IBM and me

Editor's Notes

• #2: My name’s Leila Johnston and I take photos of IBM tills when I see them in shops and cafes.\n
• #3: My name’s Leila Johnston and I take photographs of IBM tills.\n
• #4: It can get a little bit samey, so I did two Toshiba ones in Costa... just to see how it felt. It didn’t feel right at all. It didn’t mean anything. It won’t happen again.\n
• #5: I plotted them all on a map.\n
• #6: Finally, some rules to help your location spotting.\n
• #7: \n
• #8: and then I started going out and taking photos in the exact places I remembered scenes being shot\n
• #9: and then I started going out and taking photos in the exact places I remembered scenes being shot\n
• #10: and then I started going out and taking photos in the exact places I remembered scenes being shot\n
• #11: and then I started going out and taking photos in the exact places I remembered scenes being shot\n
• #12: and then I started going out and taking photos in the exact places I remembered scenes being shot\n
• #13: and then I started going out and taking photos in the exact places I remembered scenes being shot\n
• #14: and then I started going out and taking photos in the exact places I remembered scenes being shot\n
• #15: and then I started going out and taking photos in the exact places I remembered scenes being shot\n
• #16: and then I started going out and taking photos in the exact places I remembered scenes being shot\n
• #17: and then I started going out and taking photos in the exact places I remembered scenes being shot\n
• #18: You must photograph the till exactly as you find it.\n
• #19: If additional IBM hardware is visible, email me immediately!\n
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• #22: Once I’ve taken these photos, I plot them on a Google map. \nI don’t know why I do this. \nI put this talk together in an attempt to find out.\n
• #23: To start with, I wondered if it was because IBM is interesting. But I just don’t know if that’s what it is?So I started thinking about when I first became interested in IBM.\n
• #24: To start with, I wondered if it was because IBM is interesting. But I just don’t know if that’s what it is?So I started thinking about when I first became interested in IBM.\n
• #25: To start with, I wondered if it was because IBM is interesting. But I just don’t know if that’s what it is?So I started thinking about when I first became interested in IBM.\n
• #26: To start with, I wondered if it was because IBM is interesting. But I just don’t know if that’s what it is?So I started thinking about when I first became interested in IBM.\n
• #27: To start with, I wondered if it was because IBM is interesting. But I just don’t know if that’s what it is?So I started thinking about when I first became interested in IBM.\n
• #28: This is the IBMsurePOS500 from 2010. Isn’t it beautiful?\n
• #29: Just for comparison, this is the competition. A Samsung ER-5215M and a Sharp ER-A320. Looking at that, I feel sort of embarrassed for them.\n
• #30: \n
• #31: When I was a child I lived in Scotland, near a small coastal town called Greenock. \nThis is me.\nThis is the promenade where I learned to ride my bike. And this is what I had on my bedroom wall.\n
• #32: When I was a child I lived in Scotland, near a small coastal town called Greenock. \nThis is me.\nThis is the promenade where I learned to ride my bike. And this is what I had on my bedroom wall.\n
• #33: When I was a child I lived in Scotland, near a small coastal town called Greenock. \nThis is me.\nThis is the promenade where I learned to ride my bike. And this is what I had on my bedroom wall.\n
• #34: I lived near IBM Halt. The parents of all my friends at school worked at IBM. It opened in 1978 and provided a glimmer of hope in a very difficult time. Also a very significant employer for the area, employing over 4,000 people. Silicon Glen replaced heavy industries – in decline in Scotland since the 50s. This whole part of Scotland was a major centre for electronics production in the 60s & 70s. MOST of the UK’s ATMs, workstations and PCs came from the area. \n
• #35: Greenock wasn’t quite like the other IBM plants. Here we have Israel’s Haifa offices, Zurich’s research centre, IBM Armonk in New York, and... Greenock.\n
• #36: Greenock wasn’t quite like the other IBM plants. Here we have Israel’s Haifa offices, Zurich’s research centre, IBM Armonk in New York, and... Greenock.\n
• #37: Greenock wasn’t quite like the other IBM plants. Here we have Israel’s Haifa offices, Zurich’s research centre, IBM Armonk in New York, and... Greenock.\n
• #38: Greenock wasn’t quite like the other IBM plants. Here we have Israel’s Haifa offices, Zurich’s research centre, IBM Armonk in New York, and... Greenock.\n
• #39: IBM 5140 (1985) and an IBM 5150\n
• #40: It’s almost TOO INTERESTING?! This extremely portable machine ran BASIC and APL! It could be used for debugging!\n
• #41: IBM 1130 – definitely made in Greenock because I spoke to the National Museum of Computing about it. A structural engineering computer from the mid-60s.\n
• #42: ...the kind of parents who took us to so many arms fairs when we were little, that our childhood years look like an invasion of Croatia.\n
• #43: The more I looked at those photos, the more I realised. While it might seem weird for my parents to document their kids’ lives by moving the camera four inches to the left and snapping instead a totally impersonal, unchanging, BORING, object, it was in a way inspiring. It laid the foundation for my path life. It laid the TARMAC. All puns aside, in a funny way, having dozens of photos of land rovers and red arrows to every one of our tiny, fragile, innocent faces, underpinned those years with a sense of security. Boring things give us a sense od security. And like my parents, I spend my life obsessively documenting boring things at the expense of humans, too. I even managed to make IBM boring!\n
• #44: So! Add your IBM tills to my map, and instagram them with the hashtag #ibmtills – and let’s make sure this grand tradition started by my parents can continue.\n
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