To understand the reason for this post, please go to my post Miscommunication and read the fascinating exchange between Catherine and me on the subject of working in offices.
It was in 1967 that I was first exposed to a manual calculating machine which helped in preparing invoices.
From that very versatile machine which some clerks could use at lightening speeds, we moved on to electric calucalators.
At the same time we were still using manual typewriters;
And electric typewriters were provided to the secretaries of the top honchos.
And what would we have done without the telex machine?
Then came the handheld calculators which were status symbols. I still use one which is kept in a drawer in my table for my desk top computer.
If that was status symbol, the man who had a personal digital assistant was considered as having arrived.
In my time, I have used all these gadgets and was quite proficient too. Today’s youngsters cannot even understand how offices worked those days.
And then the era of computers, and cell phones came about which will take another post some other time.
A Tale of Office Automation.
How nice to see you here Probir! Yes, I am sure that you would have seen some of those relics as well.
Been there … Done that ! … I also remember being told that computers would bring about “the paperless office”, and yet, they are still selling plenty of filing cabinets !
Ah, filing cabinets! What will we do without them? As long as bureaucracies exist, they too will.
We still use handheld calculators, and Andy has even kept his slide rule for sentimental reasons. 🙂
I was among the few who used the slide rule in business school too. You get virtual slide rules now online!
These are all so interesting as I think of the dictaphone and manual typewriter I had to use on my first job though I had a portable Royal typewriter from college days (which I still have). Then at the bank when working in Loan Dept. there was the calculator, later a special machine I put installment loan info into that printed out month coupon payment booklets. On to the TV station and the teletype rattling away with all the program info coming in from our national network affiliate; more manual typewriters. Major day when our station received a Xerox to be operated only by certain selected individuals. I do have an electric typewriter given my daughter in Jr. high many years later — just as her school was moving to keyboarding. Tech marches on.
I think that after our generation, these will just be found in some obscure museums.
I remember the IBM 34 in its own temperature controlled room with glass windows so we could stand in awe of it. Also a primitive card machine, post-comptometer Can’t remember what it was called. I remember rolling file cabinets for all the cards that updated on the machine. As I managed about 25 companies there was a lot of rolling machines and clerks keyboarding all the time. Balancing at the end of the day. It was cutting edge in the 70s.
Memories.
XO
WWW
Oh yes, I clean forgot to mention the air conditioned rooms for the early machines! Indians found it amazing that their working environment was just blessed with ceiling fans whereas the machines got air conditioned rooms. The operators found themselves as quite the heroes.