Time Share Systems

The MAK system

The use of large central computers in the commercial world grew rapidly during the 1960s. The predominant method of data entry was by Hollerith punch cards. What if these thousands of cards could be replaced by direct data entry from a keyboard, hence, the MAK Multi Access Keyboard system was born. Commercial processing was batch oriented because of the nature of data input by batches of cards. The MAK system stored data onto a local disc drive for entry and verification (data was often 100% verified) and then batched onto magnetic tape for transfer to the 'big' machine for processing.

One of the systems I worked on was at SGIO, the State Government Insurance Office in Brisbane Queensland. The keyboards were designed and various parts acquired and manufactured in Melbourne. For this project the keyboards were assembled on the floor at SGIO. There was data preparation room at SGIO with around 50 IBM 029 (or similar) card punch machines busily chattering away all day. After the operators left of an afternoon, we would move in, heat up our soldering irons and work through the night assembling, testing and programming. Our partners (spouses or girl friends) often came in with us - "Which way do these little Martian guys face (tantalum capacitors)?" Pizza and beer seem to sustain us throughout the night. At this time the display in the keyboards comprised small Nixi tubes. The operators were very efficient at reading the decimal display of the ASCII character set.

The manager of the SGIO computer section at the time was (the well known) Ashley W Goldsworthy. He wrote a paper entitled 'MAK at the SGIO' [1], describing the system but did not mention the name of the manufacturer. It was very visionary and courageous of Ashley to take the risk to have TSS build much of this system and program it on the floor of SGIO. Fortunately it paid off and those of us who worked on that system still relate some of our (private) late night stories.

Fujitsu

One interesting project and the first time I worked on a larger tender was for Fujitsu Aust. Prior to 1972, Fujitsu sold industrial control products as FACOM Aust Ltd and changed it's name to Fujitsu Aust Ltd on 21/06/1972. Fujitsu formed a relationship with CMA (Computer Manufactures Australia) in 1972 when it first entered the Australian commercial market [2]. 

In particular, I did a lot of work on a tender prepared for the Queensland TAB. Much to the TAB's loss, this tender wasn't successful. Fujitsu, at the time, owned 100% of the totalisator business in Japan (which was way bigger than Australia) and this was to be an exemplar site for their first venture into Australia and it would work - no matter what!