SIGECO Computer Room, 1983

This is my dad at work in 1983 in the SIGECO Computer Room at the Hulman Building, in downtown Evansville, Indiana. He worked there for 30+ years starting in the 60s. As a kid I would visit him there and remember being impressed by the mainframes, printers, tape drive units, disk packs, HVAC, raised floor, etc. SIGECO/Vectren (power company) built a new data center in 2003 and moved out. Today, I am VP of an IT Consulting firm and as of 2009, we now have offices in the Hulman Building and our new data center is my dad's old computer room! :-)

Some of the items seen in the video are the IBM 4341 Processor (~ 1MHz w/ 2MB RAM), the IBM 2420 Magnetic Tape Unit (~ 3.8MB / tape), and the IBM 3340 direct access storage facility (w/ 70MB and 500MB disk packs).

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• computer room
• data center
• mainframe
• IBM
• tape drive
• disk pack
• SIGECO
• Vectren
• 1983
• burster
• computer history

[DrZarkloff]

I remember when DIsney's Epcot Center in Orlando, Florida had all of their computer drives on display.

[kb9okb]

Yeah I remember touring that facility in 1996- after it was closed to the public, but they gave me a tour anyway when they found out I worked in IT. They are pretty accomodating of guests.

[sm1else]

They made him wear a lab coat in the computer room? That's hilarious! I loved those data center computer rooms as a kid. Great for cooling off on a hot day!

[kinmanyuen]

lol fan noise!

[BrunswickHeadsHotel]

The 3278 with the silk screen covering is still my favourite terminal to this day. Although being connected to the 4341 with a special keyboard I think it had a different designation.

[gio048]

Wow,great video,reminds me of the 80.s at Magraw Hill.There is one machine that was a nightneare to run thats not in this video,remember the DECOLATER and the burster,a long time ago,great video,gio...

[andrewmcAAndrews]

Thanks for this video. It really brings back memories for me when I was a kid. My father was a Systems Analyst at U.B.C., and I remember all the sounds and smells of the mainframe clean room. As a kid, I was in complete awe of all things related to computing, and after seeing this video I realize I still am. Thanks!

[Bananadine]

did these people ever develop hearing problems from being in those loud rooms all day

[ezra4no1]

OH MY GOSH, YOUR FATHER ACTUALLY WORE A LAB COAT!!!!!!! Holy crap, that dates him as to how long he has been working in his field. There was a time when IT workers held much of the same respect as Doctors - Now IT workers are regarded slightly better than fast food workers who flip bugers - mainly because the bean counters for large corporations and VPs who have no understanding of their IT infrastructure think they can outsource everything to India for pennies on the dollar!

[nzoomed]

how loud and noisy! lol

Today a laptop could do the same job!

[adelgado75]

I worked in a data center for many years. I hated those large reel tapes. But it was fun working there. A few years later they bought in a virtual tape system. We then pulled and dumped like over 200,000 cartridge tapes.

[LinuxRaymaker]

Thank you for posting. The ending is classic.

Filming in the computer room = trouble.

These days CCTV does it for you.