60. Computer Science

Dalton was the first school in New York City to have its own mainframe computer starting in 1970. IBM manual for the 1130 mainframe computer.

Eleven months after four research universities transmitted the first word over the Internet, Dalton was the first school in New York City to have their own mainframe computer. In October 1970 Headmaster Donald Barr received a proposal from IBM for Dalton’s first computer.

At a monthly cost of $1701.00 ($10,731 in 2018), Dalton purchased its computer. This IBM 1130 was a frequent choice for many engineering firms and universities. Finding programmers was nearly impossible and computer science as a college major was non-existent.

Dalton successfully lured Chuck Rice away from IBM to become a “computer operator” and math instructor. He programmed the computer for Dalton’s schedule, attendance, and library as well as for other neighborhood schools’ attendance.

After the mainframe was installed a small group of students would consistently be at the door of 502 wondering about all the knobs and blinking lights. From this burgeoning interest and in the spirit of the Dalton Lab, the first computer science department in New York City was born. Early programs were written using punched cards and students would line up to have the computer read their box of cards at the rate of 300 cards per minute. An error in the program meant the students had to repair their program and re-punch cards. The notion of a hard drive was not commonplace and personal computers were still years away. Now, each Dalton student has their own computer and executing a program takes microseconds. Until the late 2000s, Dalton was one of only two schools in New York City with a computer science department.
—Gordon Campbell, K-12 Strategic Partnerships in Computer Science