1979 Computer Automation History Citibank Lexar AXXA Electronic Office System Word Processing CRT

Ғылым және технология

If you enjoy our videos, PLEASE HELP US Preserve Technology History with a small contribution to our channel: www.paypal.com/donate/?hosted...
Your contribution greatly helps! Thank you! ~ CHAP. -- 1979 Computer Automation at Citibank AXXA Electronic Office System. - This is a brief educational/historical view of Citibank's 1979 implementation of an in-house office automation system, which included E-mail, word processing, desktop computing, calendaring, electronic filing and remote access. Workstations used a Z80 microprocessor and accessed a central processor. The office automation system, known as AXXA was installed in 15 Citibank locations.
This presentation shows the AXXA terminals in use at Citibank, and is followed by a 5 minute promotional video explaining the benefits of the AXXA System 90.
In April 1980, Axxa Corporation was formed as a spin off from Citicorp’s Lexar unit, to offer the “Axxa System 90” electronic office system as a commercial product. The initial configuration included two workstations, a central processor, and printer, and sold for about $42,000 in 1980 (over $155,000 in 2024).
PLEASE HELP US Preserve Technology History with a small contribution to our channel. www.paypal.com/donate/?hosted...
Your contribution greatly helps us continue to bring you educational, historical, vintage computing topics. Thank you! ~ Computer History Archives Project.
This presentation is for educational purposes and not affiliated with Citigroup, Citibank or the BBC.
Restoration of the film excerpt courtesy of Speakeasy Archives
www.laserfilmlab.com

Пікірлер: 99

  • @oscarfeatherstone6688
    @oscarfeatherstone66883 ай бұрын

    2:43 I had to play that back a few times before I heard "If I can trust him" instead of "I fucking trust him"

  • @I_stand_with_Israel.

    @I_stand_with_Israel.

    3 ай бұрын

    😂😂😂 I was like “What did she just say?!?“

  • @belkacemF

    @belkacemF

    2 ай бұрын

    😂

  • @PMThrudr

    @PMThrudr

    26 күн бұрын

    I'm glad I wasn't the only one who caught that.

  • @Padrino-kp1rf
    @Padrino-kp1rf3 ай бұрын

    Does anyone else get satisfaction from watching vintage computer videos?

  • @papagen00

    @papagen00

    3 ай бұрын

    yes this is better than vintage porn.

  • @yldrmcs

    @yldrmcs

    3 ай бұрын

    @@papagen00😂

  • @rabcproj

    @rabcproj

    2 ай бұрын

    Yes. As a Gen Xer, it makes me feel like what it must have been like to be my grandparents (born 1910s), seeing tech change from radio to silent movies to color film talkies to television.

  • @mxssxm
    @mxssxm3 ай бұрын

    We all need a "oops-key" 🤣 thank you for uploading. Greetings from germany 😌

  • @ForgottenMachines

    @ForgottenMachines

    3 ай бұрын

    6:39 is the "oops-key"!

  • @bennri

    @bennri

    3 ай бұрын

    Citibank sure does need an oops key.

  • @MontegaB
    @MontegaB3 ай бұрын

    It's crazy how much technology from this period has been lost to time. This is really cutting edge stuff.

  • @ComputerHistoryArchivesProject

    @ComputerHistoryArchivesProject

    3 ай бұрын

    Hi @MontegaB, yes, these beautiful CRT workstations came and went very fast. Never saw or heard of them before this film turned up. Glad we could share this bit of rare computer history. Hope to learn more about this model in the future. Thanks for your comment. Hope you will visit and view our other videos as well. Thanks! ~ Victor, CHAP

  • @frankowalker4662
    @frankowalker46623 ай бұрын

    Ah, the good old days, when PRINT on a key meant print.

  • @yzmey42113
    @yzmey421133 күн бұрын

    A lot less standardization back then, vendors were creating their own products from top to bottom. Later on, as systems from multiple different vendors needed to communicate, they started to standardize various systems, and that created the basis for the technology we use today.

  • @albear972
    @albear9723 ай бұрын

    2:00 Dang! I must say, that has to be the craziest monitor design I have ever seen. Pretty wild there.

  • @volvo09

    @volvo09

    3 ай бұрын

    There were other CRT type "rotating monitors" for portrait or landscape, but this must be the first. Very cool

  • @jonathankleinow2073

    @jonathankleinow2073

    3 ай бұрын

    I'm quite impressed. The first rotating display that could be changed from portrait to landscape or vice-versa in real time that I knew of was the Radius Pivot Display, which didn't hit the market until 1991. It's possible there was a similar product for the IBM PC market I'm not aware of that preceded it, but the demand for that feature came from the Macintosh's extensive use in desktop publishing at the time.

  • @thesteelrodent1796

    @thesteelrodent1796

    3 ай бұрын

    @@jonathankleinow2073 there were several very early CRT that could be rotated because they assumed you'd want a vertical monitor for writing letters, and horizontal for everything else. It wasn't till the mid-1980s they realized that you don't need a vertical monitor as long as it's big enough

  • @jonathankleinow2073
    @jonathankleinow20733 ай бұрын

    Wow, this is a really impressive system, practically a decade ahead of its time. How is there so little about it online? This should be up there in posterity with the Xerox Alto and Star, the IBM PC 5150, and the Macintosh.

  • @ran2wild370

    @ran2wild370

    3 ай бұрын

    Well, I suspect those systems were tightly tailored for mutli-corps inner business processes and acted somewhat a department level mainframes. Probably we have already watched some videos about BBC or other news agencies with global telex/teletype network and editing/news reporting terminals.

  • @BlaBla-pf8mf

    @BlaBla-pf8mf

    3 ай бұрын

    At the heart of this system is not a PC. A Z80 PC can't do all that stuff. Networks like this were based on a central mainframe or minicomputer which does all the work. Pretty common from the 60's to the early 90's in big companies. That's why it's so expensive. $155 000 is no joke and you get a really minimal setup. The video is a bit misleading as we get to see only the smart terminals not what was probably a minicomputer powering this, herd drives etc

  • @straightpipediesel

    @straightpipediesel

    3 ай бұрын

    The reason is it's not novel or a head of its time. Wang OIS (1977) beat them. IBM PROFS (1981) meant you didn't need a new, dedicated computer appliance, you could do the same stuff off your mainframe. The IBM Displaywriter (1980) used microcomputer technology to make it far cheaper than this, under $8000 a seat. This was word processing only, VisiCalc on the Apple II (1979) introduced the world to spreadsheets.

  • @MM.
    @MM.3 ай бұрын

    That pivoting monitor took me by surprise, impressive for 1979. The VT100 had been released only the year before.

  • @matneu27

    @matneu27

    3 ай бұрын

    Besides memory, screen size was sure another expensive part of those days. You can find a pivoting screen nowadays in the BYD Atto EVs 😉

  • @cfusername

    @cfusername

    3 ай бұрын

    The resolution was also surprisingly high.

  • @dave4shmups
    @dave4shmups3 ай бұрын

    Thanks for uploading this! That was fascinating! I didn’t know that any company had computer systems like this in 1979! ARPANET was around, but that was Government controlled and wasn’t available for private businesses to use.

  • @ComputerHistoryArchivesProject

    @ComputerHistoryArchivesProject

    3 ай бұрын

    Hi @dave4shmups, you are very welcome. It is somewhat surprising that these systems did not catch on more widely since the rotating CRT was great for banks and institutions that used large spreadsheets as well as memos and letters. The rotation was a great feature especially at that time period. ~ Victor, CHAP

  • @phil4977
    @phil49773 ай бұрын

    I was a senior manager at Nestle in the early nineties and remember getting a laptop. It was terrible. Prior to that I would hand write memos and give them to the typing pool. The memo would then be couriered overnight to the recipient. Fax machines were big then too.

  • @PhilMoskowitz
    @PhilMoskowitz3 ай бұрын

    Keypunch computers were the standard in 1979. So this was futuristic indeed.

  • @am74343
    @am743433 ай бұрын

    Wow! That sure is the FUNKYEST CRT monitor I've EVER seen!

  • @Design_no
    @Design_no3 ай бұрын

    Glad to see "the girls" working on their workstations 😂😂😂

  • @ebridgewater
    @ebridgewater3 ай бұрын

    03:44 The graphics, the voiceover and the sound effects reminded me of Videodrome (1983 film) so much!

  • @LegoTux
    @LegoTux3 ай бұрын

    Loved seeing the vintage Western Electric 1A2 key phones, and the Northern Telecom SL-1 digital pbx phones. Started my career working on those old SL-1/QSU phones, they were indestructable!

  • @CrazyTobster
    @CrazyTobster3 ай бұрын

    My father was a pretty senior in BT, but back then they used BBC Micros until Apple (Classic) came along.

  • @jms019
    @jms0193 ай бұрын

    I like the Oops key.

  • @smwsmwsmw
    @smwsmwsmw3 ай бұрын

    I love that they have these relatively modern computers but are still using rotary dial telephones (touchtone had been available since the 1960s).

  • @thesteelrodent1796
    @thesteelrodent17963 ай бұрын

    Always interesting to see the beginning of all the stuff we take for granted today. Just love the "oops" key :D

  • @johneygd
    @johneygd3 ай бұрын

    Whooaaah now this was definitely mind blowing and forward thinking back in 1979,but it’s no wonder that only banks or other big companies used it because they costed a fortune, a whopping $42.000,so it’s no wonder most people didn’t had a computer back then,am also stun had they expected more business productivity in 1980 or how they could plan a meating 6 years away from it in 1985,1979 was indeed the door to oor current future😁

  • @tra-viskaiser8737
    @tra-viskaiser87373 ай бұрын

    That monitor shown has me very worried.... like, what is it secretly doing to me? Lol

  • @gorsian1979
    @gorsian19793 ай бұрын

    Really very Wonderful and impressive , Computers in 1970's Has some similar Shape Features Like in Computers in 1990's and late 1980's , Also Printers were impressive as well and Has High Quality Function like Printers in 1990's and 2000's ❤❤❤ ,

  • @ComputerHistoryArchivesProject

    @ComputerHistoryArchivesProject

    3 ай бұрын

    Thank you very much. Good info. ~

  • @Teleportcamera
    @Teleportcamera3 ай бұрын

    02:47 did she really say “i fucking trust him”???? 🤣

  • @shawnw1979

    @shawnw1979

    3 ай бұрын

    OMG I missed that. wow.

  • @schr4nz
    @schr4nz3 ай бұрын

    Damn, this was so advanced for the time, an almost paperless office in 1979, crazy.

  • @narwhaltacos2197
    @narwhaltacos21973 ай бұрын

    How did the Oops key get lost!!!! I get that we don’t need it today, but I’ve needed it for years beyond this video…

  • @johneygd

    @johneygd

    3 ай бұрын

    Well,we now call it the backspace key and that key is still present on our current computers🤣

  • @WhitfieldProductionsTV
    @WhitfieldProductionsTV3 ай бұрын

    wild this was 45 years ago.

  • @volvo09
    @volvo093 ай бұрын

    2:35 i love how she says "i f-ckin trust him" shortly after 😂 You'd never see that today!

  • @K.F-R

    @K.F-R

    3 ай бұрын

    "... if I can trust him..." ;)

  • @frankowalker4662

    @frankowalker4662

    3 ай бұрын

    I thought she said that too, for a split second. But K-F-R is correct. LOL.

  • @SlyPearTree

    @SlyPearTree

    3 ай бұрын

    I replayed that part as soon as it occurred and realized what she said. You would not see casual use of the f word in that kind of content back then either.

  • @volvo09

    @volvo09

    3 ай бұрын

    @@K.F-R oh ok! Hahaha, it really sounded like that on my phone!

  • @mrbrent62

    @mrbrent62

    3 ай бұрын

    I had to replay that several times myself ha ha ha

  • @Stephen.Bingham
    @Stephen.Bingham3 ай бұрын

    The flowers for the secretary at the end are to soften the news that her role is no longer required. Hopefully she started a fin-tech company and ended up earning more than her former boss.

  • @Schroefdoppie
    @Schroefdoppie3 ай бұрын

    Probably more productive than the distraction machines we use nowadays 😂

  • @ebridgewater
    @ebridgewater3 ай бұрын

    All the secretaries were birds and all the managers blokes 😆

  • @MontegaB

    @MontegaB

    3 ай бұрын

    How things have changed...🤣

  • @crumplezone1
    @crumplezone13 ай бұрын

    We owe a lot to those early computer engineers and sofware developers or we would still be a paper and pen civilization

  • @MikeF1189
    @MikeF11893 ай бұрын

    8:09 A password you say?

  • @BradNeuberg
    @BradNeuberg3 ай бұрын

    There’s very little about this system online! It’s really interesting, any other materials on it?

  • @samio3907
    @samio39073 ай бұрын

    I wonder if any of these systems still exists. I can't find a single picture in google.

  • @ComputerHistoryArchivesProject

    @ComputerHistoryArchivesProject

    3 ай бұрын

    Hi @samio3907, we had the same thought. With more than 20 years of computer history experience, we have never seen one of these terminals, or any photos of them. This film is the first time we have seen one being used. A nice rare bit of history! Maybe we will see one on eBay some day in the future. Thanks very much for your feedback! ~ Victor, CHAP

  • @mrroobarb
    @mrroobarb3 ай бұрын

    It's quite scary how the US was so far ahead in the late 70's with banking - but seems to be stuck in that era when the rest of the world has moved on. Chip and PIN, contactless payments etc.

  • @ForgottenMachines
    @ForgottenMachines3 ай бұрын

    Does the CHM, or any other museum or private collector, have one of these terminals? What about the host system? Have any of these survived???

  • @ComputerHistoryArchivesProject

    @ComputerHistoryArchivesProject

    3 ай бұрын

    Good question. We are not affiliated with the CHM (museum), so you might want to ask them directly. Or perhaps the Smithsonian National History Museum in Washington D.C. We do not know of any museum or collector that has these workstations. Pretty rare!... VK

  • @sorinankitt
    @sorinankitt3 ай бұрын

    Axxa music drowned out the dialogue

  • @ZachariasEnislidis
    @ZachariasEnislidis3 ай бұрын

    WTF?! How the hell did they have that tech, back then?

  • @c.m.obrecht
    @c.m.obrecht3 ай бұрын

    Is this the entire system I think, no external CPU unit. But has it mass storage? How to store something? Could it send work to a IBM 370 or something?

  • @ComputerHistoryArchivesProject

    @ComputerHistoryArchivesProject

    3 ай бұрын

    There was an external CPU unit that connected the workstations, but it was not shown in the film. Still looking for more detailed specifications on this system from the 1970's. Good questions...

  • @c.m.obrecht

    @c.m.obrecht

    3 ай бұрын

    Ah OK!@@ComputerHistoryArchivesProject

  • @wiwingmargahayu6831
    @wiwingmargahayu68313 ай бұрын

    thats a lot of fish and chips sir

  • @douro20
    @douro203 ай бұрын

    Are there any surviving Axxa systems?

  • @andyr8812
    @andyr88123 ай бұрын

    Long before you could do all that with Microsoft's products.

  • @thesteelrodent1796

    @thesteelrodent1796

    3 ай бұрын

    Microsoft was the last company to figure out how to do any of that, all their programs are based on the work of other companies

  • @ForgottenMachines
    @ForgottenMachines3 ай бұрын

    7:55 Looks like a Texas Instruments Silent 700!

  • @arduinoguru7233
    @arduinoguru72333 ай бұрын

    7:08 Damn how M$ screwed the biggest feature needed in office workplaces, searching for your documents (fast).. I think M$ intentionally wanted offices to be crappy like PC never existing

  • @peewee678
    @peewee6783 ай бұрын

    1:56 - "The Girls"?

  • @heatvisuals
    @heatvisuals3 ай бұрын

    3:48 METALLICA

  • @shawnw1979
    @shawnw19793 ай бұрын

    Was this for real?

  • @devpublic526
    @devpublic5263 ай бұрын

    2:47 did she just drop the F bomb?

  • @AndrewDavie-er3ug
    @AndrewDavie-er3ug3 ай бұрын

    That monitor looks like it's attached to a jet engine.

  • @billschlembach8055
    @billschlembach80553 ай бұрын

    Did she say what I believe I heard her say??? Omg roflmao.

  • @sa3270
    @sa32703 ай бұрын

    How funny, they added a key for about everything they could think of.

  • @ran2wild370
    @ran2wild3703 ай бұрын

    Ohhhh, those young greenhorns like Jobs, Gates and myriads of others had a lot of space at the bottom of the market with their AppleII/CPM and even Lisa with its only $10.000 price 🤣🤣🤣

  • @yldrmcs
    @yldrmcs3 ай бұрын

    AI, hold my 🍺

  • @meatpockets
    @meatpockets3 ай бұрын

    Patrick Bateman before he returns some tapes and murders a hobo. 1:30

  • @gayesthusky2177
    @gayesthusky21773 ай бұрын

    May not have had B00bzz, but I’m sure one could type dirty stories on those computers.

  • @danbeaver534
    @danbeaver5343 ай бұрын

    Was 1979 that sexist? Geez, I graduated college that year and didn't notice it!

  • @shawnw1979
    @shawnw19793 ай бұрын

    WYSIWG editor LOL.

  • @PilotVBall
    @PilotVBall3 ай бұрын

    Vulgar 2:46 😂

  • @am74343

    @am74343

    3 ай бұрын

    She said, "If I can trust him..." not the "F" word! 🤣🤣

  • @triodehexode

    @triodehexode

    3 ай бұрын

    ​@@am74343Freudian slip. There is also reference to sharpening pencils for you budding analysts out there.

  • @fokthewef
    @fokthewef3 ай бұрын

    Password protected 😂😂

  • @sararose8942
    @sararose89423 ай бұрын

    Promo_SM 😑

  • @johnpinion8033
    @johnpinion80333 ай бұрын

    How do we know this is real, and not AI generated??🤣

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