What is the oldest computer...?

Zen00 said:

Anyone work with a mainframe computer, one of those ones that filled an entire room?

Part of my graduation exam was fixing one of those big man-tall tape stations in a mainframe room.

Zen00 said:

Anyone work with a mainframe computer, one of those ones that filled an entire room?

I sure have. IBM Mainframe that filled a room and was water cooled! Wow that takes me back....

My first Computer was a Slide Rule, followed by a Commodore 64. I worked for IBM from 1982 to 1992, we had 4 mainfraimes and used punch cards, tape drives and removable disks. I think the laptop I am writing this on has more capacity and power than the largest mainframe.
My first real computer was a IBM PCJX - 8088 processor 4.77k, 64k ram, 2 x 720k 3.5 inch floppies, no harddrive. It actually had a CGA colour monitor..

jradicle11 said:

I have a Macintosh SE sitting in the basement.



It's a good 4 years older than I am .

LOL...I have one of these in my office also. It still works except I lost the OS Disk during a move. It now sits on my shelf in my office.

My first PC was a computer I had made for me...a 486 DX4-100 running DOS 6.22 and Windows 3.11. I later upgraded it to Windows 98 SE. After that I built my own.

Is it bad that I have never heard of an abacus or slide rule...?

RedBirdDad said:

Back in the day, my high school had an IBM1620. That was the first computer I ever got to actually *touch*. The next year the school district took it out and went to an HP timesharing system and we had ASR33 Teletypes.

I was a mainframe programmer for many years. COBOL, sigh...

A few years ago I was able to get my hands a two IBM S/370 mainframe front panels. A 370/138 and a 370/148. I restored the 138 and eventually sold it when my oldest went to college. I still have the 148 panel. Maybe I'll get it restored this year. I also have a functional IBM Emulator system with a 3174 controller, 3278 CRT and 3287 Printer.
I run it up when I need a mainframe fix...

Was this high school in St. Charles, IL? East, possibly?

I attend high school in St. Charles.

Small world.

It is funny how the young people think of "computers" in terms of PCs. In the 80's and 90's I thought of them as toys that would at best have some use for secretaries. I programmed this baby (actually the predecessor Z11) in 1958 and later I worked on systems that filled rooms the size of football fields.