We spent a very nice and quiet day with Diane’s mom Marcia , her brother Joe and our sister in law Pat. ..Today is Marcia’s 81st birthday. It was so fun being down here.. We had a nice midday celebration.. as is our tradition.. we got the food from Phil’s Chicken house.. which now is advertising an IoS and Android App.. how cool is that.. I’ve been going to that place for more than 35 years ! and they now have an app !

 

Big Gabe showed up as a single dandelion in his yard.. that wa always a point of fun ribbing between the two of us !. 

 

 

after lunch, Diane, Pat and I went down to Washington street to see the IBM Museum thats in the old Burt’s Building. Diane’s  mom Marcia used to work at Burt’s !

 

inside our guie Pete H did such a fantastic  job at taking us through the history of IBM as viewed through the lens of Endicott. This place is the birthplace of our company..so its history is really important to our  present .   Here’s Peter.   He did such a wonderful job of storytelling as he took us through the museum. i was so honored to get him as a guide and here his storytelling.. what a fantastic guy !!!

 

peter expalined the coming together of three companies, the tabulating company , the bundy time recording company and the Computing scale company.. all to form the company in 1911

here’s one of our first products,.. a meat grinder !

 

here are soem of the recording time keepers 

we also saw some  of the computing  kitchen equipment 

 

from mom’s hometown of Dayton OH !

computing cheese cutters !

 

here’s our founder TJ Watson SR. 

 

and a recent picture of the old IBM site.. 

 

the tour took us from calculating scales and time clocks to punch card readers.. we heard of Herman Hollerith .  and saw the birth of punch cards. 

 

 

a little bit of generationaly acceptable misogyny 

 

\a sales mewetign with TJ Watson at the helm 

here’s where they stayed at sales leadership training

 

 

lots more punch card machines !

 

the first socual security recipient on punch cards.. she lived in tiny Ludlow vermont !

 

some fun gadgets.. .. just in case !

 

corporate supported phrenology !

 

tribute to grace hooper. the mother of modern computer science .. and the inventor of the word ‘bug’.. after moths got in and caused computing errors in the old machines. 

 

the first  FRU’s (field replaceable units) 

 

here’s one 8 bit word !.. huge !

 

ahh typewriters !

 

core memory.. 

 

the first drum mmeory I have ever seen . 

 

peter and the 1401

 

the 1401’s discreet transistor electronics 

 

it was from 1959.. same as me.. the first year we painged our boxes blue !

 

a 1403 chain printer.. I remember these !

 

pete plays the IBM theme song of ever onward on teh glockenspeil !

 

and he shows us a picture of his dad on the baseball team ‘the tabulators’ 

pete himlef wa in the IBM band.. many years after this . 

 

peter, ted and i 

 

afternnon at marcia’s house

i am totally sleepy.. so I think I’ll end here..hope you enjoyed the sights from the museum,.  long drive back home early tomorrow

nite all, nite sam

-me