In honor of DePaul’s Centennial
… as published in the special Centennial edition of The DePaulia, September 4, 1998
Unlike a topic such as athletics, computers have a relatively short history in DePaul’s first 100 years. However, they have come very far in such a short period, from near anonymity 30 years ago, when there were just a few on campus (used for administrative purposes) to the present, when most students use computers for various reasons.
The first computer lab was in the area where the career center in SAC is currently housed. Opened in the late 70s, these looked much different, as they were just teletype terminals that used punchcards, which were used for computer programs. “You would type information and send it the mainframe to be processed,” noted Peter Teel, a Customer Technology Services technician and DePaul graduate. However, students would often have to wait over 8 hours for their results, as the university was cooperating with the University of Illinois at Chicago, in its early endeavors to provide computing resources to the student community. [read more]