Massive mainframes give way to smaller PCs
By Jon Krawczynski
The Forum - 07/25/1999

When we think of the year 1961, a number of grand memories come to mind.

Possibly first and foremost is the memory of a certain pinstriped Fargo Golden Boy's miraculous ascension to baseball immortality.

Sixty-one home runs. Could there be a greater accomplishment in any walk of life?

Last year, Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa proved the milestone was attainable. But in retrospect, the two newest additions to baseball's Mount Olympus may have done more than knock Roger Maris from the top of the single season home run list.

They may also have knocked Maris' 61 home runs from the top of the list of the most significant events in the Fargo area in 1961.

In 1961, while old number 9 was clubbing homers in the Bronx, North Dakota State University was busy bringing the first computer to the Fargo area, and controversially, to the state.

A new frontier

The IBM 1620 arrived at NDSU's electrical engineering department in August of 1961, one day after the same model was delivered to the University of North Dakota.

However, NDSU's 1620 was installed one day before UND's was, so both institutions can legitimately lay claim to having the first computer in the state.

"I've always felt that rivalry," said William Shelver, a professor of pharmaceutical sciences at NDSU. "It's not necessarily competition as much as it is the desire to be as good as we possibly can be."

As with any pioneering venture, the first months and years of computing were rough, to say the least.

Don Peterson was an associate electrical engineering professor at NDSU at the time, and is a pioneer in the area's computing field.

"It was a different world," Peterson remembers with a chuckle. "We were very crude."

Shelver also fondly recalls the rudimentary beginnings of computing in the region. "They were slow and fairly laborious," he says with a smile. "I remember when the school bought a calculator that could add, subtract, multiply and divide. We thought it was the greatest thing."

Peterson said the school chose the 1620 because of IBM's policy of allowing a 60-percent discount to educational institutions.

The computer had a 20,000- digit memory, far less than the multi-gigabyte memories of today, and was purchased for about $50,000.

Gigantic by today's standards, the 1620 was about the size of a commercial office desk. It was 450 times slower than the $1,000 microcomputer of the mid-1980s.

"I couldn't even compare the 1620 to today's machines," Peterson said. "Everything is so much smaller and faster."

Printing on the 1620 was as primitive as the rest of the machine's operations. The computer generated punch cards which were loaded into an IBM 407 accounting machine, and then printed out reports at a rate of 150 lines per minute.

Onwards and upwards

Both universities used the 1620 for six years. NDSU received a $250,000 matching grant from the National Science Foundation in 1968, and used the money to acquire an IBM 360/50. The school's 1620 remained in the engineering department for a few more years before being donated to the State Historical Society in Bismarck.

Around this time, technology began accelerating to its trademark break-neck speed.

"Moore's Law has contributed more than anything," said Greg Wettstein, the senior systems administrator at NDSU. "It said that semi-conductor technology would double in capacity every 18 months."

With such fast advancing technology, Peterson said it was getting harder to solicit funds for new equipment. "How do you justify spending thousands of dollars on something that's going to be obsolete in such a short period of time?" he wondered.

The state Board of Higher Education was asking the same question.

The bevy of requests for funding resulted in a frustrating period of zero development for the computer field in education known as the "10-year freeze."

The Board of Higher Education was receiving a high number of requests for computer funds. The board took a far more extreme step than state government, instilling a freeze on all data processing-related spending.

"It was rather frustrating," said Marty Hoag, a technical support specialist at NDSU. "We couldn't upgrade and take advantage of advancing technology."

The freeze lasted from 1968-78 while the board coordinated a plan for computer access and use among the state's institutions.

The government joins in

Shortly after the insurrection of computers into the education field, state government started getting into the act.

The legislature received requests for computer funding from nearly every state agency including the Department of Public Instruction, which was awarded a government grant to install an IBM 360/20.

Confronted with an overwhelming number of funding requests, the legislature decided to seek advice from a professional consulting firm in 1965.

The Arthur Anderson firm conducted a study that resulted in the formation of Central Data Processing, which consolidated all data processing into one single department. All state agencies were required to coordinate their computer activities through the agency.

The Revolution

With both state government and higher education getting organized with the aid of outside consulting firms, the computer revolution was ready to launch.

Two entities helped spawn the computer revolution in the late '80s and early '90s: personal computers and networking.

"Computing changed so dramatically with the advent of the personal computer," Peterson said. "Before, computers were kind of a rare tool. Now everyone has one."

NDSU worked to establish a backbone network which connected computers from different buildings on campus to each other.

"The big change was when we went from a stand-alone computer to a network base," Hoag said. "More people had access than ever before."

NDSU and UND were the prime players in the Higher Education Computer Network. NDSU handled academic services and UND was the designated site for administrative services.

Still today, the network supplies these services to each of the state-supported colleges.

With networking came the Internet and electronic mail. Hoag said the two international communications tools have been the biggest factors in giving the Fargo area access to the rest of the world.

"Computers and networking have eliminated distance barriers," Hoag said. "Web pages are based on content, not where they're located."

"E-mail's the big thing," Wettstein acknowledges. "Global access to information on the Internet, multimedia, distance education. You name it, it's at our fingertips."

A bright future

With all the advancements in the computing industry, the obvious question is: what's next?

Today computers are everywhere, from gas pumps to automobiles to airline reservation systems. What else is in store?

Peterson said the future holds a higher level of knowledge for the world's youth. "The level of knowledge of the student raises every generation," he said. "Computing used to be so mysterious. I used to get called at 2:30 in the morning. Now everybody's an expert."

And for the dreaded Y2K problem? Hoag isn't worried.

"[Y2K] is an interesting event," Hoag said. "There might be some problems, but there will be people there to fix those problems. It's not like all the programmers and technicians are going to disappear at 12:01."

The impact the computer has had on connecting the Fargo area with the rest of the world is immeasurable.

While the first computer took a back seat to the first 61-homer season in 1961, which event seems more life-changing now? Think about that while you prepare dinner in a microwave or as you pay for gas with your credit card.