history of computing
X-Info:  For listserv info write to listserv@cpsr.org with message HELP
X-Message-Id: <1707765345839.LTK.013@cpsr.org>
X-UIDL: 839859838.031


Sender: Lawrence Zeitlin 
Subject: Re: CM> ecimal computers, IBM 7072.

I worked on a decimal computer, the Bendix G15, in the late 50's at the RCA Air
borne Systems Lab. As I recall, the computer used 10 step switching vacuum tube
s and output a display on Nixie tubes. Programming was done by inserting pins i
n cribbage boardlike plastic panels which could then be hooked together in a lo
ng chain. The research project I was involved with dealt with the control dynam
ics of the proposed F108 fighter plane which got cancelled in favor of guided m
issles. J.C.R. Licklider was a consultant on that project and I got to know him
 well in the pre-ARPA days.
______________________________________________________________________
            Posted by David S. Bennahum (davidsol@panix.com)
                    Moderator: Community Memory
            http://www.reach.com/matrix/community-memory.html
         A CPSR Project -- http://www.cpsr.org -- cpsr@cpsr.org
 Materials may be reposted in their *entirety* for non-commercial use.
 Want to receive the day's postings bundled together into one message?
 It's easy.  Send a note to listserv@cpsr.org that reads:
                       SET CPSR-HISTORY MAIL DIGEST
______________________________________________________________________
Date: Mon, 12 Aug 1996 02:26:03 -0700
Reply-To: cpsr-history@Sunnyside.COM
Originator: cpsr-history@cpsr.org
Sender: listserv-reply-errors@Sunnyside.COM
Precedence: bulk
From: Les Earnest 
To: "Multiple recipients of list cpsr-history@cpsr.org" 
Subject: CM> Licklider, Timesharing, and Popular History
X-Listprocessor-Version: 9.1 -- List Server by Sunnyside Computing, Inc.
X-Comment:  Discussion of history of computing
X-Info:  For listserv info write to listserv@cpsr.org with message HELP
X-Message-Id: <1927422201961.LTK.013@cpsr.org>
X-UIDL: 839859838.048


Sender: Les Earnest 
Subject: CM> Licklider, Timesharing, and Popular History

Responding to an earlier claim that advocacy of a "computer utility"
by unnamed "early time-sharing advocates" had impeded progress, I
remarked:
   > Thanks, but I don't buy this argument.  Who was the unnamed person who:
   >    "thought of one or a few central computers (one even proposed siting
   >    it in Kansas City), accessed through a jack in the wall just like
   >    you get electric power?"
   > Doesn't sound like any timesharing pioneer that I know of.

John Cowan responded:
   A version of this scheme was proposed in John Kemeney's book
   *Man And The Computer*, which was (especially in its later chapters)
   an idealized design of a universal timesharing utility, with
   big iron in major cities.

I confess that haven't read that book, but I would be surprised if it
held up progress as much as a microsecond.  Also, though Kemeny did do
some pioneering work in developing a multi-user BASIC system, it was
not a general purpose timesharing system.

In response to the same remark, Tom Van Vleck wrote:
   Well, Corbato & Vyssotsky wrote, in "Introduction and Overview of the
   Multics System" (1965 FJCC) (http://www.best.com/~thvv/fjcc1.html)

   One of the overall design goals is to create a computing system which is
   capable of meeting almost all of the present and near-future requirements of
   a large computer utility. Such systems must run continuously and reliably
   7 days a week, 24 hours a day in a way similar to telephone or power
systems..."

   The idea of computing delivered via a wall jack was suggested often
   at Project MAC in the 60s.

Not only that, it became a reality by the late 60s in the form of
commercial timesharing systems that were accessible by modem.
However, I doubt that anyone who had built a timesharing system would
claim that "one or a few central processors" could meet the nation's
computing needs.

Thus I stand by my earlier rejection of the hypothesis that the
concept of timesharing somehow "impeded progress."  In fact, it
greatly enhanced productivity of programmers and data entry people
and made both display-based interaction and networking practical
for the first time.

        -Les Earnest
______________________________________________________________________
            Posted by David S. Bennahum (davidsol@panix.com)
                    Moderator: Community Memory
            http://www.reach.com/matrix/community-memory.html
         A CPSR Project -- http://www.cpsr.org -- cpsr@cpsr.org
 Materials may be reposted in their *entirety* for non-commercial use.
 Want to receive the day's postings bundled together into one message?
 It's easy.  Send a note to listserv@cpsr.org that reads:
                       SET CPSR-HISTORY MAIL DIGEST
______________________________________________________________________
Date: Mon, 12 Aug 1996 02:32:51 -0700
Reply-To: cpsr-history@Sunnyside.COM
Originator: cpsr-history@cpsr.org
Sender: listserv-reply-errors@Sunnyside.COM
Precedence: bulk
From: Les Earnest 
To: "Multiple recipients of list cpsr-history@cpsr.org" 
Subject: CM> 80 Character Line
X-Listprocessor-Version: 9.1 -- List Server by Sunnyside Computing, Inc.
X-Comment:  Discussion of history of computing
X-Info:  For listserv info write to listserv@cpsr.org with message HELP
X-Message-Id: <751912376370.LTK.013@cpsr.org>
X-UIDL: 839859838.040


Sender: Les Earnest 
Subject: CM> 80 Character Line

Woody Franke writes:
   On the topic of 80 character lines, that was the standard when I started
   programming the IBM 1401 in 1964.  But I seem to remember that Univac (who
   was then either Sperry or Sperry-Univac) had a card reader and keypunch
   standard that had round hole punches instead of the IBM rectangle hole
   punch and, because of the space the round hole took, had a standard 70
   characters on a punch card.  Is my memory correct?

As I recall the Sperry-Rand cards had 45 characters across each card in
each of two fields, one on the upper part of the card and one lower,
for a total of 90 characters per card.  The punches were indeed
circular, in contrast with the IBM punches which were tall and thin.
The Sperry equipment used the same card stock as IBM but they were
much less successful commercially and eventually faded away.

Thus, when computer terminals were created, the initial standard was
80 characters per line, to accomodate IBM's "unit record" standard.
IBM insisted throughout that period that their cards be called
"Hollerith cards" rather than "IBM cards" out of fear that the latter
would become a generic term and would cause them to lose "IBM" as a
trademark.  Mr. Hollerith was the inventor who created punched cards
and associated equipment for use in an early U.S. Census.

        -Les Earnest
______________________________________________________________________
            Posted by David S. Bennahum (davidsol@panix.com)
                    Moderator: Community Memory
            http://www.reach.com/matrix/community-memory.html
         A CPSR Project -- http://www.cpsr.org -- cpsr@cpsr.org
 Materials may be reposted in their *entirety* for non-commercial use.
 Want to receive the day's postings bundled together into one message?
 It's easy.  Send a note to listserv@cpsr.org that reads:
                       SET CPSR-HISTORY MAIL DIGEST
______________________________________________________________________
Date: Mon, 12 Aug 1996 02:37:34 -0700
Reply-To: cpsr-history@Sunnyside.COM
Originator: cpsr-history@cpsr.org
Sender: listserv-reply-errors@Sunnyside.COM
Precedence: bulk
From: "Peter D. Junger" 
To: "Multiple recipients of list cpsr-history@cpsr.org" 
Subject: CM> TV-EDIT, "Electric Pencil."
X-Listprocessor-Version: 9.1 -- List Server by Sunnyside Computing, Inc.
X-Comment:  Discussion of history of computing
X-Info:  For listserv info write to listserv@cpsr.org with message HELP
X-Message-Id: <62598987653.LTK.013@cpsr.org>
X-UIDL: 839859838.036


Sender: "Peter D. Junger" 
Subject: Re: CM> TV-EDIT, "Electric Pencil."

Austin Meredith writes:

: Despite what Douglas R. Hofstadter wrote in his book _Godel, Escher, Bach:
: An Eternal Golden Braid_:
:
: > I have said to many people that it would have taken me twice as long
: > to write my book if I hadn't been able to use "TV-Edit",...
:
: when I myself asked him, during that period, for his recommendation of a
: word processor to use to write a book, I remember quite clearly that he
: recommended not TV-EDIT but instead something I was never able to find,
: called "Electric Pencil."

Electric Pencil was a word processor for CP/M microcomputers.  When I
bought my NorthStar Horizion with 56K of memory Word Star had just
come out.  At the time I was told that ``Word Star is a superset of
Electric Pencil''.  As I recall what a colleague who did use Electric
Pencil said, it would only handle as much text as one could get in
memory, so every time you did a couple of pages you had to save it and
start a new file, or at least a new section of a file[

--
Peter D. Junger--Case Western Reserve University Law School--Cleveland, OH
Internet:  junger@pdj2-ra.f-remote.cwru.edu    junger@samsara.law.cwru.edu
                     URL:  http://samsara.law.cwru.edu
______________________________________________________________________
            Posted by David S. Bennahum (davidsol@panix.com)
                    Moderator: Community Memory
            http://www.reach.com/matrix/community-memory.html
         A CPSR Project -- http://www.cpsr.org -- cpsr@cpsr.org
 Materials may be reposted in their *entirety* for non-commercial use.
 Want to receive the day's postings bundled together into one message?
 It's easy.  Send a note to listserv@cpsr.org that reads:
                       SET CPSR-HISTORY MAIL DIGEST
______________________________________________________________________
Date: Mon, 12 Aug 1996 02:42:07 -0700
Reply-To: cpsr-history@Sunnyside.COM
Originator: cpsr-history@cpsr.org
Sender: listserv-reply-errors@Sunnyside.COM
Precedence: bulk
From: "A. Padgett Peterson P.E. Information Security" 
To: "Multiple recipients of list cpsr-history@cpsr.org" 
Subject: CM> Heathkit
X-Listprocessor-Version: 9.1 -- List Server by Sunnyside Computing, Inc.
X-Comment:  Discussion of history of computing
X-Info:  For listserv info write to listserv@cpsr.org with message HELP
X-Message-Id: <598957771926.LTK.013@cpsr.org>
X-UIDL: 839859838.035


Sender: "A. Padgett Peterson P.E. Information Security"

Subject: Heathkit


>(BTW, poor Heath Kit. Great company for hobbyists that fell on evil days
>when chips replaced tubes. I wonder if they're still around.)

Just part of Zenith. Sometime between 1982 and 1985 it became "Heath-Zenith"
and what is now "Zenith Data Systems" is located on the Heathkit property.

I *think* the Zenith Z-100 "semicompatable" PC was the first joint product.
Later that portion of Zenith was sold offshore.

Have an application here for the "Heath/Zenith User's Group" (HUG) from
about 1986 (have the details here *somewhere* but other than Z-159 and Z-200
(kit 5) manuals, cannot find it. Not unusual.)

Just as a comment, while many decried the Zenith computers, for anti-virus
reseach and exploring how a PC booted it is unequalled since the ROM BIOS
contains a complete DEBUG-like debugger (my little Columbias also have
a ROM debugger but the commands are nothing like DEBUG's).

                                                Warmly,
                                                        Padgett
______________________________________________________________________
            Posted by David S. Bennahum (davidsol@panix.com)
                    Moderator: Community Memory
            http://www.reach.com/matrix/community-memory.html
         A CPSR Project -- http://www.cpsr.org -- cpsr@cpsr.org
 Materials may be reposted in their *entirety* for non-commercial use.
 Want to receive the day's postings bundled together into one message?
 It's easy.  Send a note to listserv@cpsr.org that reads:
                       SET CPSR-HISTORY MAIL DIGEST
______________________________________________________________________
Date: Mon, 12 Aug 1996 02:46:56 -0700
Reply-To: cpsr-history@Sunnyside.COM
Originator: cpsr-history@cpsr.org
Sender: listserv-reply-errors@Sunnyside.COM
Precedence: bulk
From: Nelson Winkless 
To: "Multiple recipients of list cpsr-history@cpsr.org" 
Subject: CM> Thundering keypunches, punch cards roadkill.
X-Listprocessor-Version: 9.1 -- List Server by Sunnyside Computing, Inc.
X-Comment:  Discussion of history of computing
X-Info:  For listserv info write to listserv@cpsr.org with message HELP
X-Message-Id: <1511997661215.LTK.013@cpsr.org>
X-UIDL: 839869011.002


Sender: Nelson Winkless 
Subject:

>...the sequence number saved many long hours that could have
>been lost when a box of cards was dropped...   --Bryan Siebuhr

Nobody has mentioned the thunder of the doggoned keypunches.

Back in the mid-sixties, the Thomas Bede Foundation in Los Altos CA
did a series of projects developing self-organizing systems for Sandia
Corporation. The nice redwood-and-glass building we were in at 745 Distel
Drive was rather loosely constructed. If you got up next to the ceiling
at night, you could peek through gaps above the partitions large enough
so you could see light in somebody else's office at the far end of the
building. The point of this description is that the IBM keypunch machine
we had in pretty steady use for several programmers could be heard in
every office in the building. It thumped away hour after hour, getting on
the nerves of the real estate people, the architects, the sales reps, the
clinical psychologist, and all other tenants. They didn't enjoy the onset
this age of computers, and complained regularly.

And with respect to spilled cards --

Our folks didn't have a computer, just a computer courier service, an
outfit called CEIR that rented available time on computers all around the
Bay Area, and would run their client's cards wherever a system was available.
(Time was available mostly at night, of course.) Our stuff ran on a system up
at Shell in the City, for example, somewhere in San Jose, and somewhere else
in Walnut Creek, I think. (Later, we used the 6600 at CDC's center on Hanover
in Stanford Industrial Park, and it was remarkable to be able to see the
actual computer through the glass walls.)

We felt that the CEIR service was really good when we could get two shots
at a computer every day. The programmers would frantically get their stacks
of cards ready for the pickups, and then stand around nervously, waiting for
results when the courier returned. The courier would typically come and go
with a couple of IBM Card boxes full of the labor of half a dozen people.

One morning as I turned on to Distel from El Camino, I saw what looked
rather like snow in the intersection. IBM cards were scattered all over the
street,
and spread far into the field across the way (in whose middle we
occasionally dumped a gallon or two of MEK at night, having no other
chemical disposal method...what did we know in 1965?).

As I reached the office, I found two people weeping. One was the programmer
who had failed to close the boxes securely with rubber bands. The other was
the CEIR courier, who had put the boxes on top of his station wagon briefly,
while
unlocking the door, and had then driven off with the boxes still on the
roof...until making the hard turn at the corner.

The seguence numbers might have been helpful before the cards had been run
over in heavy traffic, but...

Does anybody still make Christmas wreaths out of cleverly curled and stapled
IBM cards?

--Nels

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Nelson Winkless                   Email: correspo@swcp.com
ABQ Communications Corporation    Voice: 505-897-0822
P.O. Box 1432                     Fax:   505-898-6525
Corrales NM 87048 USA             Website: http://www.swcp.com/correspo
______________________________________________________________________
            Posted by David S. Bennahum (davidsol@panix.com)
                    Moderator: Community Memory
            http://www.reach.com/matrix/community-memory.html
         A CPSR Project -- http://www.cpsr.org -- cpsr@cpsr.org
 Materials may be reposted in their *entirety* for non-commercial use.
 Want to receive the day's postings bundled together into one message?
 It's easy.  Send a note to listserv@cpsr.org that reads:
                       SET CPSR-HISTORY MAIL DIGEST
______________________________________________________________________
Date: Mon, 12 Aug 1996 02:51:27 -0700
Reply-To: cpsr-history@Sunnyside.COM
Originator: cpsr-history@cpsr.org
Sender: listserv-reply-errors@Sunnyside.COM
Precedence: bulk
From: Jay Hosler 
To: "Multiple recipients of list cpsr-history@cpsr.org" 
Subject: CM> Keypunchers and cards
X-Listprocessor-Version: 9.1 -- List Server by Sunnyside Computing, Inc.
X-Comment:  Discussion of history of computing
X-Info:  For listserv info write to listserv@cpsr.org with message HELP
X-Message-Id: <424871352486.LTK.013@cpsr.org>
X-UIDL: 839859838.052


Sender: Jay Hosler 
Subject: Re: CM> Keypunchers and cards

>
>
> Sender: Fred Cisin 
> Subject: Re: CM> Keypunchers and cards
>
> > Recall programming many keypunches (forget the designation but this was the
> > unit that had a small drum in the middle that was programmable. You took
> > a punch card and ran it through typing various caharacters on the line
> > (surely someone here remembers the codes) and put it on the drum so that
> > as a new card fed in from the hopper on the right, it would automatically
> > register on col 2.
>
> Those were the 26 series (old, rounded, black) and 29 series (sleek
> modern, beige).  There were a few deviant models, such as verifiers,
> interpreters, etc.
>
During my tenure at SDC (late 1958 - early 1961) the 026 keypunches were
converted from the old 9-mil card thickness to the new 6-mil thickness.  (I
don't believe any 029 keypunches adjusted to the old 9-mil standard).  The
9-mil and 6-mil cards were kept in distinct racks; each keypunch had a sign
revealing whether it was adjusted for 6-mil or 9-mil cards.  The penalty for
error was a jam.  Two 6-mil cards will fit, or rather jam, in the read throat
of a 9-mil keypunch or card reader, and 9-mil cards jam 6-mil throats.

To edit a program deck, one punched (or had punched) the needed replacement
cards, went to the the drawer containing the deck, and modified the deck
manually, guided by sequence numbers, listings, and the card contents printed
at the top border of each card.  It was all too easy to include a 9-mil card
in a 6-mil deck inadvertently.  The resulting jam often left the deck in
considerable disarray.

> Actually 72.   That was mostly so that you could put a series of
> consecutive numbers in the final columns.  Then, WHEN one of the
> operators dropped your deck, you could use an 82 sorter to put it back in
> order.  But most people just put a diagonal line on the deck of cards
> with a magic marker - any deviation in the line meant that the cards were
> out of order.  Any revisions to the program then required a new line,
> until the deck was so marked up that you had to make a duplicate copy.

At SDC, the normal procedure was to get a new listing after each modification
had been made, and, after a couple of mods, to repunch and resequence the deck
using an interpreting card duplicator.  Card decks of the size we used at SDC
-- 3000-15000 cards -- were normally removed from their trays only by
operators.  We always sequence-numbered decks; using just a diagonal line
would have unreasonably jeopardized the deck.

By 1965, when I was at CSC, the use of cards was limited to original input and
edit decks; the program files themselves were kept on tape.  By 1970 or so I
had worked with my last card deck.

BTW, the armies of 20-drawer card files that lined every office and computer
room have mostly passed to the scrap pile.  I am lucky enough to have found
one in a surplus store; it makes a wonderful tool cabinet, as well as a
nostalgic link to a technology I hope never to enjoy again.

Jay
______________________________________________________________________
            Posted by David S. Bennahum (davidsol@panix.com)
                    Moderator: Community Memory
            http://www.reach.com/matrix/community-memory.html
         A CPSR Project -- http://www.cpsr.org -- cpsr@cpsr.org
 Materials may be reposted in their *entirety* for non-commercial use.
 Want to receive the day's postings bundled together into one message?
 It's easy.  Send a note to listserv@cpsr.org that reads:
                       SET CPSR-HISTORY MAIL DIGEST
______________________________________________________________________
Date: Mon, 12 Aug 1996 02:56:11 -0700
Reply-To: cpsr-history@Sunnyside.COM
Originator: cpsr-history@cpsr.org
Sender: listserv-reply-errors@Sunnyside.COM
Precedence: bulk
From: "christopher f. chiesa" 
To: "Multiple recipients of list cpsr-history@cpsr.org" 
Subject: CM> Keypunchers and cards, programming in high school.
X-Listprocessor-Version: 9.1 -- List Server by Sunnyside Computing, Inc.
X-Comment:  Discussion of history of computing
X-Info:  For listserv info write to listserv@cpsr.org with message HELP
X-Message-Id: <24010985771.LTK.013@cpsr.org>
X-UIDL: 839860918.000


Sender: "christopher f. chiesa" 
Subject: Re: CM> Keypunchers and cards


It's absolutely FASCINATING to read about all the cool things one could
evidently do with the 026 and 029 keypunches.  Despite apparently being
one of the "youngsters" here :-) , I can relate, because I was among one
of the LAST groups of users of keypunches, cards, and "batch" computing,
in a couple of math courses in the tenth and eleventh grade (1979-81).

The computer was an IBM 1130 with, I'm told, 4K of magnetic core memory.
I know that the system had "a disk," but had no concept of even WONDERING
about the type or capacity thereof, so never asked about, or knew, such
details.  Similarly, I have no idea what type of keypunches we used, or
what their capabilities might have been: the only thing we students were
allowed, or taught how, to do was "type onto cards" and occasionally
duplicate all or part of a previously-punched (or mis-punched) card.
These keypunches had a rotating drum visible through a window in the
center of the top of the unit, between the "blank card supply" bin (on the
right) and the "punched card receptacle" bin (on the left), but we never
knew or were told what that drum was for.  Likewise there were lots and
lots of mysterious buttons and switches about which we were told only,
"don't touch 'em."  Oh, and these punches also printed a visible,
human-readable copy of the punched data, along the top of each card they
punched.

I once discovered the "overpunch" key and worked out what characters/keys
I needed to "overpunch" in order to produce a card whose holes spelled
out my name, like this:

      ***** *   * ***** * *****
      *     *   * *   * * *
      *     ***** ***** * *****
      *     *   * *  *  *     *
      ***** *   * *   * * *****

I vaguely recall getting into some kind of trouble just for PUNCHING a
card like this, even though I never attempted to load it into the
computer.

I have a lot of other memories associated with that computer.  Every now
and then the system needed to be rebooted, and I remember that the first
card was "more holes than card," which I found pretty surprising/amazing.

The lights on the console and on the line printer were small incandescent
bulbs behind/under carefully-shaped, -polished, and -labeled chunks of
colored, frosted glass; the bulbs would cause the glass chunks to glow
softly in their respective colors; it was quite pretty.

One time I wrote a version of Conway's "Game of Life," which took
something like five MINUTES to compute-and-print one "generation," and
which made my classmates groan whenever they saw me approaching the
card-hopper with my deck.  :-)  I actually had to ask for special
assistance from our computer teacher, to implement a "save current
generation to cards" feature, so that I could break long Life sessions
into shorter batches so the other kids could get some real work done! :-)
I still have the source code, only slightly modified over the years to run
on other IBM systems (RPI, 1982 - IBM 3083? 3033?  I don't remember;
running "MTS," the Michigan Terminal system, worthy of an entire posting
here in its own right) and later on a VAX/VMS system.  If anbody wants a
copy...

Our inst