A new University Archives collection is available as of last week. Academic Technology and Networks (ATN), a predecessor of Information Technology Services (ITS), includes many of the files of Judith Hallman, who worked for the university in a number of technological capacities before her retirement and whose contributions to the development of computing on campus will be felt for years to come.
The present records include a lot of material relating to early computing efforts of the university: images of campus’s early computer systems (including the above UNIVAC 1105), the development of the Carolina Computation Center, and the evolution of the Internet on campus. Catalogs of programs and operating manuals from the 1970s offer a glimpse of the complexity of systems today’s computer users often take for granted.
Since retiring, Hallman has been no slouch. She digitized many of the photographs from the records before transferring them to the University Archives. You can check them out here (the images gracing this post were digitized as part of her effort).
This week also marks the 52nd anniversary of the UNIVAC 1105’s dedication. After its purchase by the university, the floors of Phillips Hall had to be reinforced with steel beams before the machine could be installed. Perhaps fitting, the most recent items in the ATN records include fleeting mention of the Carolina Computing Initiative (CCI), at the time a new plan. While CCI moved the university away from its room-sized computing past, the infrastructure and legacy left by the UNIVAC and its mainframe successors are important milestones in the development of our information-rich campus.
Stop all the downloading!