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the days of punch cards and coding in pencil

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  the days of punch cards and coding in pencil RS Wood <rsw@therandymon.com> - 2014-04-28 14:31 +0000
    Re: the days of punch cards and coding in pencil Tim Streater <timstreater@greenbee.net> - 2014-04-28 17:15 +0100
      Re: the days of punch cards and coding in pencil Will Honea <whonea@whonea.net> - 2014-04-28 11:02 -0600
        Re: the days of punch cards and coding in pencil Tim Streater <timstreater@greenbee.net> - 2014-04-28 18:30 +0100
          Re: the days of punch cards and coding in pencil Scion <a.b@nospam.invalid> - 2014-04-29 10:08 +0000
        Re: the days of punch cards and coding in pencil Huge <Huge@nowhere.much.invalid> - 2014-04-28 20:55 +0000
      Re: the days of punch cards and coding in pencil polygonum <rmoudndgers@vrod.co.uk> - 2014-04-28 20:19 +0100
        Re: the days of punch cards and coding in pencil Tim Streater <timstreater@greenbee.net> - 2014-04-28 20:45 +0100
          Re: the days of punch cards and coding in pencil Paul Sture <nospam@sture.ch> - 2014-05-01 17:49 +0200
            Re: the days of punch cards and coding in pencil polygonum <rmoudndgers@vrod.co.uk> - 2014-05-01 20:25 +0100
              Re: the days of punch cards and coding in pencil Huge <Huge@nowhere.much.invalid> - 2014-05-01 21:01 +0000
              Re: the days of punch cards and coding in pencil Paul Sture <nospam@sture.ch> - 2014-05-01 23:16 +0200
      Re: the days of punch cards and coding in pencil Jerry Peters <jerry@example.invalid> - 2014-04-28 20:10 +0000
        Re: the days of punch cards and coding in pencil Huge <Huge@nowhere.much.invalid> - 2014-04-28 20:58 +0000
      Re: the days of punch cards and coding in pencil despen@verizon.net (Dan.Espen) - 2014-04-28 16:59 -0400
      Re: the days of punch cards and coding in pencil Andy Burns <usenet.feb2014@adslpipe.co.uk> - 2014-04-30 09:51 +0100
        Re: the days of punch cards and coding in pencil Adrian <bulleid@ku.gro.lioff> - 2014-04-30 19:02 +0100
      Re: the days of punch cards and coding in pencil Ben Bacarisse <ben.usenet@bsb.me.uk> - 2014-04-30 22:05 +0100
        Re: the days of punch cards and coding in pencil Tim Streater <timstreater@greenbee.net> - 2014-05-01 08:15 +0100
          Re: the days of punch cards and coding in pencil Ben Bacarisse <ben.usenet@bsb.me.uk> - 2014-05-01 15:59 +0100
      Re: the days of punch cards and coding in pencil Paul Sture <nospam@sture.ch> - 2014-05-01 17:45 +0200
        Re: the days of punch cards and coding in pencil Tim Streater <timstreater@greenbee.net> - 2014-05-01 19:06 +0100
          Re: the days of punch cards and coding in pencil Will Honea <whonea@whonea.net> - 2014-05-01 13:27 -0600
            Re: the days of punch cards and coding in pencil Tim Streater <timstreater@greenbee.net> - 2014-05-01 20:37 +0100
              Re: the days of punch cards and coding in pencil Jerry Peters <jerry@example.invalid> - 2014-05-01 20:08 +0000
              Re: the days of punch cards and coding in pencil Ben Bacarisse <ben.usenet@bsb.me.uk> - 2014-05-01 22:15 +0100
            Re: the days of punch cards and coding in pencil Dag-Erling Smørgrav <des@des.no> - 2014-05-02 12:58 +0200
              Re: the days of punch cards and coding in pencil Will Honea <whonea@whonea.net> - 2014-05-02 12:36 -0600
          Re: the days of punch cards and coding in pencil Paul Sture <nospam@sture.ch> - 2014-05-01 22:59 +0200
    Re: the days of punch cards and coding in pencil Sylvia Else <sylvia@not.at.this.address> - 2014-04-29 12:54 +1000
      Re: the days of punch cards and coding in pencil despen@verizon.net (Dan.Espen) - 2014-04-29 10:19 -0400
        Re: the days of punch cards and coding in pencil Paul Sture <nospam@sture.ch> - 2014-05-01 18:01 +0200
          Re: the days of punch cards and coding in pencil Paul Sture <nospam@sture.ch> - 2014-05-01 18:56 +0200
      Re: the days of punch cards and coding in pencil Chris J Dixon <chris@cdixon.me.uk> - 2014-05-02 08:59 +0100
        Re: the days of punch cards and coding in pencil Tim Streater <timstreater@greenbee.net> - 2014-05-02 10:57 +0100

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#2495 — the days of punch cards and coding in pencil

Interesting reminiscence, courtesy of Simon Allardice and Hacker News:
http://simonallardice.com/general/2014/03/17/first-computer.html

//---snip
And when you were finished handwriting a section of code - perhaps a
full program, perhaps a subroutine - you'd gather these sheets together
(carefully numbered in sequence, of course) and send them along to the
folks in the data entry department.

They'd type it in.

And the next day you'd get a report to find out if it compiled or not.

Let me say that again: the next day you could find out if your code
compiled or not.

If you'd made even a simple typo - say, a missing period, or something
that looked more like a colon than a semicolon - it'd take at least
another 24 hours to get a fix in and turn it around.

This method, as you might imagine, requires a somewhat higher level of
attentiveness to writing code than the way most of us work now.

I wouldn't want to work like this again, but I'm glad I have worked
like this. //---snip
-- 
RS Wood <rsw@therandymon.com>

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#2499

In article <20140428143101.ef28cbd2.rsw@therandymon.com>, RS Wood
<rsw@therandymon.com> wrote:

> Interesting reminiscence, courtesy of Simon Allardice and Hacker News:
> http://simonallardice.com/general/2014/03/17/first-computer.html
> 
> //---snip
> And when you were finished handwriting a section of code - perhaps a
> full program, perhaps a subroutine - you'd gather these sheets together
> (carefully numbered in sequence, of course) and send them along to the
> folks in the data entry department.
> 
> They'd type it in.
> 
> And the next day you'd get a report to find out if it compiled or not.

Largely cock. You might write your code on sheets, but then you'd go
find a card punch and create your deck of cards, make it into a job
with some data, and test it. By the time I was a professional
programmer (1968), I'd be getting the results an hour or so later.

No one has ever "typed my program in", except me. And by the early 70s,
on-line systems meant that punched cards started to go out.

"Data entry department" my arse.

-- 
"People don't buy Microsoft for quality, they buy it for compatibility
with what Bob in accounting bought last year. Trace it back - they buy
Microsoft because the IBM Selectric didn't suck much" - P Seebach, afc

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#2502

Tim Streater wrote:

> Largely cock. You might write your code on sheets, but then you'd go
> find a card punch and create your deck of cards, make it into a job
> with some data, and test it. By the time I was a professional
> programmer (1968), I'd be getting the results an hour or so later.
> 
> No one has ever "typed my program in", except me. And by the early 70s,
> on-line systems meant that punched cards started to go out.
> 
> "Data entry department" my arse.
> 

Depended on the location in my experience.  When the Air Force sent me back 
to grad school circa 1970 the university they chose had a central computer 
lab which did indeed transcribe my scribbles to card.  Getting a card punch 
in the EE lab was a God-send - not only could I type my own programs, I 
could serialize the card deck! (Ever drop a program deck?? Not a trivial 
issue when your program plus data ran to several boxes of cards)

It still took a day to get results from the central lab as everything was 
run in batch mode.  The lab jealously controlled the batch schedule - 
regardless of who created the card deck.  They also used that schedule as 
currency in various barter exchanges...

-- 
Will Honea

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#2503

In article <pQv7v.175662$Y02.86272@fx31.iad>, Will Honea
<whonea@whonea.net> wrote:

> Tim Streater wrote:
> 
> > Largely cock. You might write your code on sheets, but then you'd go
> > find a card punch and create your deck of cards, make it into a job
> > with some data, and test it. By the time I was a professional
> > programmer (1968), I'd be getting the results an hour or so later.
> > 
> > No one has ever "typed my program in", except me. And by the early 70s,
> > on-line systems meant that punched cards started to go out.

> Depended on the location in my experience.  When the Air Force sent me back 
> to grad school circa 1970 the university they chose had a central computer 
> lab which did indeed transcribe my scribbles to card.  Getting a card punch 
> in the EE lab was a God-send - not only could I type my own programs, I 
> could serialize the card deck! (Ever drop a program deck?? Not a trivial 
> issue when your program plus data ran to several boxes of cards)

Largest I saw in this regard was that run by a German Herr Doktor
(complete with white lab coat) who had 12 large cards trays (2000 cards
each), that he used to wheel around on some kind of trolley. It took
him 20 mins just to read the job in using our OEM CDC card reader (1200
cards/min).

By then (mid 70s) the rest of us had moved to having source on disk and
doing online editing, and remote job submission, so the need for cards
became rare. But we could never persuade him to give up his 24,000
cards.

> It still took a day to get results from the central lab as everything was 
> run in batch mode.  The lab jealously controlled the batch schedule - 
> regardless of who created the card deck.  They also used that schedule as 
> currency in various barter exchanges...

I did my post-grad work using the University of London's Dartmouth
Basic system, dialling up in early 1968 and using a Teletype (not
recommended). I didn't finish by the time I left to go to CERN, so
moved the lot onto CERN's Focus RJE system [1] which used Tektronix
terminals (can't remember the model, now) as well as teletypes.

[1] From which I managed to crash all of CERN's central computers (CDC
6600 and CDC 6500) by typing two chars on the TTY. But I digress.

-- 
"Freedom is sloppy. But since tyranny's the only guaranteed byproduct of
those who insist on a perfect world, freedom will have to do." -- Bigby Wolf

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#2517

Tim Streater put finger to keyboard:

> In article <pQv7v.175662$Y02.86272@fx31.iad>, Will Honea
> <whonea@whonea.net> wrote:
> 
>> Tim Streater wrote:
>> 
>> > Largely cock. You might write your code on sheets, but then you'd go
>> > find a card punch and create your deck of cards, make it into a job
>> > with some data, and test it. By the time I was a professional
>> > programmer (1968), I'd be getting the results an hour or so later.
>> > 
>> > No one has ever "typed my program in", except me. And by the early
>> > 70s,
>> > on-line systems meant that punched cards started to go out.
> 
>> Depended on the location in my experience.  When the Air Force sent me
>> back to grad school circa 1970 the university they chose had a central
>> computer lab which did indeed transcribe my scribbles to card.  Getting
>> a card punch in the EE lab was a God-send - not only could I type my
>> own programs, I could serialize the card deck! (Ever drop a program
>> deck?? Not a trivial issue when your program plus data ran to several
>> boxes of cards)
> 
> Largest I saw in this regard was that run by a German Herr Doktor
> (complete with white lab coat) who had 12 large cards trays (2000 cards
> each), that he used to wheel around on some kind of trolley. It took him
> 20 mins just to read the job in using our OEM CDC card reader (1200
> cards/min).
> 
> By then (mid 70s) the rest of us had moved to having source on disk and
> doing online editing, and remote job submission, so the need for cards
> became rare. But we could never persuade him to give up his 24,000
> cards.
> 
>> It still took a day to get results from the central lab as everything
>> was run in batch mode.  The lab jealously controlled the batch schedule
>> - regardless of who created the card deck.  They also used that
>> schedule as currency in various barter exchanges...
> 
> I did my post-grad work using the University of London's Dartmouth Basic
> system, dialling up in early 1968 and using a Teletype (not
> recommended). I didn't finish by the time I left to go to CERN, so moved
> the lot onto CERN's Focus RJE system [1] which used Tektronix terminals
> (can't remember the model, now) as well as teletypes.
> 
> [1] From which I managed to crash all of CERN's central computers (CDC
> 6600 and CDC 6500) by typing two chars on the TTY. But I digress.

Heh, at least when Windows came out you needed three chars to down it!

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#2507

> Tim Streater wrote:
>
>> Largely cock. 

How very, very true.


-- 
Today is Pungenday, the 45th day of Discord in the YOLD 3180
“Stupidity cannot be cured. Stupidity is the only universal capital crime;
 the sentence is death. There is no appeal, and execution is carried out
                 automatically and without pity.”

[toc] | [prev] | [next] | [standalone]

#2504

On 28/04/2014 17:15, Tim Streater wrote:
> Largely cock. You might write your code on sheets, but then you'd go
> find a card punch and create your deck of cards, make it into a job
> with some data, and test it. By the time I was a professional
> programmer (1968), I'd be getting the results an hour or so later.

Largely not cock. Aligns closely with my experience - coding sheets, 
sent to data entry clerks, and we got the printed program listing.

We did have manual card punches but they tended to be used for edits 
rather than the initial program entry. And we used silver foils for 
correcting individual cards.

I very quickly moved to the team who were using glass teletypes... :-)

-- 
Rod

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#2505

In article <bs7ntiF324aU1@mid.individual.net>, polygonum
<rmoudndgers@vrod.co.uk> wrote:

> On 28/04/2014 17:15, Tim Streater wrote:
> > Largely cock. You might write your code on sheets, but then you'd go
> > find a card punch and create your deck of cards, make it into a job
> > with some data, and test it. By the time I was a professional
> > programmer (1968), I'd be getting the results an hour or so later.
> 
> Largely not cock. Aligns closely with my experience - coding sheets, 
> sent to data entry clerks, and we got the printed program listing.
> 
> We did have manual card punches but they tended to be used for edits 
> rather than the initial program entry. And we used silver foils for 
> correcting individual cards.

I'm talking about IBM 026 and 029 card punches. No one bothered
correcting a card, you re-punched it.

-- 
Tim

"That excessive bail ought not to be required, nor excessive fines imposed,
nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted"  --  Bill of Rights 1689

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#2569

On 2014-04-28, Tim Streater <timstreater@greenbee.net> wrote:
> In article <bs7ntiF324aU1@mid.individual.net>, polygonum
><rmoudndgers@vrod.co.uk> wrote:
>
>> On 28/04/2014 17:15, Tim Streater wrote:
>> > Largely cock. You might write your code on sheets, but then you'd go
>> > find a card punch and create your deck of cards, make it into a job
>> > with some data, and test it. By the time I was a professional
>> > programmer (1968), I'd be getting the results an hour or so later.
>> 
>> Largely not cock. Aligns closely with my experience - coding sheets, 
>> sent to data entry clerks, and we got the printed program listing.
>> 
>> We did have manual card punches but they tended to be used for edits 
>> rather than the initial program entry. And we used silver foils for 
>> correcting individual cards.
>
> I'm talking about IBM 026 and 029 card punches. No one bothered
> correcting a card, you re-punched it.

Our data prep room was upstairs with the clankety-clank Burroughs machine
that the ICL was to replace.  A trip upstairs to get a card corrected
took longer than using a manual punch.  We had plastic stickers just large
enough to cover one hole for corrections.

-- 
Paul Sture

The final step of #heartbleed recovery is to call your mother, and advise
her to change her maiden name                                  -- @gojomo

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#2577

On 01/05/2014 16:49, Paul Sture wrote:
> On 2014-04-28, Tim Streater <timstreater@greenbee.net> wrote:
>> In article <bs7ntiF324aU1@mid.individual.net>, polygonum
>> <rmoudndgers@vrod.co.uk> wrote:
>>
>>> On 28/04/2014 17:15, Tim Streater wrote:
>>>> Largely cock. You might write your code on sheets, but then you'd go
>>>> find a card punch and create your deck of cards, make it into a job
>>>> with some data, and test it. By the time I was a professional
>>>> programmer (1968), I'd be getting the results an hour or so later.
>>>
>>> Largely not cock. Aligns closely with my experience - coding sheets,
>>> sent to data entry clerks, and we got the printed program listing.
>>>
>>> We did have manual card punches but they tended to be used for edits
>>> rather than the initial program entry. And we used silver foils for
>>> correcting individual cards.
>>
>> I'm talking about IBM 026 and 029 card punches. No one bothered
>> correcting a card, you re-punched it.
>
> Our data prep room was upstairs with the clankety-clank Burroughs machine
> that the ICL was to replace.  A trip upstairs to get a card corrected
> took longer than using a manual punch.  We had plastic stickers just large
> enough to cover one hole for corrections.
>
Agreed.

If you were careful, it was often possible to use a chad picked up from 
around a punch to fill a wrongly-punched hole. Not very reliable, 
definitely not recommended for cards that were going to be used 
repeatedly. Some engineers were very unhappy in case they damaged the 
reader. Mind, I saw some that had run through the reader numerous times.

-- 
Rod

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#2581

On 2014-05-01, polygonum <rmoudndgers@vrod.co.uk> wrote:

> If you were careful, it was often possible to use a chad picked up from 
> around a punch to fill a wrongly-punched hole. 

Stuck in with spit.


-- 
Today is Sweetmorn, the 48th day of Discord in the YOLD 3180
“Stupidity cannot be cured. Stupidity is the only universal capital crime;
 the sentence is death. There is no appeal, and execution is carried out
                 automatically and without pity.”

[toc] | [prev] | [next] | [standalone]

#2585

On 2014-05-01, polygonum <rmoudndgers@vrod.co.uk> wrote:
> On 01/05/2014 16:49, Paul Sture wrote:
>>
>> Our data prep room was upstairs with the clankety-clank Burroughs machine
>> that the ICL was to replace.  A trip upstairs to get a card corrected
>> took longer than using a manual punch.  We had plastic stickers just large
>> enough to cover one hole for corrections.
>>
> Agreed.
>
> If you were careful, it was often possible to use a chad picked up from 
> around a punch to fill a wrongly-punched hole. Not very reliable, 
> definitely not recommended for cards that were going to be used 
> repeatedly. Some engineers were very unhappy in case they damaged the 
> reader. Mind, I saw some that had run through the reader numerous times.

Yes I did that when we ran out of stickers.  It had to be done with care
though; a bodged attempt with a chad which wasn't a perfect fit would mean
you ended up repunching the whole card.

A side product of my apprenticeship there was that I got very good at hitting
the litter bins with screwed up cards from any angle you cared to mention :-) 

-- 
Paul Sture

The final step of #heartbleed recovery is to call your mother, and advise
her to change her maiden name                                  -- @gojomo

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#2506

Tim Streater <timstreater@greenbee.net> wrote:
> In article <20140428143101.ef28cbd2.rsw@therandymon.com>, RS Wood
> <rsw@therandymon.com> wrote:
> 
>> Interesting reminiscence, courtesy of Simon Allardice and Hacker News:
>> http://simonallardice.com/general/2014/03/17/first-computer.html
>> 
>> //---snip
>> And when you were finished handwriting a section of code - perhaps a
>> full program, perhaps a subroutine - you'd gather these sheets together
>> (carefully numbered in sequence, of course) and send them along to the
>> folks in the data entry department.
>> 
>> They'd type it in.
>> 
>> And the next day you'd get a report to find out if it compiled or not.
> 
> Largely cock. You might write your code on sheets, but then you'd go
> find a card punch and create your deck of cards, make it into a job
> with some data, and test it. By the time I was a professional
> programmer (1968), I'd be getting the results an hour or so later.
> 
> No one has ever "typed my program in", except me. And by the early 70s,
> on-line systems meant that punched cards started to go out.
> 
> "Data entry department" my arse.
> 
Started working part-time for a large bank in 1969 while attending
college. The department had its own keypunch & operator, she did
smallish jobs and sent larger jobs to data entry. So yes this was
common into the mid 70's when we got 3270's and TSO/SPF.

We also had an RJE terminal so turnaround could be as little as 10
minutes  or so if the computers were not busy.

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#2508

On 2014-04-28, Jerry Peters <jerry@example.invalid> wrote:
> Tim Streater <timstreater@greenbee.net> wrote:
>> In article <20140428143101.ef28cbd2.rsw@therandymon.com>, RS Wood
>> <rsw@therandymon.com> wrote:
>> 
>>> Interesting reminiscence, courtesy of Simon Allardice and Hacker News:
>>> http://simonallardice.com/general/2014/03/17/first-computer.html
>>> 
>>> //---snip
>>> And when you were finished handwriting a section of code - perhaps a
>>> full program, perhaps a subroutine - you'd gather these sheets together
>>> (carefully numbered in sequence, of course) and send them along to the
>>> folks in the data entry department.
>>> 
>>> They'd type it in.
>>> 
>>> And the next day you'd get a report to find out if it compiled or not.
>> 

[6 lines snipped]

>> 
>> "Data entry department" my arse.
>> 
> Started working part-time for a large bank in 1969 while attending
> college. The department had its own keypunch & operator, she did
> smallish jobs and sent larger jobs to data entry. So yes this was
> common into the mid 70's when we got 3270's and TSO/SPF.

I started in 1975, when we wrote our code on coding sheets which went down
to the keypunch department and got punched onto 8 track paper tape. We used
to do corrections ourselves if the KSR33 was free.


-- 
Today is Pungenday, the 45th day of Discord in the YOLD 3180
“Stupidity cannot be cured. Stupidity is the only universal capital crime;
 the sentence is death. There is no appeal, and execution is carried out
                 automatically and without pity.”

[toc] | [prev] | [next] | [standalone]

#2509

Tim Streater <timstreater@greenbee.net> writes:

> In article <20140428143101.ef28cbd2.rsw@therandymon.com>, RS Wood
> <rsw@therandymon.com> wrote:
>
>> Interesting reminiscence, courtesy of Simon Allardice and Hacker News:
>> http://simonallardice.com/general/2014/03/17/first-computer.html
>>
>> //---snip
>> And when you were finished handwriting a section of code - perhaps a
>> full program, perhaps a subroutine - you'd gather these sheets together
>> (carefully numbered in sequence, of course) and send them along to the
>> folks in the data entry department.
>>
>> They'd type it in.
>>
>> And the next day you'd get a report to find out if it compiled or not.
>
> Largely cock. You might write your code on sheets, but then you'd go
> find a card punch and create your deck of cards, make it into a job
> with some data, and test it. By the time I was a professional
> programmer (1968), I'd be getting the results an hour or so later.
>
> No one has ever "typed my program in", except me. And by the early 70s,
> on-line systems meant that punched cards started to go out.
>
> "Data entry department" my arse.

Tim,

That's merely your experience.

My experience starts from 1964 and I worked in a number of different
shops.

In general, our management had a dim view of the highly paid
programmer/analysts "wasting" their time at the keypunch machine.

The stuff above about daily turn around, is accurate up to a point.
Most shops I was in, you might get a few
day time test shots, but it was hit or miss.

Computer operators could break into programming by showing an
ability to correct simple typos in those overnight compiles.

Many nights and weekends I spent at the computer console getting
decent turnaround.  A few times I got sent to a backup site
that wasn't as busy.  We did what we had to.

-- 
Dan Espen

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#2532

Tim Streater wrote:

> You might write your code on sheets, but then you'd go
> find a card punch and create your deck of cards, make it into a job
> with some data, and test it. By the time I was a professional
> programmer (1968), I'd be getting the results an hour or so later.
>
> No one has ever "typed my program in", except me. And by the early 70s,
> on-line systems meant that punched cards started to go out.
>
> "Data entry department" my arse.

Oh? At poly in the mid eighties we had a data prep dept, we could submit 
programs or data on coding sheets and they would either return them on 
punched cards, or "drop" the resulting file into our account on the 
Burroughs mainframe - in fact we *had* to use this method for at least 
one assignment.

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#2546

In message <vYidnRInYPQ6JP3OnZ2dnUVZ8oednZ2d@brightview.co.uk>, Andy 
Burns <usenet.feb2014@adslpipe.co.uk> writes
>Tim Streater wrote:
>
>> You might write your code on sheets, but then you'd go
>> find a card punch and create your deck of cards, make it into a job
>> with some data, and test it. By the time I was a professional
>> programmer (1968), I'd be getting the results an hour or so later.
>>
>> No one has ever "typed my program in", except me. And by the early 70s,
>> on-line systems meant that punched cards started to go out.
>>
>> "Data entry department" my arse.
>
>Oh? At poly in the mid eighties we had a data prep dept, we could 
>submit programs or data on coding sheets and they would either return 
>them on punched cards, or "drop" the resulting file into our account on 
>the Burroughs mainframe - in fact we *had* to use this method for at 
>least one assignment.
>

Interesting.  At Poly in the early 80s we also had a data prep dept, and 
would leave them coding sheets (for an ICL 1903 IIRC).  After a term of 
messing about with this, we discovered that they also had another 
computer (IIRC a Harris running Unix), and that had terminals.  No more 
coding sheets.


Adrian
-- 
To Reply :
replace "bulleid" with "adrian" - all mail to bulleid is rejected
Sorry for the rigmarole, If I want spam, I'll go to the shops
Every time someone says "I don't believe in trolls", another one dies.

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#2550

Tim Streater <timstreater@greenbee.net> writes:

> In article <20140428143101.ef28cbd2.rsw@therandymon.com>, RS Wood
> <rsw@therandymon.com> wrote:
>
>> Interesting reminiscence, courtesy of Simon Allardice and Hacker News:
>> http://simonallardice.com/general/2014/03/17/first-computer.html
>>
>> //---snip
>> And when you were finished handwriting a section of code - perhaps a
>> full program, perhaps a subroutine - you'd gather these sheets together
>> (carefully numbered in sequence, of course) and send them along to the
>> folks in the data entry department.
>>
>> They'd type it in.
>>
>> And the next day you'd get a report to find out if it compiled or not.
>
> Largely cock. You might write your code on sheets, but then you'd go
> find a card punch and create your deck of cards, make it into a job
> with some data, and test it. By the time I was a professional
> programmer (1968), I'd be getting the results an hour or so later.

I must add another "no, not cock" to the growing pile.

My first programs were on coding sheets, posted to the computer centre,
where some poor sod had to key them in.  The results came back by
return post (if you were lucky) -- at least 48 hours later.  Some sort
of Univac, I seem to recall.

This was in the mid 1970s (seriously) but it was, I admit, old-fashioned
even then.  I got a job just weeks later as an operator feeding card
decks into an IBM 360.  The users punched their own cards, and I never
saw a coding sheet again.

And for four hours in the afternoon, users could even work using a
display terminal connected to the 360 running a time-sharing system
called RAX.  It was not popular for programming because the display was
small and slow, and, after a couple of edits, the line numbers on screen
no longer matched your paper listing.  It gave everyone a 4 second
time-slice and, since the terminals were connected in order, a wave of
attentiveness would sweep round the room as each "seat" got some CPU.
You learned to get ready for it, so you could make the most of your
slice. That was probably the worst computer system I have ever had to
use.

<snip>
-- 
Ben.

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#2559

In article
<0.0cc9f98ae4bcf7a2c8b4.20140430220522BST.87zjj2v88d.fsf@bsb.me.uk>,
Ben Bacarisse <ben.usenet@bsb.me.uk> wrote:

> Tim Streater <timstreater@greenbee.net> writes:
> 
> > In article <20140428143101.ef28cbd2.rsw@therandymon.com>, RS Wood
> > <rsw@therandymon.com> wrote:
> >
> >> Interesting reminiscence, courtesy of Simon Allardice and Hacker News:
> >> http://simonallardice.com/general/2014/03/17/first-computer.html
> >>
> >> //---snip
> >> And when you were finished handwriting a section of code - perhaps a
> >> full program, perhaps a subroutine - you'd gather these sheets together
> >> (carefully numbered in sequence, of course) and send them along to the
> >> folks in the data entry department.
> >>
> >> They'd type it in.
> >>
> >> And the next day you'd get a report to find out if it compiled or not.
> >
> > Largely cock. You might write your code on sheets, but then you'd go
> > find a card punch and create your deck of cards, make it into a job
> > with some data, and test it. By the time I was a professional
> > programmer (1968), I'd be getting the results an hour or so later.
> 
> I must add another "no, not cock" to the growing pile.

I didn't say "completely cock", I said, "largely cock", which your post
bears out. <sniff>  Still, perhaps I'm nit-picking and perhaps I was
just lucky enough to work somewhere (CERN) where they took computing
seriously. Their attitude was, "This OS doesn't do what we want? Then
rewrite it from scratch!"

That continued. By the 80s I'd moved to SLAC, and I got a call from
some CERN guys saying, we coming to talk to Apple, you wanna come
along? Turned out the CERN guys had hacked into some early Macintoshes
to use for accelerator control, and wanted Apple to look at making the
Mac "open" so they could design official cards to plug in. I remember
Burrell Smith was at the meeting, but the answer was "no dice", and the
Mac stayed closed for a few more years.

-- 
"Freedom is sloppy. But since tyranny's the only guaranteed byproduct of
those who insist on a perfect world, freedom will have to do." -- Bigby Wolf

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#2566

Tim Streater <timstreater@greenbee.net> writes:

> In article
> <0.0cc9f98ae4bcf7a2c8b4.20140430220522BST.87zjj2v88d.fsf@bsb.me.uk>,
> Ben Bacarisse <ben.usenet@bsb.me.uk> wrote:
>
>> Tim Streater <timstreater@greenbee.net> writes:
>>
>> > In article <20140428143101.ef28cbd2.rsw@therandymon.com>, RS Wood
>> > <rsw@therandymon.com> wrote:
>> >
>> >> Interesting reminiscence, courtesy of Simon Allardice and Hacker News:
>> >> http://simonallardice.com/general/2014/03/17/first-computer.html
>> >>
>> >> //---snip
>> >> And when you were finished handwriting a section of code - perhaps a
>> >> full program, perhaps a subroutine - you'd gather these sheets together
>> >> (carefully numbered in sequence, of course) and send them along to the
>> >> folks in the data entry department.
>> >>
>> >> They'd type it in.
>> >>
>> >> And the next day you'd get a report to find out if it compiled or not.
>> >
>> > Largely cock. You might write your code on sheets, but then you'd go
>> > find a card punch and create your deck of cards, make it into a job
>> > with some data, and test it. By the time I was a professional
>> > programmer (1968), I'd be getting the results an hour or so later.
>>
>> I must add another "no, not cock" to the growing pile.
>
> I didn't say "completely cock", I said, "largely cock", which your post
> bears out. <sniff>

Eh?  Maybe I don't know what "cock" means to you.  I thought you were
saying "largely blather" about this anecdote.  My post supports the
likely truth of it by saying that I've had similar experience.

<snip>
-- 
Ben.

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