Joe Curry wrote:
>One thing I have to say about your comments though is that in the later
>days of Triumph I am sure that there were computers running some things,
>but when my two Spits rolled off the assembly line in 1963, I'd bet that
>there wasn't any computerization going on then. I didn't get my first
>calculator until 1975 and was running around the campus of Texas Tech in
>1965 carrying a slide rule! I have still got that hunk of plastic
>coated bamboo but wouldn't give 2 cents for any chance that I could
>still operate it!
'Fraid you're wrong, buddy. When The Rocket Range was opened in late 1958 to
manufacture
the Herald it was one of or probably the most modern and up to date car
assembly facility
in the world with many visitors from other plants in the US, Europe and Japan
coming for a
look see and to gasp in amazement. The computer by today's standards was steam
driven, in
fact I should think mine has greater processing power. It was a punched card
version and
lived in a climatically controlled building to which access was very tightly
controlled. I
can't remember the name of it but Leon Guyot has a photograph of it. (Leon? -
enlightenment is needed) As further support, I understand that Penrice wrote
about it at
some length in Triumph World - and surprisingly, managed to do it without
reverting to his
favoured use of the vernacular in his prose. Can't remember offhand when that
was as I
don't take the magazine.
John
|