[WEB4LIB] Question for the old timers out there

[Mark J. Ludwig]

I cannot comment about ILSCO,
but I was a grad student at U of I in 1978.
I had a research assistantship in one
of the administrative offices. I learned a
programmming language called 'MARKIV',
which was a souped-up version of RPG.
My first project was to read in a cabinet
full of punched cards containing SAT 
scores. I created a tape file of about 
20,000 cards so the cabinet could be discarded and 
free some space in the office.
Eventually I was given a Texas Instruments
Silent 700 thermal printing terminal and was
probably one of the first students to dial up
the IBM 370 from a dorm room at 1010 
W. Green St. via an acoustic coupler for
an old fashioned phone.
There was no sign of a public computerized 
library catalog on campus at that time. The
main library still had a beat-up card catalog
strung through several hallways. I'm sure
staff had OCLC terminals in the back room,
but we couldn't use them.
Expensive dial-up services such as BRS
offered searches of article databases but were
only accessible to librarians who performed the 
searches for serious researchers by appointment. 
U of I was way ahead of other schools at the time 
because of the PLATO system. I believe thay actually 
had to maufacture their own terminals, which had color 
displays and touch sensitive screens. I remember 
getting a map of campus on my first visit and being
very impressed. While mainly for Computer Assisted 
Instruction, PLATO had a very early Campus Wide
Information System before CRT terminals were widely
available or affordable.

Mark J. Ludwig
Library Systems Manager
University Libraries
University at Buffalo
State University of New York

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Sloan, Bernie" <bernies at uillinois.edu>
To: "Multiple recipients of list" <web4lib at webjunction.org>
Sent: Tuesday, August 31, 2004 9:17 PM
Subject: [WEB4LIB] Question for the old timers out there


> I'm putting together a history of the Illinois Library Computer Systems
> Organization (ILCSO), and I'd like to begin with a brief description of
> what the technical environment was like circa 1977-1978.
> 
> I'm talking about IBM 360 mainframes. The ARPANET is less than ten years
> old. No public Internet yet. Really low bandwidth (maybe 19.2K at the
> most). E-mail in its infancy. OCLC just expanding beyond the borders of
> Ohio. The Web still a gleam in Tim Berners-Lee's eyes. The first Apple,
> TRS-80, and Commodore personal computers are brand new. The first IBM
> personal computers (and MS-DOS) are still several years in the future.
> The first word processor (WordStar) is still under development. You get
> the picture.
> 
> Anyway, I am looking for sources that offer some good comparisons
> between then and now (e.g., comparing an IBM 360's processing power with
> a standard entry level PC available at a retailer like Best Buy).
> 
> Thanks!
> 
> Bernie Sloan
> Senior Library Information Systems Consultant, ILCSO
> University of Illinois Office for Planning and Budgeting
> 616 E. Green Street, Suite 213
> Champaign, IL  61820
> 
> Phone: (217) 333-4895
> Fax:   (217) 265-0454
> E-mail: bernies at uillinois.edu
> 
> 
> 
>