Some thoughts on the real impact of the 1130

[rbsteup]

Before the introduction of the IBM 1130 most computers were in the "Glass Cage", behind locked
doors and jealously guarded by the IT "professionals". The IT staff provided most, if not all,
of the application programming. Most of the applications were of the "business" variety, payroll
inventory, employee databases etc. Any engineering / scientific applications in the temple, if any
were externally provided packages with a lower priority for system time resources.

Engineers of the time had little training or knowledge of computers. If an engineer had a need for
computer support he had to go hat in hand to the IT department for help. Generally the IT programmers
had as little knowledge of engineering and science as the engineers knowledge of computers.

The engineer would try to explain to the programmer what he needed and the programmer would try to
understand. But they were speaking to each other in different languages. The very best that could
happen was the engineer would get exactly what he asked for, but not what he really needed.

Enter the 1130. Now here was a fairly powerful computer in is time, oriented toward engineering
problems. He had access to it not under control of the IT department. By learning Fortran he would
quickly be using it to solve his problems. Simple problems at first but rapidly increasing in
sophistication. But more importantly by the person who had the understanding of the problem and how
to solve it.

Now I don't want to start a debate over whether it is easier to train a programmer to be an engineer
or an engineer to be a programmer! For the IT professional with a college degree in computer science
it is a career, but for the engineer the computer is merely a tool to be used along with other
scientific instruments to be proficient in his profession.

It is my belief that application programming is best done when it is used as a tool used by a person
with knowledge and experience in a profession such as science, engineering, finance etc.

That I believe is the most important contribution of the 1130 and other similar systems.

[Clare Owens]

I'm very glad that you put in that last sentence, so that your comments could apply to the IBM 1620 as well.  My experiences were that the 1620 was just as much a machine of the Engineering Staff as the follow-on 1130 was.  But there were far fewer 1620 machines than there eventually were 1130s.  But the 1620s we had in Buffalo were in the hands of the engineers, scientists, medical researchers and college students, no IT professionals at all that I knew of.  There also was an LGP-30 out there doing ray tracing, etc. in the hands of optical engineers.  The LGP-30 was replaced by the 1130 as well.

I believe the big differences were that there had been a few more years of Fortran education in engineering schools and that the 1130 was much faster and much more capable as well as more affordable. 

It's all coming back to me now...

Clare

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[rbsteup]

I agree that before the 1130 there was the 1620 but it never gained the popularity of the 1130, probably because it lacked the power and usability that came with the 1130. I originally learned Fortran from the first Programmed Instruction course introduced right after Fortran was introduced. It was only available within only within IBM for testing. I took the course just out of curiosity, I had no immediate need. At that time there was only assembler language. The exciting part of Fortran was the possibility of writing a program that could be run on more than one machine. My only programming experience at that time was as a SAGE ( AN/FSQ-7) field engineer and a few 7090 assembler programs, and of course wiring plugboards if you can call that "programming".

As a sage field engineer we all learned the entire machine instruction set and often debugged by entering instructions in binary on the console switches and single stepping through the instruction while watching the console neons. Yes, we've come a long way!

[John Doty]

On Apr 2, 2015, at 12:48 PM, rbsteup <rbs...@gmail.com> wrote:

Enter the 1130. Now here was a fairly powerful computer in is time, oriented toward engineering
problems. He had access to it not under control of the IT department. By learning Fortran he would 
quickly be using it to solve his problems. Simple problems at first but rapidly increasing in 
sophistication. But more importantly by the person who had the understanding of the problem and how
to solve it.

The first time I used an 1130 was at my high school in 1969. It was, in fact, the first computer I’d ever seen directly with my own eyes. The teacher in charge of it taught us that FORTRAN was the tool that put the power of the computer in the hands of people with problems to solve, so they wouldn’t have to depend on specialists.

John Doty              Noqsi Aerospace, Ltd.

http://www.noqsi.com/

j...@noqsi.com

[Stephen]

In the early 1970's, the Baltimore County [Maryland, USA] Board of Education used an IBM 1130 solely for instructional and academic purposes.  Because all administrative work was done on an IBM mainframe at another location, students were allowed to visit the "data center" (an updated classroom) to see and hear and operate the computer.  I was one of those students.  

Initially, the 1130 was used for a FORTRAN, Probability, and Statistics course open to Seniors who had a strong mathematics concentration in their coursework.  All county high schools ran the course, enrollment permitting.  Mark-sense cards took the place of keypunches, and the 1130 used EMU FORTRAN with an optical read front-end and a 2501 with an optical read RPQ.  

In the mid-70's, the County asked me and a colleague to develop a batch BASIC compiler (not interpreter) for their 1130 so that they could expand their computer program down to as low as 7th or 8th grade.  (And I see my oldest granddaughter schlepping an iPad around, and the youngest--at 4 years old--asking to play with the smartphone.)  That program was reasonably successful.   

Many years later I ended up on a tech support call to someone who had used that BASIC compiler--what a thrill.  

The colleague was Mike Muuss, known well for his other contributions to computing.  His father was a professor at Goucher College, which also had an 1130, and Mike had early and deep exposure to that machine.  Mike and I were introduced by the teacher running the "data center" because of our shared interest in the 1130.  

Not only was the 1130 a machine that could be--and was--physically accessible to non-professionals, it was even touched by mere high school students.  Many of whom continued to touch computers throughout their careers.  

[Joseph Ambrose]

Stephen,

I was one such High school student, at WC Mepham HS in Bellmore, we had access to an 1130, running FORTRAN and RPG,  I took both those classes, I also bought JK Hughs book on programming the 1130 and started to learn assembler.

I started with a DEC PDP-8 running BASIC, and moved up to the 1130. We also had access to an 1130 the SUNY Oswego where I attended as a CS major. loved that hardware....

I'm now a retired Network manager, learning web site design......

It never ends....

.... and I love it!!!

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    Email: jambro...@gmail.com (Job search related)

               joeam...@optonline.net (Personal)

Profile: http://www.linkedin.com/in/jambrose0321

 

[John Doty]

On Apr 3, 2015, at 9:14 AM, Joseph Ambrose <jambro...@gmail.com> wrote:

We also had access to an 1130 the SUNY Oswego where I attended as a CS major. loved that hardware.

Perhaps using the FORGO compile to memory and go system that Bob Berch and I developed at SUNY (then SUC) Brockport. We used Oswego as our test site to confirm we could successfully install our binaries on somebody else’s 1130, not just ours. When it was working at Oswego, we’d ship decks to the other 1130 centers in the SUC system.

[Peter Flass]

Stephen - is your BASIC compiler available enywhere?

[Ross Patterson]

As was I, at New York's Stuyvesant HS.  If I hadn't landed in the "computer lab" (a former shop room with lots of large steel vessels still in place) for freshman home room, my life might have turned out very differently.

Oddly enough, I later worked with some good friends of Mike Muuss.  This computing industry is a small place sometimes.

Ross

[rbsteup]

Ross Patterson

Apr 3 (18 hours ago)

"As was I, at New York's Stuyvesant HS."

           I was a student at Brooklyn Tech HS, but obviously at a much earlier time, graduated in 1954. Our only computer was our slide rule.
           High tech then was a mechanical calculator costing thousands of bucks.

[James Field]

The term "IT" was unknown to me in 1968{?} when I, as a Geoscience undergraduate student, first began programming and teaching Fortran on an 1130.
Engineers there were none. Scientists there were several and I made a few bucks writing programs to process geomagnetic pole positions from paper data provided by my
Prof. [Dr. Carl K. Seyfert jr.].

In those days we called ourselves "programmers", or "analyists", or "computer guys ...  even though were some very clever girls". Never IT!
EDP, ADP and similar terms were applied to departments...  Not in my complete recollection was IT ever used.

I have experienced many "glass cage" environments (inside and outside) since then but never worked in an environment envolving 'engineers'.

Your personal experience of programmers and yourself offers many possibilities.
Your generalisations are specific to yourself.

My early years of computing professionals was populated by bright people from very many fields of expertise and personalities.
Later years of experience reinforced this even into retirement.

It's a big world.


Jim

[Peter Flass]

IT came a lot later than 1954 (or 1964). My guess is that it came into use about the time using a computer ceased to require being able to program, maybe in the 1970s? I should check Google nGram.

[Peter Flass]

First use late 1950s, but didn't really take off until around 1978 or 1979.

[Joseph Ambrose]

That compiler was a nice change from the FORTRAN II compiler IBM provided. I also liked the fact that if an catastrophic error that would cause the 1130 halt operations with an "F" error in the AC (IIRC) that compiler would print that F error on the printer, flush the job and keep on processing. I had heard that the DMS was rewritten by another college but I never found out who.... Nice job John!

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[Miles_gmail]

We used the EMU (Eastern Michigan University) FORTRAN.  It was great as you said compared to the FORTRAN II.

 

I hadn’t thought about those errors in oh so long…

 

Miles Sandin

Bridgewater VA

[John R Pierce]

On 4/3/2015 10:48 AM, James Field wrote:
> The term "IT" was unknown to me in 1968{?} when I, as a Geoscience
> undergraduate student, first began programming and teaching Fortran on
> an 1130.
> Engineers there were none. Scientists there were several and I made a
> few bucks writing programs to process geomagnetic pole positions from
> paper data provided by my
> Prof. [Dr. Carl K. Seyfert jr.].
>
> In those days we called ourselves "programmers", or "analyists", or
> "computer guys ... even though were some very clever girls". Never IT!
> EDP, ADP and similar terms were applied to departments... Not in my
> complete recollection was IT ever used.

when I started, business computing was called DP, for Data Processing.
It was in the 80s when DP mutated into IT.

--
john r pierce, recycling bits in santa cruz

[Miles Sandin]

 

We used the EMU (Eastern Michigan University) FORTRAN.  It was great as you said compared to the FORTRAN II.

 

I hadn’t thought about those errors in oh so long…

 

Miles Sandin

Bridgewater VA

 

From: ibm...@googlegroups.com [mailto:ibm...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Joseph Ambrose
Sent: Saturday, April 4, 2015 9:28 PM
To: ibm...@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: [IBM1130] Some thoughts on the real impact of the 1130

 

That compiler was a nice change from the FORTRAN II compiler IBM provided. I also liked the fact that if an catastrophic error that would cause the 1130 halt operations with an "F" error in the AC (IIRC) that compiler would print that F error on the printer, flush the job and keep on processing. I had heard that the DMS was rewritten by another college but I never found out who.... Nice job John!

 

[Stephen]

Hi Peter:

Not as far as I know.  My copy of the compiler and runtime sources and documentation were destroyed in 1988.  Also destroyed were optimizations for 2501 and 1403 routines; I can't recall if these were to EMU FORTRAN, DMS, or both.  I recall we were able to improve the 2501 routine enough that the 1130 could consistently instruct the 2501 to read the next card before completion of the current card processing cycle, a requirement to attain rated speed on the 2501.  The original code would occasionally miss.  One could readily hear the difference.  

The 1130 was "small" enough that you could get very knowledgeable about the whole machine: hardware, systems, DMS internals, languages, file system (such as it was).  And small enough that people who owned them would let you mess around at that level.  There's no way a teenager would get that access on an OS/MVT machine.  The 1130 was also big enough that getting that knowledge gave you a really complete set of tools for a computer career.  At least, it did for me, and so it would seem for many others.  

[rbsteup]

"catastrophic error that would cause the 1130 halt operations with an "F" error in the AC (IIRC)"

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
That was one of the many annoyances of 1130 Fortran! Every 1130 programmer had a desk drawer full of card decks, a personal library
of subroutines to overcome these quirks. We often processed card decks of electrical test data punched by the testers on the semiconductor
manufacturing line. These card decks were often of 800 to 1000 cards. It was a real pain when a mis-punched  card aborted the job half way through reading the deck with a F00x in the accumulator. We had to find the bad card, remove it from the deck and start over, frequently several times. One of my collection of goodies was an assembler subroutine called REFOO that captured the error code and returned it to the program.

It worked like this;

INTEGER CODE

      CALL REFOO( CODE )
      IF ( CODE ) 100, 200, 100
100  .. handle the error
       .. read the io buffer
.
200 ... continue processing

When REFOO was called it would modify the Fortran error trap code to point back to itself, and return a 0 in code. Later on in the program
caused by a read error, usually an alphabetic character in a FORMAT integer field it would return a second time with CODE set to the error.
A modification to the Fortran compiler made the Fortran internal buffer a read / write device. The results of the last Fortran READ / WRITE
remained in the buffer as a character string. Thus the erroneous card could be re-read as a character string and corrected or ignored.

In the IPF system it allowed us to do this;



 

[Walter T. Mosscrop]

Same for me. It was the “Math Lab”, a room full of electromechanical adding machines and two programmable calculators – an Olivetti Programma 101 (delay line memory!) and a Monroe 1665 (which used punched cards with precut chads, no keypunch required, just patience). Took a computer class, did well, ended up in the Saturday computer program at the technical high school which used…an 1130.

 

Walter

 

From: ibm...@googlegroups.com [mailto:ibm...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Ross Patterson
Sent: Friday, April 03, 2015 7:39 PM
To: ibm...@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: [IBM1130] Some thoughts on the real impact of the 1130

 

As was I, at New York's Stuyvesant HS.  If I hadn't landed in the "computer lab" (a former shop room with lots of large steel vessels still in place) for freshman home room, my life might have turned out very differently.

 

Oddly enough, I later worked with some good friends of Mike Muuss.  This computing industry is a small place sometimes.

 

Ross

[John Doty]

On Apr 4, 2015, at 8:18 PM, Miles_gmail <msan...@gmail.com> wrote:

We used the EMU (Eastern Michigan University) FORTRAN.  It was great as you said compared to the FORTRAN II.

 

I hadn’t thought about those errors in oh so long…

 

Miles Sandin

Bridgewater VA

 

From: ibm...@googlegroups.com[mailto:ibm...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf OfJoseph Ambrose
Sent: Saturday, April 4, 2015 9:28 PM
To: ibm...@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: [IBM1130] Some thoughts on the real impact of the 1130

 

That compiler was a nice change from the FORTRAN II compiler IBM provided. I also liked the fact that if an catastrophic error that would cause the 1130 halt operations with an "F" error in the AC (IIRC) that compiler would print that F error on the printer, flush the job and keep on processing. I had heard that the DMS was rewritten by another college but I never found out who.... Nice job John!

EMU implemented a more sophisticated Fortran dialect. It was an impressive effort, bringing the 1130 closer to mainframe capability.

On the other hand, at Brockport we designed FORGO to be fast and friendly to students doing small-scale class assignments. The challenge the “smaller” state colleges faced was a huge mismatch between the exploding use of the computer in the curriculum and the capabilities of a single 1130, which was all most of them had for academic computing in 1970. “Smaller” in the massive SUNY/SUC system wasn’t so small: Brockport had about 5000 students! 

For FORGO, we made few changes to the Fortran language itself. We did not change DMS. FORGO was a DMS application that wrapped modified IBM compiler overlays, with some additions. To speed things up, we did several things.

First, we eliminated the linker step. We pre-linked a binary containing the portions of the library most jobs would need. If an assignment needed more, the instructor could create a specific pre-linked addendum that the student could ask for at the start of their FORGO deck. Instead of writing a relocatable binary with linker data to disk, the final phase of the compiler wrote absolute binary code to core. We’d then overlay the compiler with the pre-linked library code and branch to the start of the main program.

Many of the changes had to do with minimizing operator intervention. One reason we printed the F00 errors was to avoid having to wait for the operator to notice, take the printout off of the printer, note by hand the F00 error on the printout, and then flush the job. Having the machine print the error saved time and confusion.

We put in array bounds checks. These were not perfect, as we didn’t change the regular calling sequence, so there was no way to pass the bounds to a subroutine. Still, this greatly reduced the rate of memory corruption halts in practice, gave the student a useful message, and prevented more operator intervention.

We had an adjustable run time limit. The SUC 1130’s had SCA devices for accessing SUNY mainframes. We used them as periodic interrupt generators. Again, this reduced the need for operator intervention. Also, we could detect memory corruption by taking a peek at the interrupted code (not perfectly, but reasonably well). More operator intervention averted, and another case where the student got a useful message. This also turned out to be very useful to us: the original IBM Fortran compiler code had a number of memory corrupting bugs in it. The operators didn’t understand how to diagnose these in the regular flow, so they’d just flush the job. We’d log an error, and that would help track down the bug.

One side effect of the periodic SCA interrupt was that it would restart the machine it it had been sitting on a WAIT. What that meant was that if it was waiting for cards or paper, it would restart as soon as the operator had reloaded media and restarted the peripheral. More time saved.

We had individual student accounts, and logged statistics on errors and run time for each. Unless we were tracking down one of our own bugs, we generally agglomerated these per class to help the instructor tune their emphasis. If many students were making the same mistake, the instructor knew what to cover in the next class. But sometimes, we'd track down a student and say “Thank you. You have revealed a bug in our code. Could we copy your program to help us find it, and as a test case in the future?” A few months after our first release, the regression test deck was largely student programs that had caused trouble.

DMS was still there. We left the low core stuff, through the end of DISKZ, intact. We could thus mix FORGO jobs with regular DMS jobs: if it saw "// JOB", FORGO would exit, passing the JOB card on. Give DMS  "// XEQ FORGO", and the machine would be back to processing FORGO jobs.

[Joseph Ambrose]

After reading your further description, I don't think we were using FORGO... By the time I was in SUCO, (1975-80) I think we were using EMU. Not really sure though....

We also had a Burroughs B3500 medium system that we used for the bulk of our CS work, we primarily used the 1130 for assembler class.

The 3500 was upgraded to a B4700 while I was there. After I graduated, SUNY worked on purchasing new hardware for most of the Class B 4 year schools (which Brockport and Oswego were a part)

My first job out of school was working as the director of the computer lab at SUNY Old Westbury, we were on the tail end of the purchase of Burroughs Large system B6800's (14 I think)

The 1130 was retired in the mid '80's I think.

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[Jeff Jonas]

> As was I, at New York's Stuyvesant HS

Somehow the Cooper Union had an IBM 1130 disk from Stuyvesant
with many great utilities
- punch block letters onto cards.
The console switches selected
. left/right/center justify
. underline and/or overline
. number of spaces between letters

- duplicate a card deck on the 1442 by reading in the entire deck,
then making as many copies as on the console switches.
It even alternated stackers
and punched a huge "END" card at the end of each copy.

probably a few games too.
I wish I knew to have saved it :-(


> Same for me. It was the Math Lab, a room full of
> electromechanical adding machines

I attended Ryan Jr High school NYC from 1972-75.
The "business education" class had a room full of
mechanical & electro-mechanical adding machines.
Every student used one machine for a day
and rotated 'till they tried every one.
If it printed a tape, that was handed in with the assignment!
I wish I had those machines for MARCH (NJ vintage computer museum)
for folks to learn what it was like BEFORE all-electronic calculators!

> and two programmable calculators
> an Olivetti Programma 101 (delay line memory!)
> and a Monroe 1665 (which used punched cards with precut chads,
> no keypunch required, just patience).

Ryan Jr High had those too!
http://ferretronix.com/ryan/

The Compucorp 025 Educator sounds like the Monroe.
There were a pair of those, and they were preferred to the Olivetti
(despite the Olivetti's magnetic card to store & load programs).
These are the punched cards they used:
http://ferretronix.com/ryan/compucorp_cards.jpg

I remember the neon lights above the kybd.
If you were careful, pressing 2 keys together
combined the codes to get instructions that didn't have a key.
Many features were available ONLY via punched card programming
such as the skip-on-condition test,
allowing more than 1 conditional branch in a program.
Such outrageous limitations!

-- jeffj

[Dave G4UGM]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: ibm...@googlegroups.com [mailto:ibm...@googlegroups.com] On

> Behalf Of Jeff Jonas
> Sent: 06 April 2015 04:22
> To: ibm...@googlegroups.com
> Subject: RE: [IBM1130] Some thoughts on the real impact of the 1130
>
> > As was I, at New York's Stuyvesant HS
>
> Somehow the Cooper Union had an IBM 1130 disk from Stuyvesant with
> many great utilities
> - punch block letters onto cards.
> The console switches selected
> . left/right/center justify
> . underline and/or overline
> . number of spaces between letters
>
> - duplicate a card deck on the 1442 by reading in the entire deck,
> then making as many copies as on the console switches.
> It even alternated stackers
> and punched a huge "END" card at the end of each copy.
>
> probably a few games too.
> I wish I knew to have saved it :-(

Sadly most of us have discarded things, not appreciated how advances in
emulation techniques would make them interesting.

>
> > Same for me. It was the Math Lab, a room full of electromechanical
> > adding machines
>
> I attended Ryan Jr High school NYC from 1972-75.
> The "business education" class had a room full of mechanical & electro-
> mechanical adding machines.
> Every student used one machine for a day and rotated 'till they tried
every
> one.

Did you have "coffee grinders" with the handle on the side?
Did they teach you the short cuts for multiply (so for x9 , do x10 then
subtract one)

> If it printed a tape, that was handed in with the assignment!
> I wish I had those machines for MARCH (NJ vintage computer museum) for
> folks to learn what it was like BEFORE all-electronic calculators!

Do you not have a mechanical calculator at March? Have you asked on the
March list. If MARCH decides it wants one and can't find one on the list I
would happily fund the purchase of one.
I don't suppose its possible but if you had one for VCF I would even show
folks how to use it.

>
> > and two programmable calculators
> > an Olivetti Programma 101 (delay line memory!) and a Monroe 1665
> > (which used punched cards with precut chads, no keypunch required,
> > just patience).
>

When I went to Newcastle Poly we had two rooms of early electronic
calculators, one had Boroughs 12 or 14 digit jobs with Nixi tube displays.
They would sum "X" and "x squared" so you could do mean and standard
deviation calculations by entering each value once. The other had HP45c I
think, HP Reverse Polish any way. Although my main subject was maths we also
did a physics course and the physics lecturer used to get upset because we
would not learn slide rule techniques. The arrogance of youth!

Then when I went on my placement at Refuge Assurance Company only senior
staff had electronic calculators. I had to learn how to use a mechanical
calculator with handle.

> Ryan Jr High had those too!
> http://ferretronix.com/ryan/
>

I saw some that used paper tape loops at TNMOC

http://www.tnmoc.org/

> The Compucorp 025 Educator sounds like the Monroe.
> There were a pair of those, and they were preferred to the Olivetti
(despite
> the Olivetti's magnetic card to store & load programs).
> These are the punched cards they used:
> http://ferretronix.com/ryan/compucorp_cards.jpg
>
> I remember the neon lights above the kybd.
> If you were careful, pressing 2 keys together combined the codes to get
> instructions that didn't have a key.
> Many features were available ONLY via punched card programming such as
> the skip-on-condition test, allowing more than 1 conditional branch in a
> program.
> Such outrageous limitations!
>
> -- jeffj

Dave
G4UGM

[John Doty]

On Apr 5, 2015, at 8:14 PM, Joseph Ambrose <jambro...@gmail.com> wrote:

After reading your further description, I don't think we were using FORGO... By the time I was in SUCO, (1975-80) I think we were using EMU. Not really sure though….

If you weren’t trying to run 500 simple Fortran jobs a day, EMU was the better choice.

We also had a Burroughs B3500 medium system that we used for the bulk of our CS work, we primarily used the 1130 for assembler class.

I learned assembly language on the 1130 in the basement of MIT’s Sloan School. I was a freshman who had used an 1130 in high school and knew which buttons to push, "face down, 9 edge first”, etc. One of the very first things the MIT SIPB (https://sipb.mit.edu/history/) did in 1969 was to negotiate an arrangement with Sloan to set aside one evening per week for general undergraduate access to their 1130. They recruited me as a knowledgable operator. It wasn’t a difficult job.

I spend much of my time there learning assembly language. The following term I signed up for John Donovan’s famously broad and difficult “Systems Programming” class. When I was home (Penfield, NY, outside of Rochester) for spring break I met up with my friend Bob Berch who was studying CS at Brockport. He introduced me to the folks at their computer center. Based on my familiarity with the 1130 and what I was learning from Donovan’s class, they wanted me to come for the summer to help with what became FORGO. I wound up working three summers and two January “independent activities periods” there.

Donovan’s class wound up being the only CS class I ever took: I became a physics major. Programming, however, turned out to be a fine way for a physics student to be useful to his research group, and also good for making money on the side. Assembly language has been particularly useful. One spin-off of my assembly language knowledge was the toolkit Bob Frankston used to code the first spreadsheet program, VisiCalc. I still find assembly useful occasionally in my embedded work. Even if C, or something higher level, is your main language, sometimes you need a snippet of custom bootstrap code or a fast ISR. Younger programmers often have no knowledge of how to write this.

The 3500 was upgraded to a B4700 while I was there. After I graduated, SUNY worked on purchasing new hardware for most of the Class B 4 year schools (which Brockport and Oswego were a part)

A Brockport, we were involved in an earlier upgrade effort for those schools. We solicited bids, ran benchmarks, and did other evaluation. The winner was the Xerox (formerly SDS) Sigma 7. One selling point was that it had a decent time-sharing system for its time, and there was rising interest in interactive computer-assisted education. Unfortunately, IBM had too much clout in Albany for that to go forward. IBM's bid was unaffordable, so the whole initiative foundered.

My first job out of school was working as the director of the computer lab at SUNY Old Westbury, we were on the tail end of the purchase of Burroughs Large system B6800's (14 I think)

[rbsteup]

"I learned assembly language on the 1130 in the basement of MIT’s Sloan School. "

Reminds me of a funny story!
I was the "Characterization Engineer" at IBM's Essex Junction Vermont semiconductor manufacturing plant. We had just acquired our first 1130 system to be used for statistical analysis of electrical test data. I was familiar with Fortran and several other assembly languages but not 1130 assembler. So I finagled an assignment to an 1130 assembly class at IBM's Boston education center. I showed up on a Monday morning foe a one week course but the instructor was out sick. We were told to come back Tuesday morning. On Tuesday the instructor was still out sick and they were trying to find a substitute. On Wednesday morning they told us the class was canceled and would be rescheduled. So I went back to Vermont and learned 1130 assembler on my own.

Several weeks later I received in the mail an impressive "Certificate of Completion" with a grade of "Incomplete"! for the cancelled course!?

[wmos...@cox.net]

> The Compucorp 025 Educator sounds like the Monroe.

Yes, those are the same blue cards. And you are correct, many features were available only via the punched cards.

Amazing what you could do in 256 bytes...

We later were lucky enough to get a Monroe 1880. 1,024 bytes, mag cards (256 bytes/side, 2 sides), and mark sense cards.

If I remember correctly, it had an "enter code" button so that you could enter any instruction (as octal). Very handy.

Walter

---- Jeff Jonas <je...@panix.com> wrote:
> > As was I, at New York's Stuyvesant HS
>
> Somehow the Cooper Union had an IBM 1130 disk from Stuyvesant
> with many great utilities
> - punch block letters onto cards.
> The console switches selected
> . left/right/center justify
> . underline and/or overline
> . number of spaces between letters
>
> - duplicate a card deck on the 1442 by reading in the entire deck,
> then making as many copies as on the console switches.
> It even alternated stackers
> and punched a huge "END" card at the end of each copy.
>
> probably a few games too.
> I wish I knew to have saved it :-(
>
>

> > Same for me. It was the Math Lab, a room full of
> > electromechanical adding machines
>
> I attended Ryan Jr High school NYC from 1972-75.
> The "business education" class had a room full of

> mechanical & electro-mechanical adding machines.

> Every student used one machine for a day
> and rotated 'till they tried every one.

> If it printed a tape, that was handed in with the assignment!
> I wish I had those machines for MARCH (NJ vintage computer museum)
> for folks to learn what it was like BEFORE all-electronic calculators!
>

> > and two programmable calculators
> > an Olivetti Programma 101 (delay line memory!)
> > and a Monroe 1665 (which used punched cards with precut chads,
> > no keypunch required, just patience).
>

> Ryan Jr High had those too!
> http://ferretronix.com/ryan/
>

[Paul Anagnostopoulos]

Here is my story.

When I was a sophomore in high school, a dean at my school started a Fortran club. We had no computer, of course, but spent a couple of months learning Fortran. One day I was talking to my father about it and he happened to mention that there was an IBM 1130 at his office, for use by the chemists, that was underused on the weekends. Why don't the club members come on down and keypunch a few Fortran programs and run them? Holy cow! Down we went and spent a few lovely Saturdays debugging some simple programs.

Then, out of the blue, I learned that the girls school next door to my boys school had an IBM 1130. What the hell? How could a high school in 1968 possibly afford to lease an 1130? And why didn't I know about this earlier? Why hadn't the dean arranged for us to use the 1130 after school or on weekends? It turned out that there was an anonymous benefactor paying the lease on the 4K 1130 with one disk drive, a 1442, and no printer. To this day I do not know who he was.

Well, over the next two years I became a frequent user of the girls' 1130, writing all kinds of cool programs, including a much improved card deck duplicator and other utilities. The wonderful teacher in charge of the machine gave me a key and let me have the run of the place. I was there multiple times each week. I wrote an independent study paper on the internals of DMS v2.

This is why the IBM 1130 has such an important place in my heart.

~~ Paul

[James Field]

I couldn't agree with you more. I was maybe 21 when I heard the "BUZZ-CLICK" AND "BURRRER" of the 1130 installation at Buffolo State College [it has undergone a name change since then but will always be known as 'Buff State'].  An upgrade from unit record [punch cards] to disc[k] operation was an adventure by the administratioin into computing.
I was able to use and program olde unit record by utilising plugboards. This excursion into what was than considered "ancient" led me into the real guts of computing.
Wires to binary to code and everything since.





Jim Field
There is more to tell but maybe we should make some kind of "old timers" dialog.

[Joseph Ambrose]

Who you calling old???

We're wiser than our years!!

[Bob Flanders]

Very cool.

I did plugboards too. Collator, reproducing punch, Accounting machine, Interpreter. 

Fun.

[rbsteup]

Plugboards were like a heathkit. The components were there, you supplied the design and wiring. We had racks full of plugboards, they were actually programs, one for each task.

[John R Pierce]

they were also used extensively in analog computing, such as the 1940s
vintage EAI Pace 32R my college had in the computer science department
back in the 1970s, a really fun machine to play with. On the Pace, the
components were primarily op amps and ten-turn precision potentiometers,
plugs turned the op amps into either integrators or
adders/differentiators, then patch cords were used to interconnect these
into your model, and the system would solve differential equations in
realtime. +/- 100 volts DC represented +/- 1.000 (this was a vacuum
tube system).

fun: Pace stood for Precision Analog Computing Equipment. We taped an
"S" in front of it, to indicate Semi-Precision Analog Computing
Equipment :)

That PACE would have made a fantastic exhibit at the CHM in Silicon
Valley, but sadly when I visited that school about 20 or 30 years ago,
some idiots had gutted it for gold connectors and virtually destroyed
it. Its primary peripheral was a 36" square flat bed plotter.

[John McKee]

Then, there was the aggravation of debugging.  Wire break just past the plug.  Depending on what was damaged - either a wire or a shunt, it could get "interesting".  I wired collator and reproducing punch.  I was spared the chore of wring the accounting machine.  Looked at the board. 

Debugging, even without having a bad connector, sometimes was hard to get to some of the plugs.

John McKee

On Thu, Apr 9, 2015 at 2:36 PM, rbsteup <rbs...@gmail.com> wrote:

Plugboards were like a heathkit. The components were there, you supplied the design and wiring. We had racks full of plugboards, they were actually programs, one for each task.

[rbsteup]

The IBM built AN/FSQ-7 (SAGE) computer had 16 x 32 plugboard which represented 16 -32bit words of its memory. You could write ( plug ) a sixteen instruction program in it. There was also two banks of 32 swithces on the console which were also part of its memory space. We all knew the entire instruction set in binary ( octal ) We could put a branch instruction to the second set and another instruction in the first set and loop while observing the console neons to debug a problem.

[Eddy Quicksall]

BTW that EMU compiler is a part of my 1130 emulation contribution (you can get the system here: https://www.dropbox.com/s/wjwmswtv297cqyx/release.rar?dl=0).

I think I could still locate the source if it is of any interest to anyone.

[Eddy Quicksall]

BTW, that EMU compiler is part of my 1130 system. You can play with it by downloading the system here: https://www.dropbox.com/s/wjwmswtv297cqyx/release.rar?dl=0

Also I think I can still get the source if anyone is interested.

[John McKee]

Definitely interest in the source!

John McKee

[Eddy Quicksall]

I sent an email to the guy that may have it.

[John McKee]

I'm pretty sure it will be appreciated by Brian and Norm as well.

John McKee

[Brian Knittel]

Yes, we have been very keen to see the EMU compiler archived! I'm swamped with work right now but am really looking forward to looking at the TSO/CYTOS system and trying out its FORTRAN. If the FORTRAN source is recovered, it will be a huge accomplishment!

This is really exciting -- a chance to recover EMU Fortran and one or both of the IBM 1800 OSs in the same year!

It's interesting to see that things keep bubbling to the surface even this may years later.

[Eddy Quicksall]

I know the guy that has all of the tapes from DNA but he has so many he needs some clues. If anyone knows the name of one of the Fortran sources that may help (or the cartridge ID where Dave Morse and Peter Diehr had their source while at DNA).

[Eddy Quicksall]

I tried calling Dave Morse but no answer the past few days. Peter Diehr, I know you worked with Dave at DNA on the Fortran compiler ... do you remember any Fortran source names or cartridge ID's?

[Alan Shafer]

As great as the IBM 1130 goes for engineering uses, I think its place in history is even more profound as business computer.   In fact my belief is that the IBM 1130 was actually the worlds first personal computer.

Back in the '60's, I started with IBM as a Systems Engineer, on a sales team with a dynamite sales rep.  I started programing business applications first in Assembler, then in Fortran.  We sold hundreds of 1130's as business computers, some for small businesses running my applications for BICARSA and GLAPPER.  We also installed 60 or so to a couple of large companies to be used as a network terminal, with one in each of their sales offices spread around the county, as they could all talk to each other (ok.. sometimes simply by sending paper tape data).  But it worked very well.

But think about it... It was not a desk-top, but it was a desk.  It had drawers that contained huge disk drives for storing data, memory (8k to start with, but most I installed had all of 32k... wow), and an input keyboard and an output (ok.. a selectric typewriter) for internal processing control.    It had all the characteristics of a personal computer... just little big (in size) and a little small (in capacities).

But I had a great few years selling and installing them - and not 1 for an engineering application.

Alan M. Shafer

President, Alliant Marketing Solutions

President, Orlando Mattress Company

ash...@alliantmarketingsolutions.com

LinkedIn: alanshafer

Ph: 407-252-0043

[James Field]

Personal computer?!

It took a modestly small office and a big reader/printer and a card [or pt] read/punch to allow an 1130 to be useful.
Its extremely limited telecomms capability... RJE at best  made it a front end for :
  Students,{our use}
  Engineers clever enough to program it usefully,
  and other novel users of experimental use.

To compare a papertape or card based computer to a Personal Computer is laughable!
I have used pt to describe chipsets for printer character set impletations for new printers in the 70's on an international (pre internet) telecomms [timesharing] network.

You may have sold some machines [that was IBM was good at] but your assertion that they were precursors to Personal Computing is absurd.

With best reguards,
I reamain,
Yours truly

James C. Field
GW7 JSH

[Bob Flanders]

Mr. Field,

From the point of view of a late 70s- mid 80s hobbyist computer or a "PC", You're right. 

From the point of view of a 1965 system that was available (in many cases) for hands-on programming, it was very personal.

Regards,

Bob Flanders

[Norman Jaffe]

I think that you've confused the Personal Computer [as marketed by IBM] with personal computing; I had access to an IBM 1800 while in university, and did homework assignments on it while my fellow students used the university IBM mainframe. So, yes, it was - when I was using it - my 'personal computer', at a time when everybody else was constrained to batch submission.
It is not what peripherals the machine had, or how big it was, it's a question of access. If you were always sharing the computer, then it wasn't a personal computer.
If you had exclusive access, even if only on weekends, then it is a personal computer, regardless of size. To me, the natural precursor to personal computing is the minicomputer or, if you want to stretch the point, VM/370, which gave every user the illusion of a separate machine that they could configure and use as they chose.

---

From: "James Field" <james...@cooptel.net>
To: ibm...@googlegroups.com
Sent: Saturday, May 30, 2015 11:22:10 AM

[David G. Nagel]

It could also be pointed out that there was very little that was done on the pre-windows pc's that wasn't first done on the 1130.

Dave Nagel
Sent from my iPad

[Richard Stofer]

And yet, hobby computers, predecessors of personal computers, were lucky to have paper tape facilities.  I am thinking of the Altair 8800 before it had an 8-1/2” floppy.  In fact, I can remember doing a lot of software development using an audio tape IO device including the BIOS to support my own wire-wrapped version of a floppy controller and CP/M.

The earliest versions of MITS Basic (predecessor to Microsoft) were distributed on paper tape and did not require a disk drive.  Not a heck of a lot different than the 1130 except in terms of circuit density.  In fact, an 1130 with paper tape only, no card reader, no disk and no printer is just an oversized personal computer burdened by an older technology.

I can think of the 1130 as a ‘personal’ computer in that one of the two machines was always available, 24/7.  Sure I had to drive in to work to use it but most days I had to be there anyway.  I don’t think of the 1130 as any kind of ‘portable’ but I sure spent a lot of time working with one.

I still like writing FORTRAN to solve some numerical kinds of problems and plotting the output.  My little FPGA system sits right on my desk ready for me to hit the power switch.

 

Richard

 

 

From: ibm...@googlegroups.com [mailto:ibm...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of James Field
Sent: Saturday, May 30, 2015 11:22 AM
To: ibm...@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: [IBM1130] Some thoughts on the real impact of the 1130

 

Personal computer?!

[Peter Flass]

My first job out of college was writing what were supposed to be "Type 3" programs for IBM. Theye were hospital applications - payoll and patient billing. I don't know if they ever saw the light of day, but the payroll at least would have handled a reasonably-sized hospital, such as for a moderately-big town.

[rbsteup]

"It is my belief that application programming is best done when it is used as a tool used by a person
with knowledge and experience in a profession such as science, engineering, finance etc."

I 100% agree!
At IBM I was one of that rare breed of basically an engineer with an extensive knowledge of computer science. Much of my time was
devoted to being a "translator" for an engineer with a need for a computer solution an an IT person assigned to provide it. The very best that could be expected was the engineer got exactly what he asked for but not at all what he really needed!

Most of my programming was to satisfy my own needs for engineering.

This discussion of the 1130 being the "first personal computer" reminds of the classic debate over how many angels can dance on the head of a pin!

[Paul Birkel]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cmv6p8hN0xQ

LINC-8, at home, 1965 => personal :->?

Personally, my first experience was a PDP-8/L paper-tape system in 1973 (high-level language = FOCAL).  Exclusively programmed and repaired by yours truly, but in daily use to support a research laboratory.  The 1130 predates that by a few years, but is endlessly fascinating!

--

[James Field]

Interesting but somewhat "off topic"

I recon that 'personal' could be extended to the use of personal accounts on large timesharing systems.
CICS was a poor beginning, CMS was an exccellent start and a true poineer.,
APL exceeded all expectations and provided a shared environment with true personal isolation.

Jim Field,
x IPSA, STSC, SITA etc.

[Dave Wade]

I think that in engineering and education many  early computers were personal. I feel that at some point in the late 50's or early 60's corporate computing departments tried to control it. I am sure I have read some where that DEC called the pdp8 a programmable data processor to avoid corporate policies that said only corporate computing could buy computers.

As a 16 year old I was allowed, once a semester, to load my own programs into an IBM1620 and if course access the console with no operator, so again personal computing...

In fact I think the PDP8 was the first personal computer being launched a year earlier that the 1130. What I am curious about is how these machines were used and wonder if the differences were due to the different approaches DEC and IBM had to selling them.

So whilst the 1130 wasn't the first personal computing, I think its influence is often greatly underestimated as it is seen by those commenting as part of IBM corporate DP and I am sure it wasn't. As for VM well arguably MTS on the 360/67 was slightly earlier and definitely personal.

Sorry this is a little disjoint, on a river cruise, so just typing on my phone...

Dave
G4UGM

[Gerald Rosenthal]

In 1967 the 1130 reached Cape Town where I was a recent Civil Engineering graduate.  I learned to use this device in the context of FORTRAN IV, a coordinate geometry package called COGOQ and a Calcomp plotter.  

 

The fun in using this machine, which gave a one a window into a world of computer graphics and  the incredible thrill of being able to plot all types of raster drawings has never left me.

 

In the early days I used it for drawing wind roses, wave refraction diagrams, topographic mapping, the grade sizing of dress patterns and much, much else.  Later I was immersed in the world of PDP8, a machine called the Naked Mini, programming the 8080, 8086, HP85, HP86, HP9816 and IBM PC.   Nothing later comes close to my affection for the 1130.   It was truly my first love.

 

Gerald 

 

ZS1 GN     

[Kym Farnik]

http://www.farnik.com/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?Retro_Computing

The [IBM 1130] was the first computer I got to play with at the ripe old age of 13. The IBM 1130 was run by the South Australian Education Department at the [Angle Park Computing Centre]. The Education Department had a world leading program in computer education founded and managed by Ian Appleton.

In 1971 Peter (Jock) Smythe, my maths teacher, taught us [BASIC] which was processed using optical mark recognition (OMR) cards, sent to Angle park overnight, and the cards and printout returned the next day; not exactly interactive! From this early beginning I was bitten by the computer bug. In 1972 I was taught [APL] on the IBM 1130; again using OMR cards; and if really lucky we got to use the console of the IBM 1130 for an interactive session. APL was used to enhance the teaching of mathematics. For maths and statistics, APL (invented by [Ken Iverson]) and its [descendant J] (also: [J Language]), are really excellent tools.

IBM had significant involvement at Angle Park via Jim Clementi. During the 70's various computing summer schools were run. The schools had students and teachers from all over the state and even some overseas visitors.

I managed to learn a little [FORTRAN] during one of the summer schools. Later the two Angle Park IBM 1130's were replaced by an [IBM System/370] [model 115]. Through the computing summer schools and evenings at Angle Park Computing Centre (thanks Jock) I ended up with career in Information Technology.

The IBM 1130 is special, not because of any great technological break through, but because of the large number of users who gained access to computers because of its accessibility. There is a generation of IT professionals here in South Australia due to the IBM 1130 and the Angle Park Computing Centre.

Personally, I am incredibly grateful to all of the people involved with the Angle Park Computing Centre and the opportunities that it gave to Soth Australian high schools students in the 1970's.

 

[Alan Levine]

On Friday, April 3, 2015 at 8:07:48 AM UTC-7, Stephen wrote:

In the early 1970's, the Baltimore County [Maryland, USA] Board of Education used an IBM 1130 solely for instructional and academic purposes.  Because all administrative work was done on an IBM mainframe at another location, students were allowed to visit the "data center" (an updated classroom) to see and hear and operate the computer.  I was one of those students.  

I was too, Stephen- do you remember where this computer was located?. I'm trying to find more information about this for an upcoming conference keynote for ASCUE, which started as an 1130 user group, and am trying to weave my own history with the 1130. 

I took a FORTAN programming class in maybe 1980 at Milford Mill... I remember going in a bus around the Beltway to the school on the northeast side that had the 1130 - maybe Parkville?? We had no keypunch at Milford so we colored in the cards with pens. We got one run with our programs, maybe 2 if we could debug for the hour we ere there.

That exposure to programming led me into the field via applying it to research in Geology, later as an educational technologist, and now as a web developer and tinkerer. 

Any more history you can share about the 1130 I vaguely remember would be immensely helpful. Thans

[Jeff Jonas]

> Any more history you can share about the 1130

I scanned a lot here:

http://ferretronix.com/1130/

- newsletters from clubs / user groups of 1973-1974
- The Cooper Union school of Engineering used an IBM 1130
but the software was heavily modified by Bernie Greenberg,
thus BOS: Bernie's Operating System
http://ferretronix.com/cucc/

-- jeff jonas

[Stephen Orso]

Hi Alan:

How much would you like to know?

The County's 1130 started (I think) at the Board's administrative offices in Towson and was used for instructional purposes at least as far back as 1971.  It was moved to Loch Raven Sr. High in the 1973-1974 academic year.  Your experience in 1980 matches mine exactly in 73-74; I attended Franklin Sr. High and had roughly the same trip.  I am thrilled to learn that the program was still in place in 1980.  That means the BASIC/1130 stuff was also being used then.  

I can provide details on the County's instructional use and goals and names of selected personnel involved with the program.  Because I transitioned from being a student to being a County programming contractor in 1974, I learned more than many about what the County was trying to achieve.  

I can offer some information about other academic use of the 1130 at other locations the area.

I can also describe the activities that led to the creation and use of BASIC/1130. BASIC/1130 was much more operator-friendly than the FORTRAN (noo F00x halts for example).  And BASIC/1130 used its own version of a mark-sense card.  I may have a printout or card that can be scanned.  

I see from the ASCUE that the keynote is in Myrtle Beach in June.  What is your deadline for submission?

Best Regards,

Steve 

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[Eddy Quicksall]

We got our 1130 at University of Miami around ’65. It was so new that it used version 1 of the OS (a card based OS) and crashed a fare amount. The “1130” is still used for production at Developer Services, Inc in Wichita, KS … they are using the emulator I wrote around ’95. They run the DNA TSO/CYTOS add-on which supports up to 32 terminals in a timesharing mode. I worked at DNA from about ’70 to ’80. We used a Digital Scientific Meta-4 which emulated the actual 1130 with some extra instructions to support timesharing. If you want to try CYTOS you can download it from here: https://www.dropbox.com/sh/44x0fxfhuwnn3pv/AADVRXVr3HchbYlBOLtfZIBVa?dl=0 (click on Distribution to get a complete package).

Eddy

 

From: ibm...@googlegroups.com [mailto:ibm...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Stephen Orso
Sent: Wednesday, April 05, 2017 1:32 PM
To: ibm...@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: [IBM1130] Some thoughts on the real impact of the 1130

 

Hi Alan:

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