WOW....that's quite an achievement, Fran, congratulations! Interesting
history of computing at Slippery Rock as well.
Fran Hensler wrote:
This is cross-posted to VSE-L and IBMVM-L.
Today is my 45th anniversary in data processing at Slippery Rock
University of PA. On May 6, 1963 I founded the Data Processing Center
at the then Slippery Rock State College. The center consisted of one
half-time key punch operator and me. My mission was to automate student
registration by the fall semester and have class lists in the hands of
faculty before the first class meeting. We had an arena style
registration for 1996 students in three days. The class lists were
produced after working 27 straight hours.
We had Series 50 (half speed) IBM punched card tabulating equipment:
One 024 keypunch, a 548 interpreter, 082 sorter, 085 collator,
514 reproducing punch and a 402 accounting machine that could print 50 lines
per minute. The 402 could only add and subtract. Later we acquired a
604 calculator that could divide and therefore calculate QPA. All of
these machines were programmed by wiring plugboards.
In 1968 we installed an IBM System/360 Model 30 computer with 32K core
memory and 14.5M of 2311 disk storage running DOS/360 Release 17. Now
the 7.5 hour job of sorting course cards took 10 minutes!
Six model 2260 terminals were purchased in 1972 and I designed an
on-line student registration system (using FASTER, a forerunner of CICS)
that is still in use today, under the covers, in the RockTalk system
whereby students can register via telephone or on the web. For the
first on-line registration that fall, all six terminals were setup in
the Student Union. It took 3 days to register 5897 students.
Students had to punch their programming assignments into cards until
1975 when I implemented IJS (Interactive Job Submission) to allow input
and printing via DECwriters at a speed of 110 baud and eventually 300
baud.
In 1985 SRU acquired an IBM 4361 computer with 12M main memory. I
tailored the VM/SP Operating System Release 3 for student use of WATFIV,
WATBOL, Pascal, C, Lisp, SPSS, ADA, Basic, Spitbol and Assist and two
years later, Modula-2.
The 1990 connection to BITNET brought email and file transfer
capabilities with other universities. 1992 saw the acquisition of an IBM
9221-170 computer with 96M of main memory and SRU was finally able to
connect to the Internet. Since 2003 VSE and VM are running on an
18-MIPS FLEX-ES system.
I have enjoyed being a programmer, systems analyst and most of all a
systems programmer. I have been honored by receiving the SRU
President's Award for Outstanding Service in 1994 and being inducted
into the Order of Knights of VM as "Sir Fran of the Rock" in 2007.
I would like to hear from anyone who has had a career with a single
employer running more than 45 years.
/Fran Hensler at Slippery Rock University of Pennsylvania USA
[EMAIL PROTECTED] +1.724.738.2153
"Yes, Virginia, there is a Slippery Rock"
--
DJ
V/Soft
z/VM and mainframe Linux expertise, training,
consulting, and software development
www.vsoft-software.com
