It was a very different tech world to now, a bigger world too. Computers filled huge rooms with printers being the size of small cars, plus tape units the size of wardrobes. That is part of the fascination i feel, its just so different to the computing we use now.
Unfortunately by the time i entered work the world was largely moving past the age of old iron, though i did get to use a Prime minicomputer at university. This was great fun but the closest i ever got to the hardware were the rooms full of dumb terminals and a large remote printer (though that made a wonderful noise).
The biggest computer i've ever had physical access to is a HP PC server which was the size of a small fridge. Big but not the same as a room full of IBM 360 or an ICL...
Photo from Flickr Commons
