BoingBoing just noted how Steven Spielberg's father was a pioneer of the GE 225 mainframe. My dad mastered that machine in the early 60s, making it run efficiently under COBOL at the Girl Scouts National Headquarters. He still vividly remembers the details of the Analex printer and how using it offline saved a lot of computer time. Even the card reader had quirks. But back then, it wasn't hackers who focused on such optimization, it was every programmer and operator's job to understand such things. Ft Monmouth had some too. They were available for training courses my dad took. I hope some of those Ft. Monmouth folks are on this list. the main article: http://www.gereports.com/jurassic-hardware-steven-spielbergs-father-was-a-co... the short article: Arnold Spielberg (Steven's dad) developed the first computer to run BASIC in 1964 http://feeds.boingboing.net/~r/boingboing/iBag/~3/gPNulCvMi_U/arnold-spielbe... http://boingboing.net/?p=502025 Arnold Spielberg (Steven's father) developed the computer that first ran the BASIC programming language on May 1, 1964. Here's an interview with 99-year-old Arnold on the exciting early days of computers. Long before GE started connecting machines to the Industrial Internet, one Arnold Spielberg helped revolutionize computing when he designed the GE-225 mainframe computer in the late 1950s. The machine allowed a team of Dartmouth University students and researchers to develop the BASIC programming language, an easy-to-use coding tool that quickly spread and ushered in the era of personal computers. Bill Gates, Paul Allen, Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs all used the language when they started building their digital empires. Arnold Spielberg will be 100 years old in February 2017.