1. “H.I.S.-tory” by Vince Ciotti
© 2011 H.I.S. Professionals, LLC, All Rights Reserved
Episode # 6:
Mainframes
I was born in Philadelphia in 1945 – what a
coincidence, so was the ENIAC
mainframe!.

2. After the Pre-Cursors: 1960’s Mainframes
• The first true computers in hospitals were “mainframes,”
like the IBM 360 pictured here. They took up large rooms
and weighed so much most hospitals put them in the
basement, where many “DP” shops still reside today.
• “Core” memory was 64 thousand (no “megs” yet!) of
magnetic rings energized into binary on/off states.
• I/O was via the same 5081
Hollerith keypunch cards, and
output was 11 X 17 green bar
paper (CRTs were reserved
for early black & white TVs!).
• Storage was mainly magnetic
tapes, like those at the right:

3. Typical 60’s Hospital Mainframe Shop
For a glimpse into a hospital DP shop back then, I
called Karl Sydor, a co-founder of our firm, now
retired. He was DP Manager at Perth Amboy
General Hospital, NJ, which had 550 beds in
1967, with a census that often ran 100% (no
PPS/DRGs!). It was only the largest hospitals that
could afford the millions mainframes cost then.
• Here’s Karl in his 1950s
Studebaker Super Hawk,
a pretty good “auto”
analogy to mainframes!

4. Perth Amboy’s Mainframe Shop
Here’s what Karl’s “Data Processing” shop had:
• Staff – a total of 10 FTEs, a pretty big number back
then, considering they replaced 1-2 ledger card
operators from the ’50s:
– 3 Operators who ran JCL & tapes
– 4 Keypunchers, for data entry, and
– 3 Programmers, writing in COBOL.
• Hardware – migrated with IBM:
– First, an ancient 1401 card sorter, using keypunch cards
– Later a 1440 which ran DOS (Disk Operating System), which
used a rotating disk with a 2 Meg on-line!
– Then finally, an IBM Model 360 (more about 360s later…)

5. Other 60’s Mainframe Vendors
• IBM (aka Big Blue) pretty much dominated the 60s,
outselling their many competitors, not through better
technology, but a massive sales & marketing machine
• Who were their competitors?
The “BUNCH GRoup:”
– Burroughs
– Univac
– NCR
– Control Data
– Honeywell
– GE
– RCA

6. Mainframe Software?
• Most was provided freefree to facilitate hardware sales
– E.g.: IBM’s “PAL” & “MISP,” Burroughs’
“Medidata..”
• Hospitals either modified these gratis packages
for their needs, or self-developed from scratch.
• Applications were mostly financial systems like:- Billing, AR, AP, GL, PR, HR, etc. (Revenue
Cycle and ERP in today’s lingo)
- After all, ENIAC started out in 1945 as a
calculator for shell trajectories!
-Only a few census reports ever got to
nurse stations, as paper worksheets for
nurses to handwrite TPR logs, shift
reports, or patient conditions…

7. Mainframe Software?
• Most was provided freefree to facilitate hardware sales
– E.g.: IBM’s “PAL” & “MISP,” Burroughs’
“Medidata..”
• Hospitals either modified these gratis packages
for their needs, or self-developed from scratch.
• Applications were mostly financial systems like:- Billing, AR, AP, GL, PR, HR, etc. (Revenue
Cycle and ERP in today’s lingo)
- After all, ENIAC started out in 1945 as a
calculator for shell trajectories!
-Only a few census reports ever got to
nurse stations, as paper worksheets for
nurses to handwrite TPR logs, shift
reports, or patient conditions…