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From: rbowman <bowman@montana.com>
Newsgroups: alt.unix.geeks,comp.os.linux.misc
Subject: Re: Mercury
Date: 4 Apr 2026 04:58:34 GMT
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On Fri, 3 Apr 2026 22:29:17 -0400, c186282 wrote:

> On 4/3/26 13:54, rbowman wrote:
>> On Fri, 3 Apr 2026 11:06:28 -0400, c186282 wrote:
>> 
>>>     For me, well, CPUs run on Magic Smoke for all intents.
>>>
>>>     I've seen some arcane ancient scrolls that supposedly explain the
>>>     magic, but I can't translate them.
>> 
>> Before writing a line of FORTRAN IV we spent some time examining the
>> anatomy of the System 360. It wasn't down to the transistor level but 
we
>> understood what core was when it was real core. Way before VLSI the 
blocks
>> and interconnections were easier to define. They were easier to see, 
also,
>> considering the early disk drives resembled washing machines.
> 
>    I just went straight to the FORTRAN ... didn't
>    care what made it work  :-)
> 
>    Damned punch cards !

In an engineering school it's assumed you want to know how things work.