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Re: the days of punch cards and coding in pencil

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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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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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