Points Event #2, NCCAR May 10 (Sat.)

michaelsmiller · **Posted:** Tue May 13, 2014 9:28 am

JasonWatts wrote:

JamesShort wrote:

Yeah a lot of people get confused about 60+ s times on that display...it's 1 min 12 secs not 112 s

.

Thanks... I no longer feel stupid about not being able to read a clock.

Maybe we can have the display post the times in binary next time. That should offer up some excitement and interesting questions

Jason, When I went to college many years ago, we had to tell time in hexadecimal. That's how computers tell time or at least they used to when everything was a mainframe. :stick:

JamesMilko · **Posted:** Tue May 13, 2014 10:05 am

And you had to walk uphill both ways to turn in your punch cards as well. :p

RodneyWright · **Posted:** Tue May 13, 2014 10:20 am

JamesMilko wrote:

And you had to walk uphill both ways to turn in your punch cards as well. :p

punch cards where cool, especially when you dropped them :shock:

Andrew Jonell · **Joined:** Mon Mar 23, 2009 6:43 pm **Posts:** 1350

<--- still works on IBM mainframes, but now with digital equivalents of punch cards

Quote:

Both DOS and OS JCL have a maximum usable line length of 80 characters, because when DOS/360 and OS/360 were first used the main method of providing new input to a computer system was 80-column punched cards. It later became possible to submit jobs via disk or tape files with longer record lengths, but the operating system's job submission components ignored everything after character 80.

Chuck Branscomb · **Posted:** Tue May 13, 2014 10:36 am

RodneyWright wrote:

JamesMilko wrote:

And you had to walk uphill both ways to turn in your punch cards as well. :p

punch cards where cool, especially when you dropped them :shock:

When I started my research assistant job in grad school, the very first day the prof points to three of those very long card deck boxes, and asked me to take them to the computer center to be loaded. This was a FORTRAN program from NASA to do potential flow analysis of aircraft engine inlets. I think one of those boxes held 2000 cards. I think a 16G USB key will hold something like 150 million cards now.

Aaron Buckley · **Posted:** Tue May 13, 2014 11:13 am

Chuck Branscomb wrote:

When I started my research assistant job in grad school, the very first day the prof points to three of those very long card deck boxes, and asked me to take them to the computer center to be loaded. This was a FORTRAN program from NASA to do potential flow analysis of aircraft engine inlets. I think one of those boxes held 2000 cards. I think a 16G USB key will hold something like 150 million cards now.

True story: My dad was a programmer for IBM in in his early years (late 60's - early 70's). He and another guy were assigned a huge engagement to program a new mainframe routine. It had a lot of senior leadership visibility. After about 5 months of solid work, it was done. Racks and racks of cards were arranged. That's when my dad got the idea.

He and the other programmer took a cart and loaded about 20,000 old cards in about 15 racks in and put it on the cart. They told their manager they would roll down with the new routine so that he could deliver it to senior leadership. When they got down to his office to show him their pride and joy, his partner in crime leaned on cart to knock off about 8 of the card trays onto the ground, spilling thousands of cards on the ground. Their manager nearly had cardiac arrest

That was avoided by the absolute hysterical laughing they had when they saw his reacton. - AB

JasonWatts · **Posted:** Tue May 13, 2014 12:06 pm

I'm starting to understand just how old some of our members are. Why is the Old Farts class not that popular?

RodneyWright · **Posted:** Tue May 13, 2014 12:55 pm

JasonWatts wrote:

I'm starting to understand just how old some of our members are. Why is the Old Farts class not that popular?

Popular? Age restriction to be able to enter.... Gotta be 60 or over

michaelsmiller · **Posted:** Tue May 13, 2014 2:15 pm

RodneyWright wrote:

JasonWatts wrote:

I'm starting to understand just how old some of our members are. Why is the Old Farts class not that popular?

Popular? Age restriction to be able to enter.... Gotta be 60 or over

I was only shaving twice a week when I started playing with computers.

Chuck Branscomb · **Posted:** Tue May 13, 2014 2:39 pm

michaelsmiller wrote:

RodneyWright wrote:

JasonWatts wrote:

I'm starting to understand just how old some of our members are. Why is the Old Farts class not that popular?

Popular? Age restriction to be able to enter.... Gotta be 60 or over

I was only shaving twice a week when I started playing with computers.

ha, I was in 7th grade in 1971 when first introduced to programming, using a DEC pdp8/e. Keyboard with a typewriter/scrolling paper and a tape punch machine to save/load your programs. :lol:

You have to realize how incredible this was at the time since a simple calculator wasn't even heard of yet (still mechanical adding machine days), so to be able to write a BASIC program that did complicated math was, well, like magic to a kid.

DickRasmussen · **Posted:** Tue May 13, 2014 3:45 pm

Some of us are older than the supposed "old guys" who posted. :lol:

My first computer programming (Fortran IV at the Univ of Washington) in 1964 involved waiting in line to key punch cards. If I was lucky I got a key punch that also printed. Then wait in line for a machine to print the program for some attempt at finding typo's and other errors. Then take this small deck of cards to a "box" so the program could wait its turn to run. Come back hours later since freshmen had LOW priority and hope there was a decent sized printout with the cards. If not, find the error which stopped the program. I almost flunked other classes due to the time it took to even survive this class combined with working part time and a 30 plus minute commute. In addition I walked by the schools nuclear reactor lab (nice glass walled "display case" separate building) on most of my trips to/from the computer lab.

Chuck Branscomb · **Posted:** Tue May 13, 2014 4:02 pm

DickRasmussen wrote:

Some of us are older than the supposed "old guys" who posted. :lol:

My first computer programming (Fortran IV at the Univ of Washington) in 1964 involved waiting in line to key punch cards. If I was lucky I got a key punch that also printed. Then wait in line for a machine to print the program for some attempt at finding typo's and other errors. Then take this small deck of cards to a "box" so the program could wait its turn to run. Come back hours later since freshmen had LOW priority and hope there was a decent sized printout with the cards. If not, find the error which stopped the program. I almost flunked other classes due to the time it took to even survive this class combined with working part time and a 30 plus minute commute.

Dick,

Believe it or not, this sounds exactly like NC State circa the late 1970s. The building across Hillsborough St from the DH Hill library was the "computing center" (after it was moved there in 1978 from Nelson hall) with a room full of card punch machines along with two express punch machines where you could get in those short lines for less than 3 cards. Otherwise, it was a long line around the inside of the building to wait for a keypunch machine; hence I used to go there at 2-3 am when the crowd was thin in order to get *anything* done. Then you submit the deck in the public card reader and go stand by the public printer waiting for your extremely low priority job to run and print (so you then go about trouble shooting, getting back in the card punch line, wash, rinse, repeat). It could easily take many hours over multiple days to have success with one program for a homework assignment -- pure torture.

In my senior year, 1981 *terminals* showed up, amazingly, which at first simply allowed you to key in your 80 column/line program and submit the batch job to run and print. Slowly, online results of the batch job appeared. By the late summer of 1982 TUCC (Triangle University Computer Center -- a sharing of mainframe resources by NCSU, UNC and Duke) actually allowed dial-up modem connections to the IBM mainframes (a System/370 Mod 168 and a more modern 3081) so you connect with the new 64k RAM IBM-PC using an IBM 3270 terminal emulation program at a blazing 1200 baud. After that point having the FORTRAN compiler arrive for the PC was like being freed from torture of having to deal with the mainframes for a lot of stuff...then I graduated and started work for...IBM of all places, lol.

DickRasmussen · **Posted:** Tue May 13, 2014 4:35 pm

Chuck, I have a huge amount of respect for guys like you who survived this "education torture" and developed significant programming skills. In my day those skills were still optional for many engineers. Still optional when I finished school in 1973 after a 4 year stint in the Army. I think the U of W had terminals by then but no additional computer class of significance was required for me to graduate. In hindsight, of course, if I had the interest and talent (had neither) it would have been a smart investment to get in on the ground floor.

Chuck Branscomb · **Posted:** Tue May 13, 2014 4:44 pm

DickRasmussen wrote:

Chuck, I have a huge amount of respect for guys like you who survived this "education torture" and developed significant programming skills. In my day those skills were still optional for many engineers. Still optional when I finished school in 1973 after a 4 year stint in the Army. I think the U of W had terminals by then but no additional computer class of significance was required for me to graduate. In hindsight, of course, if I had the interest and talent (had neither) it would have been a smart investment to get in on the ground floor.

Well, hold the respect as I wouldn't refer to that experience as significant skills.

It was simply mandatory as part of the Mechanical Eng program at NCSU back then, thankfully I guess. It was more akin to trying to get your real work done while having to figure out ways to use these seemingly archaic while modern-at-the-same-time tools (computers/programs)...a forced, necessary evil is the way I'd describe it.

DickRasmussen · **Posted:** Tue May 13, 2014 6:57 pm

Chuck Branscomb wrote:

DickRasmussen wrote:

Chuck, I have a huge amount of respect for guys like you who survived this "education torture" and developed significant programming skills. In my day those skills were still optional for many engineers. Still optional when I finished school in 1973 after a 4 year stint in the Army. I think the U of W had terminals by then but no additional computer class of significance was required for me to graduate. In hindsight, of course, if I had the interest and talent (had neither) it would have been a smart investment to get in on the ground floor.

Well, hold the respect as I wouldn't refer to that experience as significant skills.

It was simply mandatory as part of the Mechanical Eng program at NCSU back then, thankfully I guess. It was more akin to trying to get your real work done while having to figure out ways to use these seemingly archaic while modern-at-the-same-time tools (computers/programs)...a forced, necessary evil is the way I'd describe it.

OK. Fully understood. Ditto for me for EE. I guess I'll send the respect to the guys/gals who really got into programming, etc. Not too much though because for them it was probably fun. :lol:

THSCC Forums

Points Event #2, NCCAR May 10 (Sat.)

Who is online