Teleprocessing
Beginning in1962, WDPC acquired teleprocessing equipment that would permit input and output from remote locations over regular, dial-up, voice telephone lines. Three kinds of equipment were available:
IBM 1013 punch card transmission unit
IBM 7701 & 7702 magnetic tape transmission units
IBM 1401 data processing system
Transmission rates between 150 and 250 characters per second were available with these devices.
IBM Card Punch in the GSM Stat Lab
WDPC loaned an IBM type 1013 unit (to replace the 026) to GSM for installation in the Stat Lab located on the 4th floor of the GSM building. A phone line was installed in one wall of the room and the device atttached to it.
I remember that George Brown and I demonstrated it to Chancellor Franklin Murphy. We showed him the data cards that were to be transmitted to WDPC for processing and the statistical results we expected to get back. The data were transmittted and a couple of minutes later the output cards came back and were interpreted so that they could be read. I think the first card had Chancellor Murphy's name and the date; the second card had the results of the statistical computation. He appeared to be duly impressed. We gave him the cards and I was hoping that he would frame them to hang in his office, but I imagine that he just threw them away.
What George and I did not tell him was that the transmitted cards were punched on a keypunch in the WDPC main machine room, an operator then ran them over to the computer for processing to produce the two cards of output, which he then took back to the 1013 unit and transmitted them back to the Stat Lab in GSM. I suspect that Chancellor Murphy thought the transmission was to and from the computer itself. We saw no reason to tell him differently.
Teleprocessing and Participating Institutii\ons
Teleprocessing units were loaned to some Participating Insititutions both to enhance the efficiency of their WDPC use and to further explore computing support at a site remote from the computer. Equipment assigned to the schools depended upon the type of computer installation they had on campus (if they had one). Some received punch card units, some magnetic tape units, and some full-blown IBM1401 computer systems. The initial set of schools loaned transmission equipment included UC Berkeley, UC San Diego, USC, Stanford, Claremont Graduate School, San Fernando State College, US Air Force Academy, U of Utah, and Cal Tech. This equipment enabled users at these locations to send data and programs directly to WDPC over ordinary, dial-up, voice telephone circuits. Unless the results of the data processing were very large volumes of printed output, they were sent back by a return phone call. Large volumes were still mailed back.
WDPC next received some IBM 1050 Data Communication Systems as part of a program to develop uses of its computer at some distance from the central machine. Each system comprised a typewriter like keyboard for imput and output via a direct wire connection. One of these systems was placed in the IBM 1620 computer laboratory within GSM. Several of them could be used simultaneously for playing management games.