Retro Tech Tuesday: Think You Can Run a Computer?

Today we buy a computer, rip it out of the box, and start using it immediately. But let's turn back the clock to 1964. Several trucks have just unloaded an IBM 360 mainframe with its 4K (as in kilobytes) of internal memory at your house (if you happened to live at NASA). Before you can fire up the computer, get your film projector ready for the.. training film. Through the magic of YouTube, here's a look at the first few minutes of the IBM 360 "Control Program of Operation" film. It's wild to see the juxtaposition of a man at a chalkboard explaining how something as high tech as a computer works. Also note the early use of "bricks and mortar" to reference how the different layers of programming work together:

Retro Tech Tuesday: IBM 5100

Sure, the original Mac had a handle, but what if your "portable" happens to weigh 50 pounds? And to think, people thought the Mac at 20+ pounds was too heavy... In 1975 if you wanted computer power on the go, about the only option was the IBM 5100. Good luck checking it on the plane: