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Cyhist Aug 4, 1999 C
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========================================================================= Date: Mon, 4 Aug 1997 16:09:28 -0500
Reply-To: "CYHIST Community Memory: Discussion list on the History of
Cyberspace" <CYHIST@MAELSTROM.STJOHNS.EDU> Sender: "CYHIST Community Memory: Discussion list on the History of
Cyberspace" <CYHIST@MAELSTROM.STJOHNS.EDU> From: Don Hyde <dhyde@BDCAST.COM>
Subject: Re: Digital information search origins
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Community Memory: Discussion List on the History of Cyberspace ______________________________________________________________________
At 01:11 PM 8/4/97 -0700, George Edw. Seymour <ges@poboxes.com> wrote:
>"All" Web users know about search engines, but I am more curious about early information (not software--i.e., looking for broken code) searches, before and after DIALOG. Does anyone know when mainframe memories or storage devices got large enough to start searching for information?
>
>For background, I recall (late 60s & early 70s) submitting large boxes (2,000) of IBM cards full of JCL, program, and data cards, and then waiting. Seems like those computers (360?) could not have had sufficient memory for file/data searching. Is that correct?
>
>Many thanks, George
>ges@poboxes.com
>
WAAAY NO!
Searching large databases was a well-established data-processing task long before the first electronic computers were built. The card-walloping machinery used in the 1890 census was used a lot for sorting, but was also used to search those card-resident databases for members meeting certain criteria (all unmarried women 18-24 in one bin, then count the cards...). Actually, that's how they sorted, too -- by collecting all the A's in one bin, the B's in another, etc.
The point of sorting a list is usually to facilitate manual searches.
By the 60's, using computers to search databases was very common. It doesn't take much memory in the computer itself to search a database stored on an "external" medium (such as those large boxes of cards!). The size, cost, and the batch-processing paradigm those days often made computer searches inconvenient, so the machines were more often used to sort and print huge lists which humans could then search by looking things up in those unwieldy printouts that used to be ubiquitous in bureaucratic offices.
Don Hyde
Broadcast Electronics, Inc.
Supplying specialized electronics and software to the radio broadcast industry.
dhyde@bdcast.com (217)224-9600 http://www.bdcast.com
______________________________________________________________________
Reply-To: "CYHIST Community Memory: Discussion list on the History of
Cyberspace" <CYHIST@MAELSTROM.STJOHNS.EDU> Sender: "CYHIST Community Memory: Discussion list on the History of
Cyberspace" <CYHIST@MAELSTROM.STJOHNS.EDU> From: Don Hyde <dhyde@BDCAST.COM>
Subject: Re: Digital information search origins
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
______________________________________________________________________
Community Memory: Discussion List on the History of Cyberspace ______________________________________________________________________
At 01:11 PM 8/4/97 -0700, George Edw. Seymour <ges@poboxes.com> wrote:
>"All" Web users know about search engines, but I am more curious about early information (not software--i.e., looking for broken code) searches, before and after DIALOG. Does anyone know when mainframe memories or storage devices got large enough to start searching for information?
>
>For background, I recall (late 60s & early 70s) submitting large boxes (2,000) of IBM cards full of JCL, program, and data cards, and then waiting. Seems like those computers (360?) could not have had sufficient memory for file/data searching. Is that correct?
>
>Many thanks, George
>ges@poboxes.com
>
WAAAY NO!
Searching large databases was a well-established data-processing task long before the first electronic computers were built. The card-walloping machinery used in the 1890 census was used a lot for sorting, but was also used to search those card-resident databases for members meeting certain criteria (all unmarried women 18-24 in one bin, then count the cards...). Actually, that's how they sorted, too -- by collecting all the A's in one bin, the B's in another, etc.
The point of sorting a list is usually to facilitate manual searches.
By the 60's, using computers to search databases was very common. It doesn't take much memory in the computer itself to search a database stored on an "external" medium (such as those large boxes of cards!). The size, cost, and the batch-processing paradigm those days often made computer searches inconvenient, so the machines were more often used to sort and print huge lists which humans could then search by looking things up in those unwieldy printouts that used to be ubiquitous in bureaucratic offices.
Don Hyde
Broadcast Electronics, Inc.
Supplying specialized electronics and software to the radio broadcast industry.
dhyde@bdcast.com (217)224-9600 http://www.bdcast.com
______________________________________________________________________
