Demography?

From: Gary Oliver <go_at_ao.com>
Date: Mon Mar 2 18:17:40 1998

I've been mostly a lurker on this list, having started only
around the end of the year... But this track has been really
interesting reading. So here is my story:

I'm 45 and mostly act as a programmer, when I'm not forced to
do pointy-haired management thingies. My first exposure to
computers came in 1967/68 at a summer school during high school.
I was attending a summer class series relating mostly to
humanities/social sciences (dull boring etc.) but during the
3rd week we had a "technology break." They brought in this guy
that was carrying a model 33 tty and a modem and he demonstrated
a timesharing system that was in operating (freshly operating,
it turns out) at the campus of Oregon State University.

This system, called OS-3 (no relation to a later, os) ran on
a Control Data 3300. I was entranced. After the talk, a few
of us hung around to ask questions. I was the last one left
when he decided to leave (about 5 hours later) and was promised
a free account on the system later that month! (probably just
to make me go away...)

Up to that point, I was mostly a generalist geek. Ham radio,
biology, math, etc. But the computer somehow resonated where
these other fields hadn't.

Two years later I enrolled at Oregon State and majored in Math
(no CS degree back then.) Took a few CS style courses, but mostly
did math. Late my freshman year I ran into another computer
"Nebula" which had been built (under an Office of Naval Research
contract) by the Math department at OSU. Said computer was in the
basement of the math building and was available to any who wanted

to play. And what's more, they didn't mind if you hacked it a
bit - it was an easily modified machine and we added several
instructions to it while I was there. Also wrote a LOT of code - much
for class projects - but mostly for fun.

Later I got a job in the Systems Programming dept that oversaw
the 3300 and OS-3. Sorta bubbled to the top there (be a part
time student for 6 years and you just outlive everyone else :-)
My main job was overseeing the "front end" computer(s) that
managed the multiplexing of 500+ terminals around the campus
and the rest of the state of Oregon. These were muxed into the
OS-3 system on the 3300. Later I wrote from scratch a new front
end system for a newly designed mux put in place in 1976. Also
did a lot of development and maintenance on OS-3 itself.

First real job after this was for the company I now own. Started
working in 1977 and bought it (with a partner) in 1981.

We've done a lot of the things small computer companies do: some
(early on) custom business applications, process control (in
saw and plywood mills,) some security and access control, building
automation (heating, ventilation and air conditioning) and other
odds and ends.

We now do (blech) Win95 and WinNT drivers/gui stuff (because people
pay for that) and manufacture hardware and software used in specialized
data collection and monitoring applications. For a few years we
made oceanographic instrumentation, but spun that off to another
company last year.

Started collection old stuff back in 1972 (it wasn't old back then!)
I won't bore you with the list (I'll make a web page with the stuff
and pictures some day.) But my main items are an IMSAI 8080 with
a Shugart SA4000 27 mbyte 14 inch drive. (This drive cost more than
many enter workstations do today. But by 1978 standards it was BIG.)

I once owned a PDP8/E but gave it away to someone who would actually
use it. Now I wish I still had it (sob.)

Having seen how easily information evaporates, I would add that my
main interest in computer preservation (besides owning a few operating
toys) is in fixing the documentation in a form readable by later
parties. One of my recent efforts has been to get DETAILED information
on some of the early relay and vacuum tube computers and build some
working, demonstration circuits. It's been tough to track down actual
circuit descriptions and diagrams for some of the old beasts. The
museums that have them don't want you taking things apart to find out
how they work, so I dig through old book stores and comb the web for
folks selling/giving away old docs. Libraries help, but much of what
I seek has been discarded as "obsolete."

Pity. One of my prized books is "Giant Brains" by Edmund Berkeley.
I acquired it at a library book sale since it had been "discarded."
Written 1949 (when there were fewer processors in existence than many
people have in a single house) it describes the computer, its operation
and many possible future applications that are astonishingly close to what
actually came to pass. It's a fascinating read.

Thanks for the venue.

Gary.
Received on Mon Mar 02 1998 - 18:17:40 GMT