>> (On the day of the New World announcement IBM
>> released four "program products". A headline in a subsequent issue of
>> _Computerworld_ read "SURPRISE! Software costs as much as a printer!".
>> The reference was to one of the four program products, Generalized
>> Information System (GIS), which had a monthly charge (running forever) of
>> ~US$1200 (in 1969 dollars!), which was about the same as the monthly
>> rental fee for a 1403-N1 1100 lpm printer.
> And a festering piece of excrement that was. The GIS Query Editor, in
> particular, was buggy with a primitive user interface to boot.
That's what I remember hearing. Thankfully, the closest I ever came to GIS was on a visit to the UKY computer center I saw the manuals sitting on Selwyn Zerof's desk.
Joe Morris