Not your average laptop

[Rocky]

The first computer was made public in February 1946. It used 18,000 vacuum tubes; miles of wire; produced 170,000 watts of power and filled a 1,500 square foot room.
That would be a little hard to lug around on the bus or train on your daily commute

 

[The Seeker]

I can remember taking computer courses in college. Back then, not even a college could afford their own computer. The college had a deal to link into the Cleveland Trust bank computer. I saw the computer once and it was the size of a one car garage! We'd run "programs" at say 9:00 am and the results would be returned sometime in the evening so you had to go back and collect the data cards.

-- Posted with TapaTalk

 

[CarlS]

I well remember those punch cards well. We used to run timber cruise confidence levels using those.

 

[hemibee]

I remember the first 40GB hard drive I saw, it was as big as a washing machine or dryer. The room actually had 4 of them and was in a "clean room" environment with dedicated A/C units to each hard drive and two back up A/C units. At that time 250MB hard drives were thought to be huge, now you can carry more memory in your shirt pocket. Man has times changed.

 

[DaveM]

Technology sure is COOL stuff

 

[AussiePedro]

Yeah and I still need my daughter to program the Dvd for me.

 

[Tassie Tiger]

I worked in a bank & we had our computer off site & it had to be run in a low temperature room.
It had massive tape drive units & took all night to back up a days work.
There were three shifts that we took in turns.
Now an 11" ultra book is over 1000% more powerful.

 

[Rocky]

I worked in a bank & we had our computer off site & it had to be run in a low temperature room.
It had massive tape drive units & took all night to back up a days work.
There were three shifts that we took in turns.
Now an 11" ultra book is over 1000% more powerful.

Same thing here.
Back in the mid eighties we had an off-site computer complex that was in a climate controlled room and it was a series of huge tape-drive machines.
I was allowed to take a tour of the room and was quite impressed with the wonder of it all.
How far we have come in 25 years.