From big to little.

 
From square footage to hand held.
What you missed by being born too late.
What you did miss was huge electronic equipment to do what simple desktop PCs can now do.  My very first big job back in 1969 after leaving college was with the Schick Razor Company in Culver City, California. Just around the corner from the famed MGM studios.  But anyway my job was to find out what happen to missing merchandise in shipment.  But this is not my point.
Just a few steps from my desk was two rooms of approximately a total of 600 square feet with precise climate control.  The rooms were divided by glass walls and was visible from my office with large glass windows.  A collection of big bulky electronic equipment.  Such a sight to see. 
In the main computing room were several reel tape readers running back and forth reading the data recorded on each reel.  there were approximately four-reel decks in a vertical position on the back wall.  Then out on the main floor in large glass covers were three or four multi-layered horizontal disk readers.  Then there was one or two CRT monitors and keyboards to enter and control data input.  And finally a large metal cabinet which was brand labeled IBM-360.
Then in a separate room with less climate control were four keypunch consols and keypunch operators with a couple of marginally skilled people entering data which came out on an IBM card filled with numerous small rectangle punches.  Printed on the keypunch cards was “Do Not fold, spindle, or mutilate.  Then the punch cards would be run through a card sorter and reader and then data was printed on vast reams of data print out sheets by a very large printer.  All tolled the combined machinery was probably worth a million bucks or so.  I think though our company did lease IBM’s computing hardware.  Plus then there were two full time computer operators, two keypunch typists, and a high dollar manager/programmer.  All of which could easily be done on today’s Dell or Toshiba desktop PC with a HP inkjet printer.  However the same perhaps could be done also with your iPhone and a Bluetooth keyboard and printer. 
So what did they do with all that bulky mainframe hardware?  Did they send it off to one of those compactors like they used to crush old cars to be sent off to be melted down.  Or do they send it off to a ‘third-world’ country to modernize their computing?  Maybe they will use some of it as a boat anchor.  Who knows?  But anyway, you missed lots of fun not working with very slow and bulky computing hardware.