Office workers 50 years ago

In the 1960s, Lawrence Lackham, an employee of the largest and legendary telecommunications corporation Bell Labs, photographed his colleagues at work. Now, 50 years later, we can see what office workers and office life looked like back then.

(Total 18 photos)

1. Personal computer, polka dot dress, handbag

2. Mini-computer of the time Honeywell DDP-516. Used to connect dozens of computer terminals via a 50KB modem line. Today, this function is performed by network switches (slang switch)

3. And here are the terminals

4.

5. Head of the computer department with an oscilloscope

6. Desk of an extravagant production manager

7. Computer room, which today is called the data center. It was located in the basement of the building for security reasons. No natural light sources, only decoration made by employees.

8. IBM supercomputer. This "monster" had 1 MB of RAM, 648 MB of hard drive and was worth millions of dollars!

9. Fooling around with an IBM supercomputer

10. Apparently, there was no dress code at Bell Labs. Dressed "perky"

11. Data backup center on reels of tapes. Probably makes backups?

12. No one bothered much with the design of the premises. Everywhere white walls and the same type of tables in the workplace. but the people are cheerful. Programmer

13. The office was decorated on their own. The author and his creation on the wall

14. Library on tapes

15. Break for tea. After 50 years, in a similar environment, they rest in many institutes of the Russian Academy of Sciences

16. Demonstration room. Presentations were held here, slides were shown from the projector

17. Computer operators

18. New prototype computer terminal