> From: Horace Heffner ...
> Yep, by golly. For a few years in the 70's I travelled > cost to cost installing systems software in big computer > systems. Some systems consumed more than the area of a > football field in raised floor. In those olden > days I recall having to work out the total system power > and air conditioning Btu requirements before ordering any > device, including a disk controller, which was a device > about twice the size of a refrigerator. Now > disk controllers are a mere chip. Some day disk drives > will go the way of punched cards. > > Regards, > > Horace Heffner > Speaking of legendary computer (and punched card) stories the one I'll never forget occurred when an older programmer showed me a trick of the trade. Back around 1979 I was compiling another object code deck (IBM cards) from an assembler language program on an IBM 360-20 with 32K of memory, 30 megabyte hard drive. I miss-keyed one of the address locations, creating a "syntax error". I was bummed because I knew it would take another 30 minutes for the computer to punch out another deck of object code, just to correct the one miss-keyed address location. FEAR NOT said the older programmer. Since we knew what the actual hexadecimal address was (by looking at the cross reference listing) he took me over to the keypunch machine and punched out a new object card containing the correct hexadecimal address. He then took me over to the object deck and unceremoniously replaced the erroneous card. Time spent fixing my "syntax error": 5 minutes. He could have performed the trick even more quickly but he was teaching me. The older programmer has since made his transition to the next dimension, but I'll never forget the delight he gave me in this simple lesson: Human speed can on occasion be faster than what a computer can do. Regards Steven Vincent Johnson www.OrionWorks.com
