Lost-and-found wedding ring
Wild sourdough science
Back in 1970, Life magazine profiled the pioneering Rodman family, who installed a teletype terminal connected to a mainframe in their home, to explore the whacky far-future possibilities of "home computing." We got our teletype in 1977 and by that point, we had Eliza and a few other nice bits of ready-made software, but the main attraction was still doing silly things in BASIC.
Link
When he got the computer for his home, Dr. Rodman had no idea his family would become so involved with it. His original project, which he is still working on, was to write a program for diagnosing lung ailments through test readings. Because a successful program will mean instant written diagnoses and also teach interns, Temple University agreed to pay for it.Because he was a novice at programming, Dr. Rodman required uninterrupted access to a computer. The service he purchases hooks his terminal, a standard Teletype, through his telephone to a large computer 90 miles away in Teaneck, N.J. When the central unit is dialed, it responds with an audio pitch. An electronic device connected to the Teletype translates the computer’s messages to print.
The computer costs $110 a month terminal rental, plus $7.50 to $11 an hour. Once a program is stored, the cost is negligible. “Eat,” for example, costs the Rodmans about 10c for a weekly run-through. The computer, of course, does the bookkeeping for the bill.
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Ah, but can the computer factor in the time it takes to compute how much it costs to factor in the time it takes to compute how much it costs to factor in the time it takes to compute how much it costs to factor in the time it takes to compute how much it costs to factor in the time it takes to compute how much it costs... [Error: Infinite Regression]
Actually, yes, it can ... if programmed more competently ;-p
The poor Rodman children must have wasted countless hours on the computer when they should have been out with othe children watching The Mary Tyler Moore Show and Rhoda.
I'm old enough to still remember doing programming using cards that I completed on a key punch machine. I would have killed to have a fancy setup like this at home.
The photo also apparently captures the first know version of Guitar Hero(beta).
Looks like the Rodman household was a pretty groovy place. The "computer" is so imposing, I almost missed the dude rocking out on the guitar in the background.
Paperless office, indeed.
@Bottlekid - you beat me to it. what an odd pose to strike while being photographed by Life magazine.
I was in high school in the 70's and we had a similar setup. One terminal for the entire school, so it was hard to get time on it to mess about. My next door neighbor was a few years older and was doing an internship at Brookhaven Labs, and as part of that internship he was given a portable tty (looked like an electric typewriter). But the phone calls themselves cost quite a bit since we were a good distance from the mainframe.
I was working as a cook after school and on weekends. I often closed the place down. My neighbor would stop by and we'd dial in on the business phone and sit at the bar and play strtrk or other silliness until the wee hours. Typical geeks, alone in a bar and drinking cokes and messing with a computer instead of taking advantage of all that free alcohol.
We ended up having to stop because the heat-sensitive paper the portable used (no ink) was expensive and my neighbor's employers wanted to know why he was going through so much of it. :)
My parents' friend worked for Bell Labs in the 70s. In 75 and 76 he'd come over with the huge typewriter and phone hook up and dial in. They'd play computer word games similar to the ones I'd play on my early Mac by Infocom.
Once I screwed up their game because - at five years old - I was dying to hear what the computer was saying on the phone. So I went to another line and, exactly as I was told not to do, I picked up the phone to hear what the machine was talking about.
Bottlekid, that's no Guitar Hero; that computer rocks so much, you have to have power chords while using it! The only thing missing is some cowbell. Also, don't the kids look as if they were screaming "YAY, PAPER!!!"?
The artwork on the wall behind them makes it clear the future has arrived.
that's about a redwood's worth of paper, I'm sure these little nerds recycled. Very cool story. Makes me want to go play Lemonade on my Commodore 64.
Cory's family got a home teletype when he was six. This explains so much :)
I was in 10th grade in 1970, and my school had exactly the same computer set-up as this family: teletype terminal with punched-paper tape reader/writer, telephone cradle modem, and a link to a General Electric mainframe computer at Duke University. I could write programs in BASIC-II (an IBM interpreter - the “II” didn’t mean “2″ it meant “Interim Improvement”). I remember this article when it came out! (I remember the snow monkey cover too.) I showed it to my mom to explain to her what I was doing after school so late.
its amazing how far computing has come, today those kids would be weilding their Wii-motes in instead!
i remember playing raquetball with my best friend in something like 1978 and stopping off at her dad's office when we were done. we were about 13 at the time, and her dad (a college professor) let us play on the department's remote terminal which was operated by punch cards. as i recall, we made the punch cards spell out bad words. then, in the early 80's, my FORTRAN programming class required at least one of our programs to be done on punch cards rather than CRT terminals. those were definitely NOT the good old days.
When I was a kid we had a computer that my dad and one of his friends had built from spare parts. I was born in 1977, and the computer predated me, but I'm not sure by how much. I think it predated my sister, too, and she was born in 1975.
It was about 6 feet tall and maybe three feet wide, with a tiny oscilloscope screen and a keyboard that was all different colors. It could play music (though no more than a note at a time), and even had one of those old school voice synthesizers, which my dad would program to say stuff like, "You are six years old; you have to go to scho-ol." Everything on the screen was made up of dots, and looked really delicate, elegant really.
It still exists, though it's been slumbering quietly in my parents' spare room since about 1988 or so. Maybe I'll encourage my dad to dust it off & fire it up next time I'm home -- I hope it still works. It'd be like losing a kindly uncle if the MS-1 were lost in the dustbin of history.