On Fri, 09 Feb 2018 20:59:55 -0000, "James Wilkinson Sword"
wrote:

On Fri, 09 Feb 2018 02:24:56 -0000, wrote:

On Thu, 08 Feb 2018 17:23:33 -0000, "James Wilkinson Sword"
wrote:

On Thu, 08 Feb 2018 17:10:18 -0000, wrote:

On Thu, 08 Feb 2018 15:13:46 -0000, "James Wilkinson Sword"
wrote:


It used to be old folk didn't know what a computer was, and the teenagers were the ones on the bulletin boards. (First computer - ZX Spectrum)

Speak for yourself. I was in the computer business 53 years ago.
They did run on kerosene tho ;-)

Wouldn't those be more correctly called industrial calculators?

Not really. These were transistor stored program machines with tape,
disk and card media and up to an 1100 (132 character) line a minute
printer. The base 1401 boasted a whopping 4k of Core Storage topping
out at 16k although the 70xx machines were bigger.
Basic clock cycle was 11.5 microseconds. (87khz or so)

Did they use this magnetic memory stuff? I came across one of these in a store cupboard once and we used it for teaching kids the history of computing:
http://www.ricomputermuseum.org/_/rs...e_Close-Up.jpg

Yes that is the stuff, core memory. Back in the day that was usually
strung by hand.