Lawrence Harley "Larry" Luckham

    In the late '60's I worked for Bell Labs for a few years managing a data center and developing an ultra high speed information retrieval system. It was the days of beehive hair on the women and big mainframe computers. One day I took a camera to work and shot the pictures below. I had a great staff, mostly women except for the programmers who were all men. For some reason only one of them was around for the pictures that day.

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Operations Manager

Check out the slide rule in the pocket and the sideburns. Hey, it was the '60's!

Operations Manager

Lecture

I have no idea what I was discussing here, but somebody picked up the camera.

My Secretary

Roxanne. She was absolutely great!

Computer Operations Supervisor

Don't let the oscilloscope fool you. Bea didn't work on the hardware. But she was an outstanding supervisor.

Bea

The computer room was in the basement of a building for security and other reasons. There was no natural light and I had a slim budget for decoations. I also had staff with artistic talents so I bought the materials and they made their own decorations.

Computer Operator

Many names have disappeared from my memory after 35 years, but these were an excellent and dedicated group of people.

Computer Operations Supervisor

Yvonne was another of the computer operations shift three shift supervisors and a great asset to the project.

Yvonne

A good sense of humor was one of the things that distinguished almost every one of my staff for this project.

Computer Operations Supervisor

This was a large IBM mainframe computer around 1967 when this picture was taken. One meg of menory, 648 meg of hard drives, no video and it cost in the millions!

Computer Operations Supervisor

Many names have disappeared from my memory after 35 years, but these were an excellent and dedicated group of people.

Magnetic Tape

Our backup storage was 9 track magnetic tape.

Programming is Fun

Even when it doesn't work the way it was supposed to the first time!

Programmer Relaxation

Bits and bytes and a little folk music go a long way. All the programmers were mathamatitions by training.

Computer Operators

Many names have disappeared from my memory after 35 years, but these were an excellent and dedicated group of people

Computer Operators

Many names have disappeared from my memory after 35 years, but these were an excellent and dedicated group of people

Tape Library

Helen was our tape librarian.

Tape Cleaning

After a few uses tapes were cleaned and tested before being put back into circulation.

Artist & Work

Artist & Work

Tape Library

Data Control Unit

Karen was one of about a half dozen very smart people in the data control unit making sure that the data going in was good.

Data Control Unit

Data Control Supervisor

Toni on the left supervised the Data Control Unit.

Honeywell DDP-516

This mini computer was used to connect a dozen prototype data terminals to the mainframe over a 50KB modem line. The function would be performed today by a hub or switch.

Data Terminal Test Room

These special prototype terminals were state of the art at the time and were the first displays in which the data was first written to memory then displayed.

Data Terminal Test Room

These special prototype terminals were state of the art at the time and were the first displays in which the data was first written to memory then displayed.

Data Terminal Test Room

These special prototype terminals were state of the art at the time and were the first displays in which the data was first written to memory then displayed.

Demonstration Center

Demonstrations of the system were presented in a special series of rooms created for the purpose. In addition to a working terminal the center was equipped for a short film and slide presentation.

Prototype Terminal

A prototype terminal was set up in the demo center.