Groups > alt.folklore.computers > #153397

Re: high level language idea

From	Charlie Gibbs <cgibbs@kltpzyxm.invalid>
Newsgroups	alt.folklore.computers
Subject	Re: high level language idea
Date	2015-10-27 19:55 +0000
Organization	NewsGuy - Unlimited Usenet $23.95
Message-ID	<n0oksc27sl@news3.newsguy.com> (permalink)
References	(6 earlier) <d8v03hFcoufU1@mid.individual.net> <0c6dnSNsV87bp7HLnZ2dnUU7-WmdnZ2d@giganews.com> <80d5c94e-13ec-4e05-9724-fa67c2993f26@googlegroups.com> <n0o5ei$hqc$1@dont-email.me> <92db3026-e09b-4a3b-aac2-8e98424efff2@googlegroups.com>

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On 2015-10-27, hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com <hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com> wrote:

> On Tuesday, October 27, 2015 at 11:34:46 AM UTC-4, D_J_E wrote:
>
>>> When I worked with a Univac 90/30, they would send us PTF's on
>>> _paper_.  That is, we had to keypunch a bunch of hex characters from
>>> the document, and naturally it had to be 100% accurate.  Imagine
>>> keypunching several rows of the following:
>>>
>>> E2D6C3D240C9E340E3D640D4C540E2D6C3D240C9E340E3D640D4C540
>> 
>> Sounds like horrible service.

I think a lot of people at Blue Bell still had that "computer time
is too valuable to waste on programming support" attitude that was
mentioned earlier.  My favourite gripe was about the disk prep program.
It did a lengthy surface analysis to determine bad tracks, but you
could also specify additional tracks, since the factory provided such
a list based on its own testing.  The kicker was that the list that
came with the disk was in decimal, and DSKPRP only accepted hexadecimal.
I could almost hear malicious laughter while reading the part in the
reference manual where it explicity stated that you must convert the
track addresses yourself.  It would have been so easy to enable DSKPRP
to accept decimal - or, better still, have an option to specify it
either way.  And if you made an error in conversion, you had no way
of knowing until the prep operation (a 45-minute job) was complete,
because the program did no verification of your parameters and didn't
even print anything until the very end.  Then you got to do it all
over again.

> Also, when we upgraded our printer chain from 48 to 64 characters.
> As mentioned before, our director had 'heard' that such an upgrade
> would be extremely costly and was very resistant to the idea.  It
> turned out to be free, even though we were a third-party lease customer.

We had a shop that went the other way - they figured that going to
a 48-character band would save time because of the higher speed the
printer would attain.  What they failed to take into account was when
they ran the jobs that did require the 63-character band, the printer
would stop and wait for the operator to change the band.  This more
than ate up any time saving that they might have had - especially if
the operator had just gone for coffee when the band change request
came up.  They eventually did just put the 63-character band back
in and leave it there, but they lost a lot of productivity first.

-- 
/~\  cgibbs@kltpzyxm.invalid (Charlie Gibbs)
\ /  I'm really at ac.dekanfrus if you read it the right way.
 X   Top-posted messages will probably be ignored.  See RFC1855.
/ \  HTML will DEFINITELY be ignored.  Join the ASCII ribbon campaign!

Thread

high level language idea "Bill Cunningham" <nospam@nspam.invalid> - 2015-10-20 17:47 -0400
  Re: high level language idea Charlie Gibbs <cgibbs@kltpzyxm.invalid> - 2015-10-21 01:09 +0000
    Re: high level language idea "Charles Richmond" <numerist@aquaporin4.com> - 2015-10-21 14:44 -0500
      Re: high level language idea hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com - 2015-10-21 13:15 -0700
  Re: high level language idea davidmylastname@acm.org (David Griffith) - 2015-10-21 01:16 +0000
    Re: high level language idea "Bill Cunningham" <nospam@nspam.invalid> - 2015-10-21 14:26 -0400
      Re: high level language idea hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com - 2015-10-21 12:13 -0700
        Re: high level language idea "Bill Cunningham" <nospam@nspam.invalid> - 2015-10-21 15:23 -0400
  Re: high level language idea bert <bert.hutchings@btinternet.com> - 2015-10-21 03:53 -0700
    Re: high level language idea rpw3@rpw3.org (Rob Warnock) - 2015-10-21 13:47 +0000
      Re: high level language idea "gareth" <no.spam@thank.you.invalid> - 2015-10-21 14:58 +0100
        Re: high level language idea Walter Banks <walter@bytecraft.com> - 2015-10-21 10:34 -0400
        Re: high level language idea Bob Eager <news0005@eager.cx> - 2015-10-21 16:43 +0000
      Re: high level language idea rpw3@rpw3.org (Rob Warnock) - 2015-10-21 14:46 +0000
    Re: high level language idea "Bill Cunningham" <nospam@nspam.invalid> - 2015-10-21 14:29 -0400
      Re: high level language idea Jon Elson <jmelson@wustl.edu> - 2015-10-21 14:19 -0500
        Re: high level language idea Roberto Waltman <usenet@rwaltman.com> - 2015-10-21 15:24 -0400
          Re: high level language idea Jon Elson <jmelson@wustl.edu> - 2015-10-22 14:13 -0500
            Re: high level language idea "Osmium" <r124c4u102@comcast.net> - 2015-10-23 09:55 -0500
              Re: high level language idea Peter Flass <peter_flass@yahoo.com> - 2015-10-23 11:42 -0400
                Re: high level language idea "Osmium" <r124c4u102@comcast.net> - 2015-10-23 11:48 -0500
                Re: high level language idea hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com - 2015-10-23 10:47 -0700
                Re: high level language idea Jon Elson <elson@pico-systems.com> - 2015-10-24 21:24 -0500
                Re: high level language idea Jon Elson <elson@pico-systems.com> - 2015-10-24 21:14 -0500
                Re: high level language idea Jon Elson <elson@pico-systems.com> - 2015-10-25 11:31 -0500
                Re: high level language idea Bob Eager <news0005@eager.cx> - 2015-10-25 18:13 +0000
                Re: high level language idea Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com> - 2015-10-23 11:20 -0700
                Re: high level language idea hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com - 2015-10-23 11:45 -0700
              Re: high level language idea Jon Elson <elson@pico-systems.com> - 2015-10-24 21:11 -0500
                Re: high level language idea hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com - 2015-10-27 07:40 -0700
                Re: high level language idea Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com> - 2015-10-27 08:30 -0700
                Re: high level language idea Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com> - 2015-10-27 09:11 -0700
                Re: high level language idea Dan Espen <despen@verizon.net> - 2015-10-27 12:52 -0400
                Re: high level language idea hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com - 2015-10-27 10:22 -0700
                Re: high level language idea Dan Espen <despen@verizon.net> - 2015-10-27 14:37 -0400
                Re: high level language idea Charlie Gibbs <cgibbs@kltpzyxm.invalid> - 2015-10-27 19:55 +0000
                Re: high level language idea hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com - 2015-10-27 17:46 -0700
                Re: high level language idea Charlie Gibbs <cgibbs@kltpzyxm.invalid> - 2015-10-28 01:22 +0000
                Re: high level language idea jmfbahciv <See.above@aol.com> - 2015-10-28 12:58 +0000
                Re: high level language idea "gareth" <no.spam@thank.you.invalid> - 2015-10-28 13:59 +0000
                Re: high level language idea jmfbahciv <See.above@aol.com> - 2015-10-29 13:55 +0000
                Re: high level language idea Bob Eager <news0005@eager.cx> - 2015-10-29 14:28 +0000
                Re: high level language idea "Rod Speed" <rod.speed.aaa@gmail.com> - 2015-10-30 05:06 +1100
                Re: high level language idea pechter@S20.pechter.dyndns.org (William Pechter) - 2015-10-29 19:55 +0000
                Re: high level language idea Lawrence Statton <lawrence@senguio.mx> - 2015-10-29 14:21 -0600
                Re: high level language idea pechter@S20.pechter.dyndns.org (William Pechter) - 2015-10-29 19:50 +0000
                Re: high level language idea hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com - 2015-10-28 07:33 -0700
                Re: high level language idea Charlie Gibbs <cgibbs@kltpzyxm.invalid> - 2015-10-28 16:58 +0000
                Re: high level language idea hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com - 2015-10-28 10:10 -0700
                Re: high level language idea Charlie Gibbs <cgibbs@kltpzyxm.invalid> - 2015-10-28 20:08 +0000
                Re: high level language idea hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com - 2015-10-28 13:58 -0700
                Re: high level language idea "Charles Richmond" <numerist@aquaporin4.com> - 2015-10-27 15:53 -0500
                Re: high level language idea - TTF Dan Espen <despen@verizon.net> - 2015-10-27 17:11 -0400
                Re: high level language idea - TTF scott@slp53.sl.home (Scott Lurndal) - 2015-10-28 13:24 +0000
                Re: high level language idea - TTF hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com - 2015-10-28 07:37 -0700
                Re: high level language idea - TTF Charlie Gibbs <cgibbs@kltpzyxm.invalid> - 2015-10-28 16:58 +0000
                Re: high level language idea - TTF Dan Espen <despen@verizon.net> - 2015-10-28 15:10 -0400
                Re: high level language idea Charlie Gibbs <cgibbs@kltpzyxm.invalid> - 2015-10-28 01:22 +0000
                Re: high level language idea Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com> - 2015-10-28 08:04 -0700
                Re: high level language idea Dan Espen <despen@verizon.net> - 2015-10-27 11:34 -0400
                Re: high level language idea hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com - 2015-10-27 10:14 -0700
                Re: high level language idea Dan Espen <despen@verizon.net> - 2015-10-27 14:30 -0400
                Re: high level language idea Bob Eager <news0005@eager.cx> - 2015-10-27 19:29 +0000
                Re: high level language idea Dan Espen <despen@verizon.net> - 2015-10-27 16:57 -0400
                Re: high level language idea Bob Eager <news0005@eager.cx> - 2015-10-27 21:50 +0000
                Re: high level language idea Dan Espen <despen@verizon.net> - 2015-10-27 17:58 -0400
                Re: high level language idea Ahem A Rivet's Shot <steveo@eircom.net> - 2015-10-28 09:04 +0000
                Re: high level language idea "gareth" <no.spam@thank.you.invalid> - 2015-10-28 09:42 +0000
                Re: high level language idea Roberto Waltman <usenet@rwaltman.com> - 2015-10-28 14:55 -0400
                Re: high level language idea Roberto Waltman <usenet@rwaltman.com> - 2015-10-28 15:02 -0400
                Re: high level language idea Bob Eager <news0005@eager.cx> - 2015-10-28 19:15 +0000
                Re: high level language idea Lawrence Statton <lawrence@senguio.mx> - 2015-10-28 13:25 -0600
                Re: high level language idea Michael Black <et472@ncf.ca> - 2015-10-28 17:54 -0400
                Re: high level language idea Ahem A Rivet's Shot <steveo@eircom.net> - 2015-10-28 19:19 +0000
                Re: high level language idea Charlie Gibbs <cgibbs@kltpzyxm.invalid> - 2015-10-28 21:09 +0000
                Re: high level language idea scott@slp53.sl.home (Scott Lurndal) - 2015-10-28 13:36 +0000
                Re: high level language idea Andrew Swallow <am.swallow@btinternet.com> - 2015-10-28 17:54 +0000
                Re: high level language idea Charlie Gibbs <cgibbs@kltpzyxm.invalid> - 2015-10-28 20:08 +0000
                Re: high level language idea "Charles Richmond" <numerist@aquaporin4.com> - 2015-10-28 17:54 -0500
                Re: high level language idea Alan Bowler <atbowler@thinkage.ca> - 2015-11-13 16:05 -0500
                Re: high level language idea Peter Flass <peter_flass@yahoo.com> - 2015-11-13 17:20 -0500
                Re: high level language idea Walter Banks <walter@bytecraft.com> - 2015-11-15 08:14 -0500
                Re: high level language idea Charlie Gibbs <cgibbs@kltpzyxm.invalid> - 2015-10-27 19:55 +0000
                Re: high level language idea hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com - 2015-10-27 18:00 -0700
      Re: high level language idea hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com - 2015-10-21 12:21 -0700
        Re: high level language idea "Bill Cunningham" <nospam@nspam.invalid> - 2015-10-21 15:25 -0400
        Re: high level language idea "Bill Cunningham" <nospam@nspam.invalid> - 2015-10-21 17:14 -0400
          Re: high level language idea jmfbahciv <See.above@aol.com> - 2015-10-22 12:51 +0000
        Re: high level language idea Peter Flass <peter_flass@yahoo.com> - 2015-10-21 17:56 -0400
      Re: high level language idea Charlie Gibbs <cgibbs@kltpzyxm.invalid> - 2015-10-21 19:43 +0000
        Re: high level language idea hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com - 2015-10-21 13:09 -0700
          Re: high level language idea Charlie Gibbs <cgibbs@kltpzyxm.invalid> - 2015-10-22 02:52 +0000
          Re: high level language idea "Charles Richmond" <numerist@aquaporin4.com> - 2015-10-23 16:04 -0500
    Re: high level language idea Walter Bushell <proto@panix.com> - 2015-10-28 20:19 -0400
  Re: high level language idea hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com - 2015-10-21 07:35 -0700
    Re: high level language idea Charlie Gibbs <cgibbs@kltpzyxm.invalid> - 2015-10-21 19:43 +0000
      Re: high level language idea hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com - 2015-10-21 13:00 -0700
        Re: high level language idea Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com> - 2015-10-21 13:35 -0700
          Re: high level language idea hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com - 2015-10-21 13:50 -0700
            Re: high level language idea Peter Flass <peter_flass@yahoo.com> - 2015-10-21 17:56 -0400
              Re: high level language idea hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com - 2015-10-22 07:22 -0700
                Re: high level language idea John Levine <johnl@iecc.com> - 2015-10-24 00:42 +0000
                Re: high level language idea hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com - 2015-10-24 20:26 -0700
                Re: high level language idea "Charles Richmond" <numerist@aquaporin4.com> - 2015-10-25 18:36 -0500
            Re: high level language idea Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com> - 2015-10-21 15:31 -0700
            Re: high level language idea Alan Bowler <atbowler@thinkage.ca> - 2015-11-20 17:17 -0500
        Re: high level language idea Alan Bowler <atbowler@thinkage.ca> - 2015-11-20 17:00 -0500
          Re: high level language idea Bob Eager <news0005@eager.cx> - 2015-11-20 22:20 +0000
            Re: high level language idea Peter Flass <peter_flass@yahoo.com> - 2015-11-21 08:35 -0500
      Re: high level language idea "Charles Richmond" <numerist@aquaporin4.com> - 2015-10-23 16:00 -0500
        Re: high level language idea Bob Eager <news0005@eager.cx> - 2015-10-23 21:07 +0000
        Re: high level language idea Alan Bowler <atbowler@thinkage.ca> - 2015-11-20 17:31 -0500
          Re: high level language idea Gene Wirchenko <genew@telus.net> - 2015-11-25 11:28 -0800
            Re: high level language idea Alan Bowler <atbowler@thinkage.ca> - 2015-12-22 14:00 -0500
              Re: high level language idea Gene Wirchenko <genew@telus.net> - 2015-12-22 11:43 -0800

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