The IBM office in Sao Paulo, Brazil

Quite a modern building, with an employee lounge at the back of the building. In this lounge, they have a gallery of old IBM equipment, including an IBM 1401 computer.

I remember it was March, 1968, when I wrote my first computer program (in Fortran) and it was compiled on a 1401.

In those days, I filled out my code in pencil on pre-lined "coding sheets" and they were sent off to the data centre for card-punching and processing. About a week later, the resulting report would be sent back.

Any bugs or typos were corrected on the coding sheets, and they were submitted again. Can you imagine waiting a week between successive attempts to make a program run?

What's interesting is that, up until today, I'd never seen a real 1401 -- just pictures. So it was quite a connection to my past!

The employee lounge here also has a piano and guitar that anyone who's interested can play. Every lunchtime, there's beautiful music wafting through the whole floor as people settle down to play a solo or duet. It's very charming!