[Shop-talk] Quick question on garage floors and garage lifts

[Karl Vacek]

Wow - UNIX ?  E-mail ?  Sounds pretty modern.  When I was at Purdue we had 
an IBM 7094, and Fortran was translated onto tape by an IBM 1401 from the 
cards we punched.  About the computing power of a desktop calculator with 
much better I/O, assuming you like cards or tape.  No such thing as e-mail, 
no UNIX.  If you were lucky, though, you might get to use one of the two IBM 
029 card punches rather than the 026's.  All of this had to be done in the 
sub-basement of the newly-opened (sophomore year) Math-Science Building. 
Ahhh, the good old days.

When I returned for grad school a few years later (1973), there were remote 
terminals to directly input FORTRAN programs at a few campus locations.  No 
trudging to the M-S Building to punch your cards.  No e-mail then either, 
though.  And I bought a TI SR-10 calculator ($119.95) just before going back 
to grad school - it could DO SQUARE ROOTS !!

Karl



> Yeah, kids now are spoiled wimps.  When I graduated from Purdue, we
> had to learn FORTRAN and all of the email systems were Unix.