For serious entertainment I recommend running a Cobol compile on a ICT 1501 (with tape drives only - as no disk available). Even a smallish program say 2000 cards took over 30 minutes but the tape units was a joy to behold, even more so than the later kit.
Luckily only had to do so a very few times. This I think was at George Wimpy, the builders based in London, back in the late 60's early 70's.
They also had a ICT 1900 system which was the one I usually worked on under George 2
ICT became ICL some years later and at there site in Queensway, London when I worked for them they had a LEO III which I also work on that sat in their basement and had zero idea how they managed to get it in as next to no doors to outside and the lift was passenger size only and small.
May be they built it the way they do ships by putting in the engine after the keel is constructed but without any roofs or second floors, etc.
That said the building was old though so may be not :)
Vince
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On 09/03/2024 04:21, Clement Clarke wrote:
The LEOs.? Fabulous machines.? Multiprogramming way, way back.
We used a compiler language called CLEO.? It was a bit like COBOL but came out years before COBOL, I think.
I can remember playing around with the first COBOL compiler on an ICL 1902 with 4 tape drives. No disks (neither did the LEOs).? To see the ICL COBOL compiler at work was interesting. All 4 tape drives going to compile a simple program!
Of course, the Mainframes then only had a few hundred K of main storage.
Even the IBM 65 that Shell Oil got in Melbourne Australia only had 3/4 of a meg.? And yet we managed to send out accounts to many thousands of people - many using Shell Heating Oil for their homes.? And there was a program that used the temperature to calculate who might need more heating oil in the next few weeks, and schedule the trucks to deliver it.
Clem
