Subject: Re: [extropy-chat] History of the portable computer

From: "scerir" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 25 Mar 2005 19:57:14 +0100

> You young kids have it too easy nowadays.  

By chance, does anyone remember those FORTRAN punched cards?
http://www.cs.uiowa.edu/~jones/cards/collection/i-program.html
Or am I alone here? 
s.

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From: Damien Broderick <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 25 Mar 2005 13:32:54 -0600

>http://www.cs.uiowa.edu/~jones/cards/collection/i-program.html

Hey, *remember* them? I have a box full of the things, punched by my own 
fair hand, at home in storage somewhere, program and data alike. By golly, 
those were the days.

Damien Broderick

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From: BillK <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 25 Mar 2005 19:37:13 +0000

> http://www.cs.uiowa.edu/~jones/cards/collection/i-program.html

You had punched cards! You were lucky!

We had to key programs in on a row of binary switches, one instruction
at a time.

And we were happy!  :)

BillK

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From: Samantha Atkins <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 25 Mar 2005 13:39:24 -0800

1971.  First "honorary" computer class was for local HS math brainiacs. 
  What did they teach us? COBOL on punched cards!   I ran away from 
computers and didn't come back till i caught techno-hippie religion 
around 77-78 and the first chips for rolling you own were out.  First 
real honey paying job was ancient Fortran in 1980 but thankfully not on 
punched cards. I've had many bouts of cynicism over the years but never 
de-converted.

- samantha

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From: MB <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 25 Mar 2005 18:20:44 -0500 (Eastern Standard Time)

:) Data retrieval work (of all things) in Fortran on the Univac
1108.... which sorta dates *me*, doesn't it. :)))

Regards,
MB

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From: Dan Clemmensen <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 25 Mar 2005 21:04:07 -0500

>>http://www.cs.uiowa.edu/~jones/cards/collection/i-program.html
My first program was in FORTRAN. Not FORTRAN IV, Not FORTRAN II, but the
original FORTRAN, for the IBM 1620, in 1969.

I did FORTRAN IV, COBOL,and assembler in college, all on punched cards. 
I did
three years as an assembly programmer in the US Army, All on punched 
cards. I did
two years of assembly programming for Sperry UNIVAC (9400 series) 
Punched cards again.
I did a year as a system programmer on a CDC 3800, mostly assembler. 
Punched cards again.
When we finally moved to a Burroughs 6700, I implemented a timesharing 
system and
most of my work was on a "glass teletype" style terminal, systems 
programming in ALGOL.
But the Burroughs had a truly magnificent 1000 CPM card reader.

Just to calibrate, here: a medium-sized program on punched cards (6000 
lines) filled two card boxes
and weighed more than one of today's laptops. The actual computer (take 
the Burroughs 6700 as an
example) had a two microsecond memory access and a one microsecond cycle 
time: slower by
a factor of 1000 than a cheap laptop. We supported about 20 timesharing 
terminals, which in turn
supported an active community of about 70 programmers.
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From: MB <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 25 Mar 2005 21:58:35 -0500 (Eastern Standard Time)

Well greetings to you too, oldtimer! :)))

I studied Cobol, but never (thank god) had to use it. :) This was in
the mid-late 60s. I also studied assembler in school, and was
introduced to machine language which I no longer remember. And wiring
control panels for ... a sorter and a printer, I think...

How about debugging with those octal dumps from the 1108? 8D

We got our first terminal on the hall about the time I left that job.
I never knew what it was for as we were not permitted to touch it!

And I did not mess with another computer until we got an Apple for our
kids.

Regards,
MB

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From: "scerir" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 26 Mar 2005 17:45:09 +0100

> Data retrieval work (of all things) in Fortran
> on the Univac 1108.... which sorta dates *me*,
> doesn't it. :)))
> MB

And me too! That, for unknown (or well known) reasons,
reminds me of a Portuguese word, "saudade". Nostalgia?
Not exactly. After many years spent in Portugal (Lisbon),
a very old man, Raul Lino, at that time (1970) a famous
architect, told me the true meaning of the word.
"Saudade" means nostalgia of a future, not of a past.
Regards,
s.

"Vive-nos a vida, não nós a vida"
- Fernando Pessoa