in those days

You would have often heard the frequent chant of older people about the great life "in those days".
A comment in another blog reminded me of life "in those days"..
Sometime in the 1970s, one of the IIX was getting a new computer--ICL 2960.
But it took almost a year to get the room ready-- a huge room airconditioned with ducts made for the wiring. It took a few more months to get the UPS running. Meanwhile, we had to run around to neighbouring institutions for our computer work.
Then we had a spanking new comp centre.
I then went to another IIX. Here too they were getting a new computer- an IBM...same process...
In both places, my experience was similar even with the new systems. Spending hours punching cards.. 300-800 a deck; submitting them to the receptionist, then receiving the output next day with some error message. Then search for the errant card, repunch resubmit...........On some days, the card reader would be out of order, sometimes the UPS would not work and sometimes, the operator would drop the deck...that was a nightmare rearranging the cards.
The punching machines made an infernal noise and in a closed room ten machines punching at the same time, it was really stressful.
All this for memory that was less than what toys have now.