steveanderson.digital

In 2010, representatives from the Computer History Museum visited a company in Texas still using an IBM 402 mainframe for everyday accounting jobs: http://ibm–1401.info/402.html

“Jam needs SOME force”

“Card Jam Front View”

The article below mentions the CHM trip to Texas, and a few other old computers still in use:

If It Ain’t Broke, Don’t Fix It: Ancient Computers in Use Today, by Benj Edwards at PCWorld, 2012 (Internet Archive: Wayback Machine)

The biggest problem with maintaining such ancient computer systems is that the original technicians who knew how to configure and maintain them have long since retired or passed away, so no one is left with the knowledge required to fix them if they break.

(Revised and republished April 2nd, 2025)

I came across this tweet as an advertisement in my own Twitter feed. It’s meant to be ironic, mainframes are still around, it’s more so the way they’re perceived that’s changed.

twitter.com/hpdiscover/status/453556126043615232 (Twitter links no longer available)

The comments are funny too:

@HPDiscover

this is SO not true. Shame on you HP.

#bigdata

— Camila Caldas (@camilaclbcaldas)

April 8, 2014

@HPDiscover

Another one who will eat his words about the death of the Mainframe. Here we go again !!! Have u even watched Matrix ? LOL!! — DD (@Cojinua77)

April 9, 2014

(Revised and republished April 2nd, 2025)

“Comput-Her Baby” - a short film by Dave Goldson and Neal Chastain, 1968

A satire on computer dating and matchmaking. The song “Strangers in the Night” plays while punched cards are sorted by mainframe computers.

The color in the Vimeo embed below (sadly, no longer available) is a bit off, toward a faded, pinkish hue. The video is available at UC Berkely and UC San Diego, but I’m not sure of the condition of those reels. It’s also listed at the UCLA Film and Television archive in faded condition.

(Revised and republished April 2nd, 2025)

Thanks to Andy Baio, all five parts of The Machine That Changed the World are available online: http://waxy.org/2008/06/the_machine_that_changed_the_world/

The Machine That Changed the World is the longest, most comprehensive documentary about the history of computing ever produced, but since its release in 1992, it's become virtually extinct. Out of print and never released online, the only remaining copies are VHS tapes floating around school libraries or in the homes of fans who dubbed the original shows when they aired.

All 5 episodes are (sort of) available on YouTube.

The YouTube videos are blocked now, “on copyright grounds,” but they still play after a moment.

(Revised and republished April 2nd, 2025)

Fragments on Machines, a film by Emma Charles

An interesting and very artistic take on the materiality of digital culture, and the physical structures that support modern communication, computation, and data storage. The ventilation covers and shafts in the beginning of the video seem so mundane, but just a few steps inside is an entire world of noise and movement.

My muscle has been replaced by flex and copper. My brain a server. Ones and zeros my voice. I exist as a phantom, an iridescent color. I speak in shimmering tones to the hidden construction of the form. I desire to become data.

(Revised and republished April 13th, 2025)

In an heroic effort to preserve 10 years of collaborative work by 35 million people [Geocities], the Archive Team made a backup of the site just before it shut down. The resulting 650 Gigabyte bit-torrent file is the digital Pompeii that is the subject of an interactive excavation that allows you to wander through an episode of recent online history.

(Revised and republished April 13th, 2025)

Outside the Spacecraft, an interactive museum exhibit at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum. High resolution photographs, insight into curation and preservation techniques, even checklists and paperwork.

The exhibit reminded me of this recent tweet by The Onion:

Otherwise Reasonable Man Sincerely Believes U.S. Landed On Moon: The Onion

(@TheOnion)

February 17, 2015

(Revised and republished April 13th, 2025)

ROBOTS.TXT IS A SUICIDE NOTE

ROBOTS.TXT is a stupid, silly idea in the modern era. Archive Team entirely ignores it and with precisely one exception, everyone else should too.

Archive Team interprets ROBOTS.TXT as damage and temporary madness, and works around it. Everyone should. If you don’t want people to have your data, don’t put it online.

(Revised and republished April 2nd, 2025)

The Holmdel Computer Center, Part 2 – AT&T Archives (Wayback Machine link)

This rare look inside a Bell Labs computer center, specifically the one at the Holmdel location, which was referred to internally as the “HOCC” or the “HO CC”. This film was made as orientation for new employees who would need to use the computer center, and this, part 2 of 2 (see part 1), is about the programming center within the HOCC. One thing that’s notable about this film — different from Part 1 — is the preponderance of women working in the Programmer Services area. Around 1966, 7 years before this film was made, there were over 500 women working in “technical work” at Bell Labs, rather than administrative work, and many were in computing. A book and blog by Nathan Ensmenger examines the sociological history of computing, and why during the 1980s the computing field became more and more the province of men. Stories about women in the early decades of computing still reside in the world of the personal anecdote; it’s hard to assess the exact data on how many women worked in the field in the 1960s and 1970s.

The original video isn’t available on the Wayback Machine, but the YouTube version is embedded below.

(Revised and republished April 2nd, 2025)

There’s some interesting artwork on the timeshare computer…reminds me of the “nose art” on military aircraft. In my archival research I’ve come across a few instances of pinup-style material, especially ASCII art printouts.

The video below is from 1973, slightly after the timeframe of my research, but certainly interesting.

The Holmdel Computer Center, Part 1 – AT&T Archives (Wayback Machine link)

The year was 1973, and the computer operating system UNIX, invented at Bell Labs by Ken Thompson and Dennis Ritchie, had just morphed into its third iteration or improvement, and had just been rewritten in the C programming language. This film, made as an orientation for the computer center at the Bell Labs Holmdel location, is a rare glimpse into the operations and procedures of an early 1970s research-oriented computing center. And as the 1973 Holmdel Computer Center only had IBM computers, it wasn't running a UNIX installation: the system was only ported to IBM computers in the years to come. In 1973, UNIX as a system was limited to installations on DEC computers, and there were UNIX installations at other locations of Bell Laboratories such as Indian Hill, Whippany, and, of course, Murray Hill (where UNIX and C were developed). Computers in the Bell System weren't just relegated to computer science or the development of computer language. They were employed for all kinds of complex engineering calculations, telecommunications applications, and, very occasionally, for making art and music.

The original video isn’t available on the Wayback Machine, but the YouTube version is embedded below.

(Revised and republished April 2nd, 2025)

I happened across an historical US passport for Fred Soper (1893-1977), the American epidemiologist and public health administrator, while doing some research on paperwork. The National Library of Medicine has a page on Fred Soper under their "Profiles in Science" project, but Soper's Wikipedia page is quite lacking (updates have been made since 2015). Updating Wikipedia for this historical figure would make a great project for a History and/or Digital Humanities class. There's also a listing of primary visual sources, with high resolution images.

(Revised and republished April 13th, 2025)

The Case for Hollywood History, Francine Prose at the New York Review of Books, 2015:

It’s so much easier and less threatening to talk about whether (or how much of) a film is “true” than to confront the unpleasant—and indisputable—truth: that racial and sexual prejudice have persisted so long past the historical eras in which these films are set.

This happens quite often with student essays concerning historical films -- too much attention paid to the factual discrepancies and not enough contemplation of the larger themes. I use films in my research and teaching, they're invaluable for understanding how history has been interpreted in various ways.

One of my favorite clips for 20th Century United States history comes from World War Z. It's the moment when people are being removed from the aircraft carrier and The Charters of Freedom are being brought on board in their place. World War Z is fictional of course, however, the human response to catastrophe, whether caused by zombies or some other force, provides a great starting point for historical discussion.

(Revised and republished April 19th, 2025)

Two Control Data Cyber 170 mainframe computers, side by side – one online, and one as a spare. (Photograph via Library of Congress)

SITE BUILDING 002 - SCANNER BUILDING - LOOKING AT DISC STORAGE SYSTEMS A AND B

The year on the photo is listed as 1999, which seems too recent given the feel of the picture. In the high-resolution TIFF, however, the date can be seen on the bulletin board, “21 Oct 99”. The Cyber 170 was produced in the late 1970s, so this unit is at least 20 years old.

The photograph is part of this collection at LOC: Cape Cod Air Station, Technical Facility-Scanner Building & Power Plant, Massachusetts Military Reservation, Sandwich, Barnstable County, MA

(Revised and republished April 2nd, 2025)

Campus digital workhorse running final laps after 35 years (Wayback Machine link), by Barbara Palmer, Stanford Report, 2003:

The remarkable thing is not that the mainframe will be retired -- the 35-year-old system is "like a jet slowly losing its engines," said Dick Guertin, a software developer who has worked at Stanford since 1970. What is amazing, say those whose work lives have spanned much of the computer revolution, is that the mainframe system and the ground-breaking applications designed here to run on it have held up so well for so long.

At its peak, there were 30,000 accounts, including noncampus users, on the mainframe. Some of what McWilliam is doing requires real detective work, since many of the people who opened the accounts have long ago left Stanford or retired.

Also – Forsythe Mainframe Retirement (Wayback Machine link):

The mainframe era officially ended on December 15, 2003 when the last of the mainframe accounts was closed down.

(Revised and republished April 2nd, 2025)

Hello, Goodbye - CDS Bids Farewell to Mainframe, Ushers in New Beginning

In 1998 the Catalog Distribution Service of the Library of Congress shutoff its mainframe computer and switched to a new system.

During the 1970s, the mainframes were used primarily to print catalog cards, which CDS once produced by the tens of millions. In those early days, as many as 30 staff members were required simply to service the units, performing such tasks as changing tape reels, threading tape and programming. "It was physically demanding labor," said Mr. Billingsley.

(Revised and republished April 2nd, 2025)

UCLA’s 1948 Mechanical Computer Was Simply Gorgeous To Watch in Action (Wayback Machine link), by Matt Novak at Paleofuture, 2013.

I’ll need to get more information on the film clip’s provenance – it’s shown here through Gizmodo’s Vimeo channel without a source reference. It’s listed in the Paleofuture article as released by Popular Science via Paramount Pictures, 1948 (possibly through Shields Pictures Inc.).

More information at UCLA, Historical Research Highlights, “The Thinking Machine”

In December of 1977, the last working model of a mechanical differential analyzer in the world is donated by UCLA to the Smithsonian Institution for its pioneering computing display. The differential analyzer introduced much of Southern California industry to automatic computing, but became obsolete beginning in 1960 as it was replaced by computing machines with electronic circuits and vacuum tubes. From 1960 on, it was used mainly as a display piece, clanking away occasionally for student and public demonstrations.

Two more video clips of the UCLA differential analyzers at the Computer History Museum: http://www.computerhistory.org/revolution/analog-computers/3/143

(Revised and republished April 2nd, 2025)

Filing Cabinets, a Neglected Piece of Business History, by Linda Gross, the Hagley Library:

Dr. Robertson is an associate professor of media history at Northeastern University. He explained to us that he is currently researching the early history of the filing cabinet (1890s-1930s). Robertson contends that the filing cabinet has been largely neglected in the history of information technologies, with punch card machines (a clearer precursor to computers) taking a leading role in histories of early 20th century information technologies—this despite the importance of “files” and folders” to how we organize information on computers.

“This Big, Urgent Question of Protection for Operating Files and Records,” Remington Rand Inc. brochure, ca. 1948, Hagley Digital Archives.

(Revised and republished April 2nd, 2025)

Kirschenbaum’s Tumblr blog on his book project - http://trackchangesbook.tumblr.com

Matthew Kirschenbaum’s Literary History of Word Processing, Harvard University Press blog post:

It’s interesting to see how Kirschenbaum’s research on the effects of one technological innovation—word processing—is being so shaped by his own embrace of another, social networking. Until recently, it wasn’t often that we got to watch research unfold so publicly, but Kirschenbaum’s style of transparent, internet-based process documentation is becoming more and more common, especially among practitioners of the digital humanities.

Over the years I’ve used WordStar, WordPerfect, Microsoft Word, and many other word processing programs. At the moment I’m moving to Scrivener for larger projects like my dissertation, and Apple Pages for everyday writing. (In 2025, this has changed quite a bit!)

WordStar running in DOS, ca. 1980s (via Wikipedia)

(Revised and republished April 3rd, 2025)

Paper strips shown at faa.gov (Wayback Machine link)

Malcolm Gladwell’s 2002 article on paperwork at The New Yorker.

“The Social Life of Paper” (Wayback Machine link)

Gladwell.com link: http://gladwell.com/the-social-life-of-paper/ (Wayback Machine link)

It is only if paper’s usefulness is in the information written directly on it that it must be stored. If its usefulness lies in the promotion of ongoing creative thinking, then, once that thinking is finished, the paper becomes superfluous. The solution to our paper problem, they write, is not to use less paper but to keep less paper. Why bother filing at all? Everything we know about the workplace suggests that few if any knowledge workers ever refer to documents again once they have filed them away, which should come as no surprise, since paper is a lousy way to archive information. It’s too hard to search and it takes up too much space. Besides, we all have the best filing system ever invented, right there on our desks — the personal computer. That is the irony of the P.C.: the workplace problem that it solves is the nineteenth-century anxiety.

(Revised and republished April 3rd, 2025)