Just amazing. What an experience it must have been to grow in your profession at the same time computers did. How much wisdom you must have collected from all that different technology that us Commodore 64 group never learned. This stuff makes great reading.
Stede --- Ron Jeffries <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > Punch cards? Luxury! The fourth computer I worked on > was the Burroughs > E-101. You had to program that by sticking metal > pins into a board made of > some kind of Bakelite plastic, and jam the board > into one of a few > positions on the computer. The boards were > expensive, so to run a new > program you usually had to literally disassemble an > old one. > > The first machines were punch-card machines. The guy > I worked for was quite > advanced: we kept all our software on magnetic tape > and submitted our jobs > on small decks of cards with command cards and a few > edit cards. I recall > one time I was submitting a job down in the Top > Secret underground at > Strategic Air Command. Also coming in to run his > program was a Major > pushing a cart with tray upon tray of cards for his > job. I was carrying a > little deck in my hand. > > "What's that tiny job you're running," he asked. > "I've got the > BIGDEALCLASSIFIED Jovial program here." > > "Well, I'm going to remake the IBSYS operating > system with some IBM patches > they sent us, and then fix a bug I found in the > FORTRAN compiler, and then > run my test program that calculates great circle > distances on the earth," I > answered, pointing to colored sections in my deck. > > "Oh." > > > The most amazing part of all of this was that we had > to walk to work > through six feet of snow, uphill, both ways, from > the paper bag in the > middle of the road where we had to live. And this > was in June! > > Well, OK, I lied about that last part. Actually I > drove a Jaguar to work, > on days when it ran. My long life of spending too > much money on interesting > cars started early. As did my interest in the > cutting edge of software > development. Through a circuitous, not to say > tortured route, I wound up > here. > > Ron Jeffries > www.XProgramming.com > Comments lie. Code doesn't. > > On Tuesday, November 9, 2004, at 2:23:33 PM, Stede > Troisi wrote: > > > By the way, I was looking through one of your > threads > > where someone said you were not a good/experienced > > programmer and you listed all the systems and > > languages you worked on! I almost hit the floor. > > Impressive! Where any of the machines you worked > on > > using punch cards? I just couldn't have been a > > programmer during the old days. > > End quotation from Stede Troisi, on Tuesday, > November 9, 2004, at 2:23:33 PM > > > > > To Post a message, send it to: > [EMAIL PROTECTED] > > To Unsubscribe, send a blank message to: > [EMAIL PROTECTED] > > ad-free courtesy of objectmentor.com > Yahoo! Groups Links > > http://groups.yahoo.com/group/extremeprogramming/ > > [EMAIL PROTECTED] > > > > > > __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Check out the new Yahoo! Front Page. www.yahoo.com To Post a message, send it to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To Unsubscribe, send a blank message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ad-free courtesy of objectmentor.com Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/extremeprogramming/ <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
