On Wed, 2017-08-23 at 10:30 -0700, Dave wrote: > In 1969-70 I was at the U of Ills where I met a DEC PDP-8. Would > change > my career path. > > Ran my Doctoral Dissertation data analyses on an IBM 360/40 in 1970 > at > Cal Poly SLO. Fun days.
When I moved to Alaska I had been going to a private school. My reading skills were very good, but my math skills we not. My mother hired a math tutor for me from the University of Alaska. She figured the best method to get me interested in math was by teaching me Fortran. I was in 4th grade at the time. Spent a lot of time in the computer lab from then on. > > > On 8/23/2017 6:01 AM, Rich Shepard wrote: > > On Tue, 22 Aug 2017, Alan wrote: > > > > > Sometimes a rewrite is a useful and needed thing. > > > > Thanks, Alan, for allowing us to share our obscure bug > > experiences on this > > thread. :-) > > > > In grad school in 1972 I wrote an ecosystem ecological energy > > flow model > > in FORTRAN IV to run on the U. of Illinois' IBM S/360. It used more > > than a > > whole box of 80-column Hollerith cards for input. When it ran it > > produed > > incorrect results, but only the same 2 or 3 wrong answers each > > time. So I > > printed the source code listing on the wide green-bar paper that > > all the > > line printers used. The output was about 1 inch thick. > > > > I carefully examined each line of code multiple times without > > seeing the > > error. Finally, I took the printed listing to the computer center's > > help > > desk. They examined it without finding the problem. > > > > One day, strictly by chance while looking at a new printed copy > > (likely > > done on a printer with a newer ribbon) I saw the error jump up and > > bite me > > on the nose. > > > > Instead of a loop index written as FOR I = 1 TO N I had > > mistyped it as FOR > > 1 = 1 TO N. Distinguishing 1 from the uppercase I was difficult > > and, because > > all of us expected to see I and not 1 in that position we all > > overlooked it. > > > > Haven't forgotten this after all these years. > > > > Rich > > _______________________________________________ > > PLUG mailing list > > [email protected] > > http://lists.pdxlinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug > > _______________________________________________ > PLUG mailing list > [email protected] > http://lists.pdxlinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug _______________________________________________ PLUG mailing list [email protected] http://lists.pdxlinux.org/mailman/listinfo/plug
