I corresponded with Ed off-line concerning this topic but since everyone seems to be enjoying we old timers' war stories from those of us who have been around a while I will add some more thoughts. Besides, may give Sherry/Geoff and others on staff an idea as to at least the experience of a portion of their users!
I retired in 1999 after 38 years in Information Technology as a Sr Systems Analyst. My career started in 1962 right out of college and not even knowing what a computer was. What was commonly referred to as the first generation of computers back then, the IBM 650, was being replaced by the next generation of computers, the IBM 3050 used for scientific applications and the IBM 3060, used for commercial applications. I think those were the model numbers anyway. This generation was in turn replaced a few years later with the ultimate, at the time, IBM 360 series. I remember well the punched cards that were the method used in communicating our coded instructions to the computer, which in my case was an IBM 1401, used as a slave unit to the large mainframe computers in getting data in a format they could process more quickly. The basic 1401 had 8k of memory but ours had a whooping 16k. Later models of the IBM 1400 series were huge, having 32k or more of memory! I've dropped boxes of cards containing the coded instructions and had to sort them back into the proper sequence on a sorter. I've also made Christmas wreaths out of old cards much like was mentioned about the poinsettia. Also did my share of typing programs in to my first home computer, an IBM PCjr, from magazines. The disk drives of that day were about 6 feet tall and the platters, or disk surfaces, where the data was physically stored, were probably about 4 feet in diameter. As a programmer back then we had to program our reads and writes to disk by coding cylinder and head addresses. If you were not efficient in doing so the whole unit would get a workout moving up and down the individual disk platters and moving in and out on an individual disk platter. Fun to watch, but highly inefficient! Even though it sounds, and is, archaic by todays hard drives the principle is still relatively unchanged - and fits in a housing not much larger than an oversized pack of playing cards, and in many cases far smaller. As a computer user we never see this, only system programmers write the actual code, probably in Linux, C++ or some other computer language other than the COBOL of my day. We hold in our hands now the computing power that took up an area of a small house back then. The complexity, power, user friendliness of today's version of Legacy, and the much anticipated v7 with even more bells and whistles makes me wonder what hardware and software will be when we turn over our research work to our children and or grandchildren. Legacy is a far cry from Family Roots by Quinsep that was my very first genealogical program than ran from one or two old floppy disks. And I do mean floppy disks of the 5 1/2" variety not the hard cased variety that replaced them. Those were good ol' days, but the new days of the future will be a true wonder to behold. So much for the meandering of an old (67) man. I'll go back to my corner, sit down and shut up now. Hope I don't get scolded for my ramblings. gc Give Legacy as a Gift for 25% Off. Visit http://tinyurl.com/2b49et Legacy User Group guidelines: http://www.LegacyFamilyTree.com/Etiquette.asp Archived messages: http://www.mail-archive.com/legacyusergroup@legacyfamilytree.com/ Online technical support: http://www.LegacyFamilyTree.com/Help.asp To unsubscribe: http://www.LegacyFamilyTree.com/LegacyLists.asp
