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Posts Tagged “

vintage computers

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retro futurism

Training for the Automated Office of Tomorrow--Today! 1984

Learn how in a mere 24 weeks you can become a word-processing secretary using all the latest computer technology in this 1984 ad for MBTI (Manpower Business Training Institute) featuring Voice of the Milwaukee Bucks, Eddie Doucette. I left Milwaukee a year later—and with no training at all was soon using a computer with a black screen and screaming neon green type just like these. Also note that, despite the fact that MBTI is selling its up-to-the-minute technology training, the woman to the left of spokesman Doucette is using an electric typewriter.

1:22 PM on Thu May 1 2008
By Lynn Peril
2,891 views, 12 comments

Latest by corpore-metal: Ah yes! Back in the primordial eon of desktop computing. I was in my first years of university when commercials like these were broadcast. I didn't get what the problem was for some computer-phobes either. I just sat in front of more »

retro futurism

Gigantic Computers, Huge Reels of Tape - Remember the 80s?


At my first office job in the mid-80s, we backed up the computer every night on reels of magnetic tape. Here, in a scene from a slide show of 1980s IBM mainframe computer ops (all set to a snappy Sousa-esque march), tape librarians and console operators show how they did it at a large data center - which makes the amount of complaining we did about having to do two measly cartridges pale in comparison.

1:22 PM on Mon Apr 21 2008
By Lynn Peril
1,276 views, 15 comments

Latest by firesign: when i first went to college in the early 70s we had to submit projects on punchcards to be run on the schools rca built mainframe. yes, rca. and, they had just gotten a couple of those fancy time sharing more »

retro futurism

Univac Predicts Data Drives Smaller Than Cold Capsules, 1969

"The white ones are the men and the yellow ones are the women" is the tag line on this odd ad for Univac's experiemental photochromatic technology. Odd because it was 1969 and drugs were the new social scourge - at least the ones used by hippies. Diet pills, cold capsules, and tranquilizers - those were respectable drugs for moms, dads, and computer engineers! Below, we offer you a look at Univac's accurate predictions for the future of "photochromatic" data storage. More »

1:33 PM on Thu Apr 10 2008
By Lynn Peril
1,297 views, 8 comments

Latest by inconstant_reader: My uber-geek husband worked at Lawrence Berkeley Labs the summer of 1978, and he saw some similar technology. There was a room filled with obsolete (and bizarre) data-storage devices, one of which contained a rack of little plastic boxes. Each box more »

retro futurism

The World's Biggest Computer Kept Us Safe from Cold War Commies

Listen to the heartbeat of SAGE (Semi-Automatic Ground Environment), IBM's giant air defense computer, in this propaganda ... I mean, educational ... film from approximately 1956. Weighing in 250 tons and using 60,000 vacuum tubes, SAGE "was the largest computer ever built." It required an acre of floor space. More »

12:40 PM on Tue Mar 4 2008
By Lynn Peril
1,391 views, 8 comments