HP find, plus some good DEC stuff too... and CDC.. and...

[Jay West]

Roger wrote...
> Damn... why can't *I* have a high-school like that? My high school doesn't 
> even have the TRS-80 Model 4's I worked on "back in the day" - let alone 
> anything more interesting...

Yeah, I was actually very lucky. When I was back in high school (78-82), 
they had an HP 2000/E my first two years, then upgraded it to an HP 
2000/Access for junior & senior years. It had 32 terminals (a mix of Mime 
ACT I, ACT IV, and ACT V terminals, plus one mini-beehive, and at least four 
DEC LA120's as well as an ASR33). Also had two HP mark sense card readers 
(part number escapes me, something like 7621) and an HP 2610 printer. The 
terminals were spread throughout the school - library, student club areas, 
and of course, the computer room.

We also had a DEC PDP-11/03 (or perhaps 11/23 - the one with the three white 
toggle switches), that had an RX02 and a Diablo drive (31?) that ran RT-11 
w/TSX-Plus. This system had 6 terminals, again a mix of Mime ACT I, ACT IV, 
ACT V, and LA120's.

Both of the above systems - students had unlimited access to (except 1,1 and 
A000). You could come early or stay late and or use your class breaks to 
spend as much time as you wanted on the systems. In addition to student use, 
the systems were also used to publish the school newspaper (Saturn 5 on the 
PDP), enroll and schedule students for classes, library catalog, etc. They 
were also used in several of the math classes, and the school offered two 
classes in BASIC programming (on the HP) and one class in FORTRAN on the 
PDP.

Oh, the physics department had a Heathkit EC1 analog computer.

The priest who ran the computer center also taught some basic electronics 
courses after class.

I don't know others experiences, but I always figured that - for the time 
period - this high school had a computer setup that many colleges would 
envy. And as you can tell, these systems I played with in high school 
certainly directed my focus for my computer collecting habbit :)

Jay West