Ten years ago I wrote a 60-page story about my computer experiences, for my grandkids, so when IEEE asked for some stories, I submitted a couple, they asked for more, so I submitted the whole thing. I had no idea they would select more than a little of this and a little of that, but it's been fun to see what they selected (nearly two-thirds of the original story).
I had only two complete years
of high school, then received my diploma via a GED test while serving in
the United States Army in 1946-47. For a few months I attended college
on the GI Bill, but I had to drop out because of problems with my eyes.
My brother Johnny returned to Cove High School in Martinsburg, PA as
the District Superintendent. Just for fun he looked up my records and
told me that when I took the GED test to go from 8th grade into High
School, I had the highest score of anyone in the district, that year.
I'M A CURIOUS GENERALIST
I am a "generalist." not a "specialist." I was more than good enough to
carry my workload most of the time, but astute enough to know when to
call in a specialist, and bright enough to know which expert to call.
I knew an awful lot about a very wide variety of subjects, but was not
necessarily the final authority in any one of them. That was very
useful, both for me and for those I worked for. At one company, for
example, I could do more different jobs than most people, and do them
very well, and that's why they kept me on the payroll, after my boss and
hundreds of others I worked with, were laid-off.
Need it be
added that being a generalist, rather than a specialist was an important
attribute for a designer of a production control system utilizing IBM
Electronic Accounting Machines (EAM), and later computers, especially
since no one had ever done that before.
THE FIRST TIME I HEARD OF IBM
When I lived in Akron, Ohio, I went to High School in the daytime and
worked evenings at the newspaper, the Akron Beacon Journal. All Saturday
night, we stuffed the Sunday paper with advertisements and special
sections. Occasionally they would let me push the START button on the
huge presses, but mainly I kept supplies of wire available for binding
bundles of papers, and delivered the first dozen copies off the press,
to various offices.
On the corner across the street was a building with a simple sign that said "International Business Machines."
One day, while having a bite to eat at the diner on another corner, I
sat on the stool next to a well-dressed man who said he worked for IBM.
He told me about 100 words or less about what they did, but that was all
it took to get my interest.
Later I was stuffing Sunday papers
when Wendle Wilkie died. We went on coffee break while they put the
story in the paper, and when we returned I noticed an error that seemed
to say he died before he had the stroke, or whatever he had. They said,
"Keep the presses running while we make the change," so many people
received the paper with the error.
I also grabbed a stack of
papers from the press (with the permission of the head pressman), and
went to the street to sell the paper announcing Franklin D. Roosevelt's
fourth election as president. Since I did it without his permission, and
without the required "bribe," I later found the "big man" (both
physically and as a "boss") was being very kind to me when he let me off
with a warning, rather than the busted head other people said I should
expect.
AT THE UNIVERSITY
During my
brief time in college, I had heard there was a class called
"Introduction to IBM Equipment held in the "IBM Room," but it was
unavailable to freshmen. Using my experience in Akron as a wedge, I
talked my way into the class, and learned a little about IBM Machines,
enough to make me anxious to learn even more about them.
I
determined that if I could get a job in an IBM Department somewhere, I
would be in an office environment, but would not need to strain my eyes,
as would be necessary in so many desk jobs. And as time went on, I
found I was right.
IBM, CHICAGO
While
I worked as a diesel engine repairman at International Harvester, I
visited the IBM office in downtown Chicago, to see what I could find
out. But they followed a rule that they would not help anyone get a job
with one of their customers, if that person already worked at another
IBM customer, so they would not talk to me. I didn't want to quit my job
without some idea what this was all about, and before I found out
anything, I was called back into the Army during the Korean War.
The main thing I remember about that visit, was that while walking
through the stair well on about the 8th floor, two men were pushing an
IBM machine of some kind past the stairs when one of the legs collapsed,
and the machine tumbled down a flight of stairs. No one was hurt, and
that didn't discourage me at all.
LEARNING IBM IN THE US ARMY
I was called back into the Army in November 1950, and was to be sent to
Ft. Monmouth, NJ. I wanted to get into the IBM business, but
didn't really know what it was. At the Army induction center in Chicago,
I met a Master Sergeant who was a Supervisor in an IBM Department
somewhere in Chicago. He suggested that each time someone asked what I
did, I was to say, "I'm an IBM man," and when I met someone who knew
what that means, tell him the truth.
That is exactly what
happened. When I arrived at Fort Monmouth I told everyone who asked,
that I worked with IBM machines, and no one, including me, knew what
that meant, but everyone knew it was important, and knew they were not
to assign an IBM man to any other job.
After a week or so, I
was sent to an interview with Ted, the man who ran the IBM Room on the
Fort. I admitted I knew nothing about IBM, and Ted said, "That's OK, I
want someone who can read a Morning Report." That's a special US Army
report that I knew most everything about. I had typed them as an Army
clerk the first time I was in the service, and as a Battalion clerk, had
proofread thousands of them.
We got along very well, and Ted
gave me a key to the building so I could spend nights and weekends
learning to run the machines. The IBM repairman said he knew to come
there first thing every Monday morning, without waiting for a call, to
replace all the fuses I had blown over the weekend. The machines
included a sorter, a 077 collator, a 513 card punch, a 405 tabulator,
the 601 calculator, and the brand new 026 Printing Keypunch.
Whenever the Army had the nerve to assign me some other task like KP,
guard duty, or to march in a parade, Ted would sign any paper I
prepared, telling the powers that be that I was too important for that,
as I had to "IBM that day!" And it worked, every time.
By this
time, I was 23 years old, married, was raised on a farm; had worked as: a
diesel engine repairman; spot-welder; lugger of 250 pound bales of
rubber in a warehouse; operator of a metal band saw in a locomotive
manufacturing plant; a milkman delivering milk early in the morning in
Chicago and in small towns in the coal mining area of Pennsylvania. I
had sailed in the Merchant Marines (my 18th birthday was spent on a
troop ship in the harbor of Singapore, on the way from Manila to
Calcutta); and had served in the US Army twice. I knew I didn't want to
do any of those jobs for the rest of my life.
THE IBM DEPARTMENT AT INTERNATIONAL HARVESTER CORPORATION
When I was discharged from the Army, I returned to International
Harvester (IHC) in Chicago, and got a job in the IBM Department, rather
than on the diesel engine assembly line, where I had worked before being
called back into the Army for the Korean War. I remember the pay as
$82.50 a week, a whole two dollars a hour: a fortune in those days.
In those days, if you worked with IBM equipment, you were in the IBM Department and in the IBM business.
My job at IHC was on the second shift, so in the daytime I worked part
time for Statistical Tabulating Company (Stat Tab) in downtown Chicago,
running various IBM machines, learning all I could about them, and
incidentally, earning money to support my family.
Stat Tab had
one of the first IBM 603 Calculators without any lights on an outside
panel that could be used to step through a wired program to see what was
happening. I seem to remember that the IBM repairman could open the
door and see lights on the inside, but that was a slow and laborious
process. IBM took the hint, and designed the 604 with an exterior light
panel that was helpful in seeing what the wired program was doing, or in
most cases, was not doing.
AIRPLANES AND MISSILES
A year or so later, after being "snowed in" during Chicago's winter
months, we moved to Fort Worth, Texas where I worked for an Insurance
Company. A year or so later we moved to Dallas, and I worked at Chance
Vought Aircraft, using IBM EAM equipment at both locations. I remember
some of my colleagues being upset with me, because I spent many evenings
at the local IBM office, attending classes on various subjects. One man
said, "You damn Yankee, you're just trying to get ahead of us local
boys." He was correct!
At Chance Vought Aircraft, I soon
discovered that I was the only person around who had experience both in a
factory and in the IBM Room, so I was uniquely positioned as the person
to help design the production control system for the F-4-U, and the
F-8-U fighters, and the Regulus Missile systems.
I had the
opportunity to create, with the help of others, a production control
system using IBM cards and EAM equipment. In 1952-1953, Chance Vought
built 90 of the gull-winged F-4-U Corsairs, famous from World War II
days, for the French Navy to use in Vietnam. They also built the Regulus
Missile System, and the F-7-U and F-8-U fighter jets.