Welcome to 40 Years of Computing @ Andrews.

This wiki is designed for you to share your memories and thoughts on the history of computing at Andrews University. Please share your memories from all departments involving technology including but not limited to: Information Technology Services, Computing Center, Math Department, Computer Science, Digital Multimedia, School of Business, Student MicroLabs (Nethery, Bell, Mainframe, etc.), etc.

Alumni Homecoming 2007: September 27-30

The weekend events for our celebration have passed, but we would love to continue to have you share your memories and we will find a way to preserve these.  Special thanks to all who came and made the weekend so memorable. 

Comments and Suggestions regarding possible future events would be welcomed - especially with offers of help in planning them ;-)

Weekend Proceedings

You can share:

• Technology used
• Special challenges that came with that time
• Successes in that time period
• Interesting stories
• People who worked during that era
• Interesting artifacts and documents

For a quick historical overview by Keith G. Calkins see: 40 Years of Computing

Dan Hamstra asks: Does anyone know/remember when the term "NIDA" first came into use and what person or group/committee came up with the name? I received a message from someone with a comment about the longevity of the NIDA acronym. Keith Calkins alludes to NIDA being the first "screen program" on the Datamedia terminals running off of the Sigma mainframe. Edsel Adap mentions interfacing to this data for use when setting up Unix accounts. By then, NIDA was residing on the Sequent (running the Dynix variant of Unix), probably still as a COBOL based system (Aldy Hernandez would probably remember). I'm assuming the NIDA program and it's underlying data (or database as we call it today) existed in some form prior to the Sigma screen program. Was it an early app/database on the Sigma? Was the name used on the IBM 360? The NIDA acronym has been in use at Andrews for over 30 years. Today, users go to a web page to look things up. Many in AUCC will recall getting phone calls from people asking something like "Is NIDA there? I was told I need to speak to her." NIDA still has a listing in the Andrews University Information Directory (phone book) which refers callers to a phone number in Academic Records.

The name was created by Bob Wonderly, who had a penchant for acronyms given his government background, in 1967. One of my first tasks was to create the NIDA, (name, i.d., address), file. Since the students could have several addresses, and memory and storage space was at a premium, we had to keep track of the addresses needed for the student, without reserving space for those they did not need. I was surprised that it had survived until 1996, if not to the current time.

Harry Jacobson 1967-1972

Get started now by clicking on an era:

• 1967-1977
• 1978-1987
• 1988-1997
• 1998-2007

Questions or comments? Email the committee members:

• Lorena Bidwell, lorena at andrews dot edu
• Keith Calkins, calkins at andrews dot edu
• Betty Gibson, bgibson at andrews dot edu
• Janine Lim, janine at janinelim dot com
• Bill Wolfer, wolferb at andrews dot edu