In the still hours of Tuesday morning, January 17, 2006, the final hulk of the mainframe is loaded onto an unmarked delivery truck to be hauled to its final destination. The tapes have already been dismounted and the data transitioned to PeopleSoft or archive. Its time, here at HECN North and ITSS, has come to an end. No ceremony, no tears, just the quiet unplugging and moving of machinery. The floor is swept clean but the memories remain vivid in the minds of those who depended on it to perform each and everyday.
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The first IBM 1620 mainframe made its grand entrance onto the university scene in 1962 in the basement of the Law School building. It moved to the first floor of Twamley and then to the basement of Upson II. Its mission, as always, to comply with our commands. However, not many knew the commands. It was a big step up for the Higher Education Computer Network, the eleven higher education institutions networked together in the state of North Dakota. The first full time computer employee, Caryl Pederson, was hired by past UND President, Thomas Clifford, as a keypunch operator for inventory, payroll and other purposes as the system grew. |
Eventually the mainframe made possible the services of an email system; Wylbur delivered within the state of North Dakota as well as anywhere in the world. Correspondence of this caliber was available to staff, faculty and students. A new world begins to evolve. Access to the Internet emerges on campus and life as we know it changes forever.
The demands on the IBM mainframe continue to expand. CICS and Adabas become common terms for staff and faculty. HECN programmers complement these applications by writing an in-house legacy system for administrative and academic purposes. Its a living system with patches, fixes and constant changes running 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Our operators are always there to watch, keep her company, and immediately respond to her needs. Terminal emulation, line commands, function keys, transaction identifiers, and many foreign sounding instructions are distributed to staff and faculty. Finally its accepted as a way of education and business life.
After more then 40 years, there's a new guy in town promising to deliver more data with easier access. The bait is taken and the hook is set; PeopleSoft reels us in. The transition begins to the new system. Awareness campaigns are launched to prepare us for the progressive and changing future.
Our IBM mainframe is out there somewhere serving some other organization. We wish you well, our old faithful companion. You taught us much, a lot of which we take with us to our new system with its new challenges. One thought consoles us, IBM mainframes never die, they just get upgraded. So live well and prosper.