In December 1962, I was employed with IBM Italia where I have worked for 31 years and carried out various duties. At that time, personal computers did not exist, but it was the era of the elettro-bookkeeping, and the punched card was the queen of the input/output. I began my computer career as a data-processing operator working with the then available "computers": enormous elettro-bookkeeping that were programmed through a connection of myriads of threads in the command panel. When the IBM Service Center in Rome installed their first transistor calculator (1963), it was considered by all the dependents a historical event, the machine was endowed with a memory of 4Kb..... you have understood well.... 4KB... a sacred monster for that era, it�s name the IBM 1401. In the middle of 1964, the IBM Service Center was endowed with a calculator (IBM 360/40) that could count on the availability of 128KB ram, 5 units of magnetic tape, 4 dispacks for the memorization of the data and a high speed printer. It constituted the true age of information science.
  
My passion for the computer pushed me to take courses to learn the various computer languages and was transferred from the Service Center to the Programming Department where in 4 years I realized different procedures of pay and salaries, of statistics and of accounting commissioned by our customers, using the languages Cobol, Assembler, PL1, RPG.
 
At the end of this experience, I returned to the Service Center as the Office Supervisor devoting my time to the maintenance of Software of the installed calculators in the Service Center, at which time had become 3, and were housed on the second floor of the building we occupied.

Subsequently I entered the Sales Branch of IBM where, decidedly turning the page, I held a position in the administrative circle and was assigned contracts of companies such as Alitalia, some Government Offices and, in the last period, the Sip (today Telecom).

I think that period of time was the best for me. I had an infinity of satisfactions, on the job as well as economically. To keep up with the customer assigned to me (Sip), I was continually relocated throughout Italy alternating work activities and attending upgrading courses which were held in a splendid 16^th Century villa on Lake Garda (Villa Tassinara).

During my working life I have met superiors and colleagues of which some were good and some less good, but I can fully consider myself substantially satisfied both of the IBM Corporation, that has allowed me to maintain a good way of life, of the people with which I have worked, and of myself.

I am retired now, but the passion has remained and every day I spend a few hours on my home computer keeping myself updated on the last software "releases" and of the latest hardware.

The computer evolution is touching more and more elevated levels, each of us is adjusted and it exploits the immense possibilities made by the net available that allows to continually update us on the new available technologies. But, despite everything, I always think about my sweet and old PUNCHED CARD.


Augusto