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Summer 2008 [Number 241]
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Celebrating 40 Years of InterfaceForty years ago, on July 15, 1968, the first issue of Interface appeared at NIH. That same year, pop culture offered us the HAL 9000, villain of Stanley Kubrick’s film 2001: A Space Odyssey, as the harbinger of computers’ powers. Of course, actual computers were still far from being HAL-like and the realm of computing then looked much different, even simpler, than it does today. The arrival of Interface, begun as a “series of technical notes” from the Division of Computer Research and Technology (DCRT), was a relatively small event in a year that also saw the founding of the Intel Corporation, the first Network Working Group (NWG) meetings, the first ARPANET program plan (June 3, 1968) and the first public demonstration of hypertext and the mouse pointer on the NLS (oNLine System). And yet, because computers play such a vital part in supporting the scientific research at NIH, Interface has been fortunate to chronicle many important instances and firsts of computing history simply by being a continued resource for NIH computer users. Computing at NIH has grown and changed over the past 40 years, something reflected not just in the step-by-step changes that turned the Division of Computer Research and Technology into the Center for Information Technology (CIT), but also in the expansion of Interface’s focus. As computer technology created new possibilities and CIT strove to offer the best digital tools to NIH researchers, scientists and support staff, Interface widened its scope beyond technical notes to offer user-friendly information about applications, services and programs for all CIT customers, regardless of their computer-related expertise. Early computing at NIH (1960s) The machinery and services Interface covered in its early years looked quite different from what is available in terms of computing power today. In the 1960s, computers, which used punch cards for data entry, storage and processing, tended to be large, relatively slow machines that could process only a limited number of jobs at a time and required specially-trained operators to function. Potential computer users had to deal with key punches, data cards, program decks, time sharing and long waits while the computer ran the jobs of those who submitted first. Computer access at NIH improved somewhat in the late 1960s, when remote terminal systems brought computers to more NIH laboratories and offices and the computer facility could accommodate an average of 43 batch jobs per day. A milestone of computing created at the NIH Computer Center that just pre-dated Interface was SPOUT (system peripheral output utility) in 1967-68. This resource-saving printer usage program saved NIH about $200,000 in its first year. It was later distributed to other federal agencies and organizations throughout the world. The first issue The first issue of Interface, dated July 15, 1968, was only 13 pages long and consisted mostly of a diagnostics section offering descriptions of common problems with the operating system, possible solutions and hints for debugging. Terms like JCL (job control language), FORTRAN, COBOL dominated, and the specialized nature of the terminology gave rise to in-jokes in later issues. Apart from introducing itself, the first issue also introduced the Interface masthead symbol, which “portrays NIH’s medical research and administration linked with computer technology.” It was left to the reader to figure out which shape represented which field.  The first Interface masthead symbol Highlights from the first year Interface reported on two important firsts at NIH in 1968:
WYLBUR and Interface Although Interface began teasing readers with cryptic messages such as “WYLBUR is coming!” in issue #5 (November 1968), NIH users had to wait until July 1969, coincidentally Interface’s first birthday (#11), before WYLBUR- the multi-user, terminal-oriented, text-editing and remote job entry system running under OS/360 - arrived on campus for testing, and it wasn’t until August that WYLBUR finally went into production at NIH (#12, August 1969). WYLBUR was a huge advance over the old punch card system of programming because it allowed the creation, modification and retention of sets of arbitrary textual data that could be used as source language for a computer program, data for a computer program or simple text (letters or lists). In fact, for many years Interface itself was created in WYLBUR using an NIH 8188 terminal with a modem connection to the IBM mainframe. Unlike many other programs from the early days of computing, WYLBUR also proved to be extremely resilient. Not only did WYLBUR undergo only one major re-design (in 1980), which resulted in NIH Extended WYLBUR (#92), the program also escaped its planned retirement in February 2001 (as reported in Interface issue #213, March 2000: “The Plug Will Not Be Pulled on WYLBUR in February 2001!”). Today, WYLBUR is still running, with relatively few changes from NIH Extended WYLBUR.
Interface in the 1970s and 1980s In 1970, Interface added two new regular columns to its repertoire: Data Line, introduced in issue #18 (April) as a sort of informal advice forum to address specific, brief user questions about Computer Center services and operations; and Recreational Programming (by Gary Knott), which, beginning with issue #22 (November), offered readers monthly brain-teasing programming problems to solve. It was advertised as “a mixture of practical and theoretical programming lore intended to amuse and enlighten” (p. 5). The column was later renamed Programming Methods and ran throughout most of the 1970s.
In 1978, Interface celebrated its 10th anniversary (issue #76, July 15) by instituting a unified table of contents and a brand new, sleeker cover page. Previously, the only issues with a true cover page, and any attempts at cover art, were the December/Christmas issues. Beginning with issue #78, every issue now had a true cover page that might even include the occasional cover art. Color, both for the cover and the entire text of an issue, was still reserved for Christmas issues – a trend that began in 1970 and lasted for decades.
In 1984, DCRT celebrated its 20th anniversary, and Interface reported on the festivities (#116, April). By this time, people recognized computing as an essential part of all NIH activities, while marveling at how the state of the technology had improved since the early beginnings. The NIH Central Computing Utility (CU) now covered 26,000 square feet, operated 24 hours a day and seven days a week (up from 20 hours a day and five days a week in the 1960s), served over 14,500 users and processed over 30,000 batch and interactive jobs daily – a great improvement from the average of 43 per day in 1965.
Interface’s own 20th anniversary in 1988 passed more quietly, with a celebratory cover on issue #145 (August) and a black and white centerfold of past Interface covers featuring cover #1, TSO, WYLBUR, ENTER MAIL, the linking of DEC-10 and IBM 370 and the DB2 Christmas cover. At the time, Interface was produced in WYLBUR and printed on the mainframe printers. The titles for articles were constructed on a Merlin label printing machine, and then stripped into the hardcopy. The yearly Interface indices were created by hand by having the writing staff go through the issues for the year and laboriously crafting a WYLBUR file with the index entries. In 1988, part of this process was modernized by assembling the “back pages” with Ventura desktop publishing software on a PC. With desktop software still in the future, Interface staff had to rely on the NIH Medical Arts department for the cover art, which had begun appearing on every issue in the 1980s.
Interface in the 1990s In the early 90s, the production of Interface moved away from WYLBUR and to a Mac platform, beginning with FrameMaker software and eventually shifting over to creating issues in Word on the Mac. Using Word to produce Interface eventually led to the current use of the Windows platform.
For Interface, as for many others, the 1990s revolve around the World Wide Web (as it was first introduced to us) and computer networking. During the celebration of DCRT’s 30th anniversary in 1994, Interface noted the exponential growth curve in use of networks at NIH, where network usage more than doubled in the 1990s (#184 and 185). Indeed, networking that created massively parallel supercomputers greatly helped scientific computing face challenges like protein folding, molecular dynamics or drug design on a quantum mechanical basis. In March of 1995, Interface ventured online for the first time with issue #190, which featured articles explaining the Internet (“What is the World Wide Web?”) and how to publish online (“Publishing Your NIH Documents on the Internet”). The Interface cover art did not manage the jump to the web until December of that year, when issue #193 offered a link to the art as well as the articles.  Online cover art for Interface issue #193 – the first online cover for Interface Although Interface had an online presence now, the main focus still lay with its print incarnation – a set of priorities reflected in the bare-bones design and sometimes awkward structure of the web pages. On the other hand, Interface editors spared readers the flash animation and garish colors of other early websites. Interface marked its 30th anniversary in 1998 by displaying the front page of its first issue both online and in print. At this point, celebrating anniversaries with reprints of issue covers seems to have established itself as a tradition for Interface. In 1999, the print issue underwent both a full-body overhaul to a new, easier-to-read format – referred to as “Interface Gets a Facelift” (#209) – and a brand new cover design that featured the logo and set-up Interface still has today (#210). As part of these changes, the “Technical Notes” section migrated online and only abstracts of the notes appeared in the print version after issue #209.
Remember Y2K? Interface devoted much of the second half of the 1990s to the specter of Y2K, leading off with a dramatic 1996 cover asking readers “Are You Ready?” (#195, March 1996) and an article about the “year 2000 crisis” that labeled the issue, with its attendant “drop dead date,” the “Challenge of the Century.”  Interface #195 cover art The topic of Y2K reappeared every year after 1996, in cover art (#203) as well as extensive articles about conversion services and Y2K readiness (#211). Finally, in December of 1999, Interface was ready to “Welcome the Future” (#212) and reported that “Several years of work by CIT and NIH are about to pay off with a smooth transition into the next millennium.” The calm optimism was warranted, as the Century Rollover Weekend came and went without a breakdown of NIH computing or civilization in general.
After the millennium Having successfully weathered the first challenge of the new digital decade, Interface took steps to fully embrace its online existence in 2000. First, in March 2000, the Interface website expanded its archival functions by adding the annual indexes from 1990 to 1993 and by offering the full and searchable text of past issues, starting with #189 (December 1994). Then, Interface offered its readers the Interface listserv list, which would notify subscribers once the web version of an issue became available (after the print version had been sent out).
The biggest step towards a full digital existence for Interface came in 2001, when, with its first official online issue (#218), Interface became a full-fledged web journal - available to anyone with a web browser and a connection to the Internet. The April 2001 issue (#218) was the first issue formatted specifically for e-mail and online distribution in order to offer readers “a quick, easy way to receive information about CIT policies, services, and other important news.” On September 5, 2001, Interface Online unveiled a new web design (#220) that should be familiar to readers today – after all, it is the look of this newest issue, celebrating 40 years of Interface serving users at CIT and NIH. |
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