Tuesday Reads: A Trip Down Memory Lane
Posted: March 5, 2013 Filed under: Barack Obama, morning reads, U.S. Economy, U.S. Politics | Tags: Dura 1401, history of computers, Len Deighton, lost continents, psychology, science, technology, Wang word processor 46 Comments
Good Morning!!
I’m going to do something a little different this morning, so I hope you’ll indulge me.
Over the weekend I ran across a story at Slate by Matthew Kirschenbaum that brought back a rush of old memories: The Book-Writing Machine: What was the first novel ever written on a word processor?
The story is about thriller writer Len Deighton, who in 1968 wrote his novel Bomber on an early word processor called the IBM MTST (Magnetic Tape Selectric Typewriter).
It was 1968, and the IBM technician who serviced Deighton’s typewriters had just heard from Deighton’s personal assistant, Ms. Ellenor Handley, that she had been retyping chapter drafts for his book in progress dozens of times over. IBM had a machine that could help, the technician mentioned. They were being used in the new ultramodern Shell Centre on the south bank of the Thames, not far from his Merrick Square home.
A few weeks later, Deighton stood outside his Georgian terrace home and watched as workers removed a window so that a 200-pound unit could be hoisted inside with a crane.
….
Like many early technologies, the MTST began as a hybrid creation, a kind of mechanical centaur consisting of two separate devices fused to work in conjunction with one another. At the same instant a character was imprinted on the page from the Selectric’s typing mechanism, that keystroke was also recorded as data on a magnetic tape cartridge. There was no screen, but backspacing to correct an error on the page also resulted in the data being corrected on the tape. Unblemished hard copy could then be produced with the push of a button, at the rate of 150 wpm. What’s more, the printing process could be halted while in “playback” mode to allow for the insertion of additional text; sentence spacing, line-lengths, even hyphenated words were all adjusted automatically as revisions were introduced. In the States, the MTST retailed for $10,000…
It was one of the first “word processors,” although that expression had not yet been invented. You can see a photo of the one Deighton used at the link.
Keypunch machines
The reason this story triggered my mental way-back machine is that in the late 1960s I worked on a machine like that. When I first moved to Boston in 1967, I landed a job at Harvard University’s Widener Library.
The job was in the library’s shelflist automation project (pdf). The starting pay was $65 per week, a quarter of which went to half of the rent on an apartment one block from Harvard Yard ($165/mo.). Today, if you could get a unit in that building it would cost a rather large fortune. But I digress.
I started out working on a keypunch machine like the one at the right. the punch cards were then processed by an IBM 1401 computer like this one.
IBM 1401 computer
Here’s a video I found about an IBM 1401 computer purchased in 1959!
News Links
It’s hard to believe that in those days computers took up entire rooms! But I’m probably not the only one her at the Sky Dancing blog who remembers those days. Actually, I had worked in the data processing office when I was in college, beginning in 1965, so I already had some familiarity with computers and keypunch machines.
Pretty soon my office at Widener Library purchased a few more sophisticated data entry machines built by the Dura Business Machines Co. The Dura machine was similar to Deighton’s but much cheaper. It consisted of a modified IBM Selectric typewriter with an attachment that punched holes in paper tape instead of the more expensive magnetic tape in Len Deighton’s machine. You typed normally, and the words were converted to code on the paper tape. The tape was then converted to punch cards, read by the computer, and printed out. The printouts were checked by editors who marked any errors, deletions, or additions and you could make the corrections without retyping everything. You could also backspace over errors as you typed.
Here’s a 1968 photograph and description of the Dura 1401 from the ABA Journal. I’m posting it in large type so you can read the text.
Print ad for the Dura 1401
Now this is where my trip down memory lane started to feel a little less nostalgic. According to the ad, “your girl” operates this magnificent machine and “your girl’s output goes up as much as 100%.” Were things really that sexist in 1968? Yes, yes they were. Here’s a “help wanted” ad from the Toledo Blade that I came across when I was looking for information on the Dura machine. You’ll notice that only men need apply. In the column to the left are some ads for women’s jobs.
I couldn’t get all the text into the screen grab, but you can see the whole thing at the link. The text mentions a couple of times that the job is only available to men.
In the mid-1970s, when I worked at M.I.T., our office purchased a Wang word processor. This was a pretty advanced machine, dedicated only to word processing that was operated pretty much like Microsoft Word. It had a monitor, a printer, and a large CPU, I guess you’d call it.
Wang word processor
By the mid-1980s I was working in a different department that had rudimentary PCs. By then I was an “administrative assistant.” I left that job in 1986 and swore never to take another office job, and I never have.
The work could be interesting and challenging, but the condescending attitude toward clerical/secretarial workers was just too much to bear. “Women’s work,” you know. Keep in mind that in those days the people I worked for had no understanding whatsoever of the machines we learned to operate.
I went back to college in 1993, and by then there were much more advanced computers available in the university’s computer lab. Very few students had their own PCs or Macs then. I bought a little word processor to write papers on at home. It probably cost a few hundred dollars and could do everything the giant Wang word processor did and more.
I bought my first PC in 1997 when I started graduate school. At the time it was really state of the art. I spend about $1,500 on the computer and a laser printer. I think it had an Intel Pentium processor, 128 mb hard drive and 64 mg RAM–something like that–and ran on Windows 95. Unbelievable! I got hooked up to cable internet and was immediately hooked. So you can see that I’ve spent most of my adult life working with computers. Of course the young kids assume people my age know nothing about technology.
I hope I haven’t bored you stiff with this little nostalgia trip. I know some of you must recall these old machines too, so I hope you enjoyed the pictures anyway. It’s amazing how technology has changed our lives in the past 50 years, isn’t it?
I have some more up-to-date reads for you that I hope you’ll find interesting.
The Washington Post Magazine published a wonderful story about a family’s nightmarish experience of domestic violence, post-traumatic stress, and recovery: After Dad shot Mom, a family deals with the haunting legacy of gun violence The article by Neely Tucker builds on the story of Lynnie Vessels, who was 7 years old at the time of the shooting as well as interviews with her siblings. Lynnie has just published a book about her recovery, To Soften the Blow.
Of course the story is heartbreaking, but I highly recommend reading it as a reminder of what life was like for women and children in the 1960s–when the terms “child abuse” and “domestic violence” were completely unknown and there was no one to turn to when it happened. It was considered private family business and people mostly didn’t interfere even when they heard women screaming and children crying.
How well I remember. I grew up in a violent home–not as extreme as the Lynnie Vessels’ was. My dad was a rage-aholic, and you never knew when he’d lose his temper and lash out: screaming at the top of his lungs and hitting. There was no one to turn to for advice on how to deal with it, and we were taught to keep quiet about anything that happened within the family.
I couldn’t wait to get out, and I left for Boston when I was 19. My other siblings left home early too, but some of them still can’t admit to themselves that our home was violent and abusive. As the eldest, I probably got the brunt of it, I guess. Now I know that my dad probably had PTSD from his experiences in WWII.
Another important and timely read is this piece by Robert Parry: The Neo-Confederate Supreme Court. Here’s a short excerpt:
If white rule in the United States is to be restored and sustained, then an important first step will be the decision of the five Neo-Confederate justices on the U.S. Supreme Court to gut the Voting Rights Act, a move that many court analysts now consider likely.
The Court’s striking down Section Five of the Voting Rights Act will mean that jurisdictions with a history of racial discrimination in voting – mostly in the Old Confederacy – will be free to impose new obstacles to voting by African-Americans, Hispanics and other minorities without first having to submit the changes to a federal court.
This green light to renew Jim Crow laws also would come at a time when Republican legislatures and governors across the country are devising new strategies for diluting the value of votes from minorities and urban dwellers in order to protect GOP power, especially within the federal government.
Check it out if you can.
Ryan Lizza has a new article in the New Yorker about President Obama and sequestration: THE POWERLESS PRESIDENCY. The gist is that Obama has given up on his dream of bipartisanship and accepted that he can’t bring the parties together.
That Obama, who started his Presidency as a true believer, has now given up on the idea that he has any special powers to change the minds of his fiercest critics is probably a good thing. His devotion to post-partisan governance has long fed two mistaken ideas: that the differences between the parties are minor, and that divided government is inherently good for the country.
A fundamental fact of modern political life is that the only way to advance a coherent agenda in Washington is through partisan dominance. When Obama had large Democratic majorities in Congress during his first two years in office, he led one of the most successful legislative periods in modern history. After he lost the House, his agenda froze and the current status quo of serial fiscal crises began. Like it or not, for many years, Washington has been most productive when one party controlled both Congress and the White House.
The boring fact of our system is that congressional math is the best predictor of a President’s success. This idea is not nearly as sexy as the notion that great Presidents are great because they twist arms in backrooms and inspire the American people to rise up and force Congress to bend to their will. But even the Presidents who are remembered for their relentless congressional lobbying and socializing were more often than not successful for more mundane reasons—like arithmetic.
I’m not at all sure that Obama has really let go of his dream of unity, although I hope Lizza is right.
I missed Charlie Rose while I was writing this, so I’ll have to try to catch a rerun or watch it on-line. But Joe Weisenthal has published a few excepts of the battle between Paul Krugman and Joe Scarborough. Weisenthal says Bloomberg with air a repeat tonight at 8PM.
Here’s a piece on the human brain at The Guardian Observer: Our brains, and how they’re not as simple as we think. I found it fascinating and I hope you will too.
One more psychological article from The New Yorker: Up All Night: The Science of Sleeplessness, by Elizabeth Kolbert. It’s a problem I’m very familiar with.
Science AAAS has a article about a Lost Land Beneath the Waves (Atlantis?)
Geological detectives are piecing together an intriguing seafloor puzzle. The Indian Ocean and some of its islands, scientists say, may lie on top of the remains of an ancient continent pulled apart by plate tectonics between 50 million and 100 million years ago. Painstaking detective work involving gravity mapping, rock analysis, and plate movement reconstruction has led researchers to conclude that several places in the Indian Ocean, now far apart, conceal the remnants of a prehistoric land mass they have named Mauritia. In fact, they say, the Indian Ocean could be “littered” with such continental fragments, now obscured by lava erupted by underwater volcanoes.
The Seychelles, an archipelago of 115 islands about 1500 kilometers east of Africa, are something of a geological curiosity. Although a few of Earth’s largest islands, such as Greenland, are composed of the same continental crust as the mainland, most islands are made of a denser, chemically distinct oceanic crust, created midocean by magma welling up beneath separating tectonic plates. Geologists think they separated from the Indian subcontinent 80 million to 90 million years ago.
Freaky!
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Years ago I was one of the first in the hospital to use the WANG. The printer was the size of a refrigerator and when it was printing the sound was deafening!
Today we are typing on something as small as a hand warmer and you can barely hear the printer react.
My grandchildren think I am from another planet when I mention rotary phones or, at the age of 17 I was trained to use a teletype machine that was considered “innovative” it its day because it was “hooked up” to another and made “clicketty clack” sounds.
Hard to believe that those behemoths led to today’s “smarter” technology that allows us to carry it around in our pockets.
Thanks for the trip down memory lane, bb!
Yes, that printer noise was really deafening. I forced my boss to get a noise shield for it to reduce the noise level. I had to make an official complaint and she was not happy.
Fascinating post in so many ways, bb. Thanks for sharing. None of those machines was a part of my experience. I do remember when I saw the first calculator, which cost about $1000. Being a math geek all my life it was something wondrous. Of course, at that price, I never imagined how that would evolve, nor how ubiquitous or cheap they would become. Goodbye sliderule.
bb, I thought you might find this story from yesterday’s Morning Edition interesting: http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2013/03/04/173227718/your-childs-fat-mines-fine-rose-colored-glasses-and-the-obesity-epidemic Over and above the obesity discussion was the optimism bias in the story. For me, at least, it seemed this could apply to much more – especially politics & marketing in particular. I’ve added the book (http://www.amazon.com/Optimism-Bias-Irrationally-Positive-Vintage/dp/0307473511) to my Amazon wish list.
Thanks for the recommendation. I’ll check it out!
Found this nearly 2 year old link to a Time magazine article: http://www.theoptimismbias.com/
Here’s just a short excerpt:
Read more: http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,2074067,00.html#ixzz2MfulXXTI
Good Morning!!! Thanks for the trip on the Way Back Machine, BB. 🙂
I worked as a computer operator on a Univac 418-III in a Criminal justice setting for a number of years. The Criminal Justice/Law Enforcement environment was the first to use what is now called the internet. In the early 70’s our computer was transferring and receiving data with the NCIC (National Crime Information Center-FBI) computer via telephone. Once connected we worked in tandem with their system operators via the computer centers desktop terminals. It was considered state-of-the-art technology. How far we’ve come in less than 50 years. That Computer,it’s components (tape drives, backup CPU’s, Terminals, keypunch machines and the cooling and humdity control systerms) took up the better part of the first floor of the Criminal Justice building. It all sat on an elevated floor and except for the programmers offices in the rear of the center, it was glassed in. People would stand in front of the windows and watch us work. It was like working in a menagerie
Thanks for sharing your memories, Mouse. The computer rooms were always glassed in, as long as I can remember. And the air conditioning inside was freezing because it was supposed to protect the delicate machinery. It’s so amazing now to think that my cell phone is hundreds of times more powerful than those giant computers were.
I remember using a Wang! And my first home computer was a “portable” Kaypro.
In 20-40 years (or sooner) they’ll have devices that will make our present amazing high-tech cell phones look as old-fashioned as an IBM Selectric.
Via Think Progress, a must-read story about KU’s freshman basketball phenom Ben McLemore–who grew up so poor that often he had nothing to eat but the free school breakfasts and lunches that Republicans want to cut.
This is just heartbreaking:
His mom is unemployed, his family is still poor and struggling, his older brother is in jail for stealing to support the family, so it’s up to Ben to help his family.
That is a heartbreaking story. It always makes me angry to hear how “easy” kids have it today or how “selfish” they are. The truth is many kids are like Ben, working hard to make a better life for themselves and their families. I hope Ben will succeed in spite of the odds.
When I was in college, I lived at home. Some people thought I had it easy – all my bills paid and a mother to cook and clean for me! But the truth was we lived in a crummy one-bedroom apartment with a dangerous black mold problem ( which the landlord refused to do anything about ). My mother needed me to live with her to help support her financially and do the housework because she had rheumatoid arthritis ( a crippling autoimmune disease ). She worked for as long as she could but she was dependent on me from an early age. I started working as a young teenager. I put myself through college while often paying the bills for both of us. I ate a lot of cereal for dinner. I got my clothes at the Salvation Army. I never had a car. I walked everywhere to save a few dollars by not taking the bus. I never went on a spring break or anything like that. I was always working or studying. I worried constantly about how to make it through the next day, or week, or month. I hoped hard work would mean a better life for my mother and me. It didn’t quite turn out that way.
That’s my trip down memory lane.
And girls who have it that bad or worse generally don’t have the athletic opportunities and scholarships boys like McLemore enjoy.
Thanks, Beata. We were poor when I was a kid, but we were never hungry. Despite their very real inadequacies as parents, my mom and dad did love us; and I think that made the difference for me anyway. I’m glad that I’ve worked it through and let it go. It was no fun being angry and numbing myself in my early adulthood. I love being the age I am now and wouldn’t go back for anything.
I’m glad you worked through all that, BB, and are enjoying your life now.
I was never angry with my mother. She was a very loving person with a great sense of humor. She was certainly not to blame for being ill, poor, and needing my help. I stopped being angry at my father a long time ago and made peace with him. He’s been dead for years anyway.
The point of my comment above ( perhaps badly expressed ) is that not all “Baby Boomer” kids like me had it easy growing up and neither do all kids today in spite of the right-wing memes. There is still so much poverty in this country. Too many people turn a blind eye to it ( Hello, Cokie Roberts! ). They like to pretend poverty doesn’t exist or that it is the fault of those who are suffering. Being poor in the USA is like being a leper used to be. Tell someone you are poor and watch them run in the opposite direction to escape contamination.
Where did everyone go? LOL.
My laptop is in the shop, and I have to borrow my kid’s computer. Which means I only have a short amount of time to use it…great post BB
I agree, Beata. I wasn’t really replying to your comment as sort reacting emotionally. Reading these articles the past couple of days has brought up a lot of feelings for me.
Thanks, JJ!
This shouldn’t happen to any child, in America or anywhere. McLemore should be the poster child for what is wrong with the Right – on each and every count of their miserable platform. Right to life, for them, ends at birth.
You got it eco……………..it’s the politicans who can vote, or those who they can convince to vote that they care about, not the 47% that Romney talked about, not the McLemore’s of the world.
Dear god, the rehabilitation of the Bush Family has begun!
Jeb has been making the rounds coyly refusing to directly answer whether or not he will seek the GOP nomination in 2016. The pundits are all “wetting” themselves in the hopes of seeing another Clinton/Bush competition. Spare me!
Tuned into Morning Joe long enough to hear Jeb declare how much better off we would be today had Mittens won the election. Seriously?
Bad as things are does anyone with half a working brain actually bemoan the idea of not having Mitt Romney in the WH? Other than Ann Romney?
I’m sure Chris Matthews is beside himself with another “tingle up his leg” with the mere thought of Jeb Bush seeking the title of POTUS. He’ll be torn between him and Chris Christie but he will have much difficulty keeping from “spraying” his guests as he praises these two with his divided mancrushes.
Sickening.
He’s almost surely planning to run. The dead giveaway is his flip-flop on the path to citizenship for undocumented aliens. He’s been pushing it for years, gets the other potential candidiates out on the limb to support it, then backs away from it himself. Great setup for those GOP primary voters.
My thoughts exactly Ralph. Jeb favored a path to citizenship In June of last year – now he doesn’t. HE IS GOING TO RUN, of that I am 100% certain. No doubt Christie’s sinking has been the catalyst for Jeb to get off the fence & start making his journey to the WH. Can’t ya’ll just “feel” the mass Republican orgasm sweeping the country? It’s a fricking nightmare for this Floridian.
Connie, I read where he now says he would back a path “if you could craft it into the law” in some fashion. His story changes depending on who is interviewing him. Definitely running.
Heh. Another Clinton v Bush election? Sounds like another Clinton win to me! 😉
Is there something wrong with the configuration? I have tried 3 different browsers but none of them is showing the site properly. Is there a technical issue with WordPress?
Hi MABlue!
What does it look like to you? I’m using Chrome, but the site also looks fine in IE. I gave up on Firefox.
The header is a little different, the side bar is miss and the text is on the entire screen. I have tried Chrome, Firefox and IE, and the all look the same, which ic actually unusual.
That’s weird. Have you tried clearing your cache? I hope it’s not something in my post causing it. I don’t know why we’d see something different when we’re using the same browser.
Looks normal in firefox to me, fwiw.
Looks good in IE-9
Charles Pierce on journalism Hard Times In The Monkeyhouse and he names names.
I wanted to put that O’Keefe story in this post, but I couldn’t recall where I read it. Thanks!
We can’t forget that Geraldo Rivera was king of MSNBC for a very long time–through Clinton scandals and then the OJ trial.
Tweety and the rest fawning all over Dubya was just sickening. That’s why I have no faith in them now.
Thanks, Ralph.
Joe Weisenthal: Joe Scarborough Is Wrong About The Deficit — But For A Much Different Reason Than People Realize
Good article. He’s so right.
Wall Street loves the sequester: Dow passes intraday trading record; markets seem undaunted by Washington gridlock
Second sinkhole opens up in FL, 3 miles from the one that a man disappeared into, presumed dead.
TOM BROKAW ALSO THINKS THE PRESIDENT CAN MAKE REPUBLICANS COMPROMISE, BY MAGIC
Brokaw doesn’t know the Senate tried to pass a bill? If they won’t keep up with events, these pompous asses should retire or die or something else useful?!!!
Brokaw is an austerity hawk on steroids. The only thing he cares about is getting rid of the safety net. He doesn’t need it so why should anyone else? Dancin’ Dave wants the proles to feel pain; Brokaw wants us to be annihilated.
My feelings exactly!
Great comment on that post …
Thanks BB………..it’s almost like an exclusive club when you come from a home filled with poverty, illness and violence. Children cannot thrive, and then along comes a basket player who like Linnie exposes their lives, their struggles. You can put it in pen, or put it in action, or
remove yourself far far away, and even reach for a razor blade, but it’s still right there, and all the warms socks of the world won’t wash it away. BB you know how hard it is accept yourself, and what a mission it becomes to even “love yourself” so that you can survive and be apart of a relationship with others. The emotional judgement, and balancing how to find happiness, and realizing that people are most unreliable when it comes to helping those going through the horror of their broken lives. It not something they need to think about, they need to do it, save the children and families, do something to help.
Thanks, Fannie. Great comment.