Research Page 2

Computer-wise they were all big mainframes in 'ivory towers'; the average user had to prepare his/her program as a deck of punched cards and submit the job over a counter and then come back 2 to 24 hours later to collect his/her output on a long continuous sheet of folded paper with sprocket holes down the sides. {often just a few sheets with "SYNTAX ERROR ON LINE 22" type errors.}

Micro computer chips were just emerging in the later 70s, ordinary users saw them only in the form of pocket calculators with glowing red LED digits or as the first (Sinclair) digital watches. Black plastic with glowing red LED digits when you pressed the display button.

Computer games were just things like paddle-tennis which you plugged into a TV set. All TV sets and computer terminals were bulky Cathode Ray Tube type, of course, no flat LCD screens at all.

No mobile phones, but as mentioned above Citizens-Band radio had a brief life-time and included meet-ups (drink-ups ) in pubs just like modern BCG drink-ups.

Decimalization of coinage was 1972 (I think). At the time the smallest coin was a half-new-penny. The present 5p coin is worth less nowadays than that half-new-penny was in the early 70's

The Post Office provided the telephone lines and it was a rigid monopoly, all phones and modems had to be supplied by the Post Office and had to be wired in by a Post Office Engineer.

By special concession you could (at extra cost), as I did, have the Post Office wire your house with big jack plug extension sockets and though your first phone had to be hard-wired in, you were allowed to rent one or two extra phones with the big jackplugs on them so that you could move them from room to room.

Modems had a max speed of about 2400 baud and were typically 12" by 12" by 6" big. There wasn't much you could do with one if you had one, but there was a small amount of slow networking between Computer Centres. At London University we had terminals at many of the colleges consisting of a Punched-Card reader, a Line printer and a control console.

Rapid business communication was by Fax, mostly analogue fax machines provided and installed by the Post Office and all set up with a unique respond ID, which was defined only by the Post Office. This gave fax a legal status which meant that faxed documents could be legal documents. Digital fax machines may have arrived by the very end of the 70s; these were quicker when sending to another digital fax, but had to be capable of synthesising analogue fax signals for sending to older fax machines.

For non-business users the quick comms was telegrams. Telephones were not universal.

I suspect that soon you may get some documentaries on TV which have a look at the late 70s.

Quote: billwill @ April 8 2013, 1:25 PM BST

The Post Office provided the telephone lines and it was a rigid monopoly, all phones and modems had to be supplied by the Post Office and had to be wired in by a Post Office Engineer.

By special concession you could (at extra cost), as I did, have the Post Office wire your house with big jack plug extension sockets and though your first phone had to be hard-wired in, you were allowed to rent one or two extra phones with the big jackplugs on them so that you could move them from room to room.

Modems had a max speed of about 2400 baud and were typically 12" by 12" by 6" big. There wasn't much you could do with one if you had one, but there was a small amount of slow networking between Computer Centres. At London University we had terminals at many of the colleges consisting of a Punched-Card reader, a Line printer and a control console.

Rapid business communication was by Fax, mostly analogue fax machines provided and installed by the Post Office and all set up with a unique respond ID, which was defined only by the Post Office. This gave fax a legal status which meant that faxed documents could be legal documents. Digital fax machines may have arrived by the very end of the 70s; these were quicker when sending to another digital fax, but had to be capable of synthesising analogue fax signals for sending to older fax machines.

For non-business users the quick comms was telegrams. Telephones were not universal.

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