Thursday, July 10, 2008

History Stuff, Again

McMahon has a fascinating item about GE Computers (!)--yes, there were such things--but it's not the hardware that's of interest.

Multics was the first OS to promote remote terminal access for all computing, have the computer run continuously, use an internal file system, structure the management of the machine, accommodate large and small users equally well, utilize dynamic linking and manage multi-level memory — in short, do what computers should do.

More:

The seminal program of the 1970’s and one of the most important software packages ever developed, VisiCalc, was developed on a Multics machine by Bob Frankston

IBM won the battle, obviously--GE has scrubbed any mention of its own computers from its website and online history.

Also of note: IBM's primordial manufacturing package (BOMP) was developed right here in Milwaukee by a number of entities cooperating. Among them were Grede Foundries, Allis-Chalmers, Allen-Bradley, and Arthur Anderson, the CPA firm. That package was enhanced and became DBOMP, and is still the model for 'static' manufacturing systems.

Now it's apparent why GE X-Ray did not participate, eh?

4 comments:

grumps said...

So, who developed the BOMP-SHA-BOMP?

And who wrote The Book Of Love?

Terrence Berres said...

"GE Computers (!)--yes, there were such things"

Why, I even worked on GE check sorters connected to GE Computers.

It was at the Water Street HQ of First Wisconsin National Bank--yes, there was such a thing.

Dad29 said...

Yah.

Down the street from the ex-HQ of the Wisconsin Bank (Uihlein's very own bank) and up the street from the HQ of the Marine National Excange Bank (formerly the Marine Bank, which absorbed the National Exchange Bank)

The very same Marine Bank which ignored FDR's orders to take a Bank Holiday and which PAID OUT to depositors back in the Depression.

And they were not using computers at that time. Most likely they were using either NCR or Burroughs machinery to do sums.

Neo-Con Tastic said...

You two are really dating yourselves... Please tell me about how the carriages travelled along Wisconsin Avenue!