Interesting video...

[Howerd]

Hi Forthers,

I was just watching this video:

- "Stop Writing Dead Programs"
Jack Rusher likes interactive programming environments, and at 27 minutes in he mentions Lisp and Forth.

Cheers,
Howerd

[Doug Hoffman]

Post by Howerd
I was just watching this video: http://youtu.be/8Ab3ArE8W3s - "Stop Writing Dead Programs"
Jack Rusher likes interactive programming environments, and at 27 minutes in he mentions Lisp and Forth.

Thanks Howerd. I was one of those who had to type my own IBM punch cards, hope I didn't drop or mutilate the stack of cards, and submit the cards for running overnight. No results until the next morning. Unstructured Fortran. The big fear was a bug in your program that caused an infinite loop which would chew up all of your computer time allotted for the semester.

-Doug

[Lorem Ipsum]

Post by Howerd
I was just watching this video: http://youtu.be/8Ab3ArE8W3s - "Stop Writing Dead Programs"
Jack Rusher likes interactive programming environments, and at 27 minutes in he mentions Lisp and Forth.

Thanks Howerd. I was one of those who had to type my own IBM punch cards, hope I didn't drop or mutilate the stack of cards, and submit the cards for running overnight. No results until the next morning. Unstructured Fortran. The big fear was a bug in your program that caused an infinite loop which would chew up all of your computer time allotted for the semester.

You didn't have user set execution time limits? That was always a part of the frustration for our programs, estimating how much time to give the program to run. Screw that up and you might as well have yet another bug in the program to find.

I recall using punch cards. It was an abysmal way of programming. Not because punching cards is so tough, but because of the draconian restrictions on using the computer. Toward the end of the semester, the computer was so massively overwhelmed it would crash a few times a day. Very unhappy undergraduates. The idea of your grade being determined by how well you could manage to work in such an environment (which disappeared in a few short years) was insane, but those in charge didn't care. Professors in a university are there to do research, not facilitate the education of undergraduates.

[Doug Hoffman]

Post by Lorem Ipsum
You didn't have user set execution time limits?

No. If there were then it was a carefully guarded secret, which makes no sense
because the instructors were also annoyed by the many students requesting
more computer time.

-Doug

[none) (albert]

Post by Lorem Ipsum
I recall using punch cards. It was an abysmal way of programming. Not because punching cards

I recall the first time I used punch cards. It was sooo much better than
using punch tape ...
I brought my program from IBM Zoetermeer (Holland) to Shell London by tape.
They couldn't read it in. Next week I took several kg (5?) worth of
FORTRAN program on the plane. That worked. Punch cards.

Post by Lorem Ipsum
Rick C.

Groetjes Albert

[Lorem Ipsum]

Post by none) (albert

I recall using punch cards. It was an abysmal way of programming. Not because punching cards

I recall the first time I used punch cards. It was sooo much better than
using punch tape ...
I brought my program from IBM Zoetermeer (Holland) to Shell London by tape.
They couldn't read it in. Next week I took several kg (5?) worth of
FORTRAN program on the plane. That worked. Punch cards.

A friend had a Heathkit paper tape punch/reader. It had a design flaw where it would work on every code, except all 1s. Seems they undersized the power supply a bit and punching all seven holes at once didn't work! I think six punch codes were sometimes marginal. Maybe it depended on your local line voltage?

[none) (albert]

Post by Lorem Ipsum

Post by none) (albert

I recall using punch cards. It was an abysmal way of programming. Not because punching cards

I recall the first time I used punch cards. It was sooo much better than
using punch tape ...
I brought my program from IBM Zoetermeer (Holland) to Shell London by tape.
They couldn't read it in. Next week I took several kg (5?) worth of
FORTRAN program on the plane. That worked. Punch cards.

A friend had a Heathkit paper tape punch/reader. It had a design flaw where it would work on
every code, except all 1s. Seems they undersized the power supply a bit and punching all seven
holes at once didn't work! I think six punch codes were sometimes marginal. Maybe it depended
on your local line voltage?

All holes punched was not valid, so this is not a draw back?
All hole is read as a blank, and it would allow me as an operator to
erase a character by manually punching extra holes.

Post by Lorem Ipsum
--
Rick C.
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