Anecdotes

The University of Houston had an IBM 1401 computer (introduced in 1959). It had 4 Kbytes of memory and could be expanded by an additional 4 Kbytes. The base programming language for this IBM 1401 computer was Autocoder, a simple computer language. If we wanted to compile a Cobol program, however, the university had to send your Cobol card deck out of town to Texas A&M to have it compiled there because the University of Houston did not have a Cobol compiler. A small program, say one page in length (50 or so IBM punch cards, that is Hollerith cards), would take approximately an hour to compile. An SDS 9300 (Scientific Data Systems later became XDS, Xerox Data Systems) system only had tape reels for I/O, a card reader to start up and give directions to the computer, and a large line printer that was so fast it could make two and three pages of tractor-fed computer paper come out standing straight up in the air when it was printing one whole line at a time, hit after hit. That SDS 9300 had no keyboard and no video screen, only a large 3- by 4-foot flat metal face panel.