1954 Popular Mechanics Magazine

Be sure to read the caption below the picture.
This picture is before you knew what a computer was or probably before some of you were born!
Picture from 1954 Popular Mechanics Magazine be sure to read the caption below the picture.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v190/bob3160/Avast%20Forum/1954PM.png


LOL … ya know, Bob … several months ago I came across that picture at an old computers website. I never thought about posting it here. I hope the guy in the picture is still alive AND lucid so that he can realize just how much technology was invented and how far computer progress has advanced. I was 4 years old in October of that year. :wink:

Teletype interface and Fortran language … long gone … LOL! But, in 1970 - 1971 when I took computer programming & operation in college, we were taught those same basics … teletype interface & Fortran … in the beginning as a background. And before that, they even taught us computer programming with “breadboards.” How many of you know what that is? (without looking it up on the internet!)


This was evidentally not quite a true picture or article. I had originally posted about this in the “Off Topic” section back on March 12, 2005 with a post about this entitled “Newer Super Computer”. If anyone is interested then please go HERE to read what really happened. :wink:

But a good hoax indeed! I personnaly would fall for this one as i haven’t the slightest idea on how things looked in 1954(that was 30 years before i was born).A good one! ;D

Anyone remember the line “PC’s will never need more than 512KB of memory” ? ;D
Quiet similar hehe…

I remember when the total memory and storage wasn’t much more than that ;D
I can’t remember how much memory, probably 64KB and twin 5 1/4" floppy drives.

How about 3k memory and a tape drive for loading and storing programs… ;D

Does anyone remember the Univac I? When I graduated high school in 1961, I went to work at Alcoa where my uncle had just been appointed head of the new computer department. During my interview my uncle Wayne walked me through the computer. Yes I mean through. There were thousands of tubes and relays making a horrible racket. Everything was tape. It took 12 hours to do the weekly payroll. Then the computer had to be completely reprogrammed to do the inventory, etc. I believe it had about 250K of memory total. Here is a link to the wikipedia reference.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UNIVAC_I


ENAIC turns 60 years old! :slight_smile:

Read about it here plus an interesting comparison chart …

http://news.zdnet.com/2100-9584_22-6038667.html?tag=nl.e622