| Years | Machine | OS |
|---|---|---|
| 1955-1970 | When I was born, computers were called electronic brains, and were sort of mythological things full of valves. | |
| 1970-1975 | In the lyceum (secondary school) it was a privilege to have
access, in after-hours, to the mechanical calculator (you know, those
crank-operated things) of the Physics Lab. I met the first calculator, an HP 31 with RPN, in the 4th class, when a school-mate, son of a scientific journalist, brought a sample one for a few days. BTW, his father did not buy it. We used to go to trade fairs to make practice with the things. |
|
| 1975-1980 | At University I attended a course on computing machines in the 2nd year of
Physics. We had opportunity to practice on an Univac 1106 at the Computing
Centre, and later at the Didactic Centre (where one had to queue up for use of a couple
of card punches). I continued sneaking for the access code in the remaining years. I
once tried something I read on a book, and messed up the entire mass memory. At courses we still used a sliding rule. I got my first RPN calculator, an HP 29C, when I graduated (it was later replaced by an HP 28S when it was accidentally dropped on the floor). |
UnivacOS |
| 1980-1985 | Access to IFCTR
HP2100 (with paper tape programs) to write a magtape Remote use of the IBM 360 of RAL from MSSL, first with remote card punch, later via... ...use of the terminals of their PDP 11/70, also used a Tektronix 4010, and a Versatec printer/plotter They also had an IBM 1130 Use of the IBM 370 of IFCTR, with terminals (inclusive of Olivetti teletypes, and a Tektronix 4015) and a Houston calcomp plotter. Use of my first HP 1000 F at ESOC Use of PDP 11/40 at Huygens Lab Leiden |
HP ? OS 360 RSX VM/CMS RTE IV |
| 1985-1990 | Continued use of HP 1000 F (and M) at ESOC, and IFCTR ; with HP2648 terminals,
Ramtek TV, and later HP 7550 plotter and Laserjet. Continued use of IBM-370 compatible systems (Fujitsu, Siemens) at IFCTR, first experiences with a RJE link. 3820 laser. First Horus (CP/M) PCs Access to IBM PC-AT for instrument data acquisition Finally IFCTR got also a VAX 8250 with 4 VT340 and an LN03 |
RTE 6VM VM/CMS CP/M MS-DOS VMS |
| 1990-1995 | end of use of HP 1000 F and IBM 3090 Continued use of the VAX 8250 IFCTR got its first Sun 4 (SPARC) workstation I also got a Mac IIsi for document preparation Finally I also got some DECstations |
RTE 6VM VMS SunOS 4 Mac Sys 6 Ultrix |
| 1995-2000 | Continued support to our Suns and DECstations Dismission of IBM, VAX and DECstations My current platform is DEC Alpha 255 I also had access to an Olidata NT server and other NT machines for the VIRMOS MMU project. |
SunOS 4 Solaris 2 Ultrix DU 3.2 WinNT |
| 2000-2005 | Continued support to our DECstations and, in a limited way, to
Suns and Linux systems My current platform remains DEC Alpha 255 Access to PC applications from Unix via VNC or Open Office |
Solaris 2 DU 3.2 Linux SuSE |
| 2005- | Continued support to our Linux systems My current platform is SUSE Linux Access to PC applications from Unix via Open Office or occasionally on borrowed laptops. |
Linux SuSE Windows |
| Years | Languages | Text edit & processing | Programs written |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1975-1979 | Fortran V (Univac) EXEC8 control language |
card punch | tests and exercises |
| 1980-1982 | Fortran (IBM360) JCL Electric |
card punch Electric |
private programs |
| 1982-83 | Fortran (PDP) RSX CMD files |
EDI, EDT
Runoff |
private programs Exosat calibrations |
| 1981-199x | Fortran IV (IBM) VM/CMS EXEC and EXEC2 seen some Assembler 360 |
(X)EDIT
VS Script |
private programs IUE system at IFCTR Exosat system at IFCTR |
| 1982-199x | Fortran 77 (HP) FMGR TR files IHAP batch files seen some HP assembler |
EDITR, EDIT/1000 | Exosat system at ESOC Exosat system at IFCTR IUE system at IFCTR plotting programs |
| 1986-90 ? | minimal CP/M first met C |
WordStar | documentation Zebra control s/w |
| 1988-89 ? | IBM Professional Fortran DOS assembler DOS BAT files |
KEDIT | Zebra calibration s/w |
| 1989-199x | VMS Fortran VMS COM files some limited VMS C |
EDT, EVE | XAS system IUE system port |
| 199x-now | Excel (on Mac) Mac macros |
MS Word | just documentation |
| 1990-now | Fortran 77 some C, Xlib MIDAS PRG procedures IRAF cl scripts Unix csh scripts awk scripts PostScript HTML IDL |
Sun textedit few vi commands DEC dxnotepad compile foreign tex files |
XAS system IUE system port EPIC simulations |
| 1996-2000 | Excel (on NT) Visual Basic (on NT) |
MS Word PowerPoint |
just documentation VIMOS MMU s/w |
| 2000-now | Javascript Java mysql and most of the above |
THE (Hessling editor, XEDIT clone) Open Office |
XMM LSS database |