Powerhouse and my personality disorder.
Deskin, Bob
Bob.Deskin@Cognos.COM
Mon, 25 Apr 2005 10:33:45 -0400
There were lots of ways to re-use memory. Does anyone remember the ALTER
verb in COBOL? It was used to change the GO TO verb to change where it
went. You could do the same thing in Assembler by changing the actual
machine instructions to do other things. As an example, let's say you
had a routine that rolled one level of subtotals into the next level. By
changing the memory location of the source and target, you could re-use
the routine for all levels of accumulation. You can do the same in COBOL
by paramaterizing the routine. In Assembler, we just changed the
instruction address and it saved a few bytes. Structured programming
banned the ALTER verb because it made understanding the logic flow very
difficult. As a matter of fact, there was one program that I spent a
month going over before giving up and rewriting because there were so
many ALTERs.
You could output to punch cards. Other alternatives included punched
paper tape. When I got started in 1973, typical mass storage was on
magnetic tape. Disc was used as well but it was quite expensive. With
tape you learned how to read from one and write to another doing your
adds, updates, and deletes from a transaction file. About the only thing
you didn't have was direct access to individual records, so you had to
sort your transactions first and effectively merge them with the
incoming tape file.
This was all batch processing. There was very little online stuff in
business in the early 70s in my experience. We had one customer who
didn't understand how a computer could sort stuff, so he'd hand sort his
punched card input before giving them to us.
Bob
-----Original Message-----
From: Richard Sheehan [mailto:sheerich@isu.edu]
Sent: April 25, 2005 10:16 AM
To: Deskin, Bob
Cc: Joe Boyle; Guy Werry; powerh-l@lists.sowder.com
Subject: Re: Powerhouse and my personality disorder.
Of course you can do plenty of stuff with a small amount of memory. You
just have to decide how many times you want to write/read the results
to/from some other medium while crunching other numbers.
So were punch cards used for storing data as well as coding? - Newbie
question here :-)
Richard Sheehan
College of Technology - Student Services
IT Programmer Analyst
208-282-4427
Idaho State University
Pocatello, ID 83209-8380
Deskin, Bob wrote:
>I know I'm a bit evangelical (as in passionate support for) about PH
>Web, but not this time. You really could do a lot of stuff in small
>memory.
>
>Bob
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: Joe Boyle [mailto:atla38@dsl.pipex.com]
>Sent: April 22, 2005 6:53 PM
>To: Deskin, Bob; 'Guy Werry'; powerh-l@lists.sowder.com
>Subject: RE: Powerhouse and my personality disorder.
>
>
>I am thinking that BobD might be swinging the conversation towards the
>excellent value to be tapped from the Phweb cgi exe - no ?
>
>Regards, Joe.
>
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: powerh-l-admin@lists.sowder.com
>[mailto:powerh-l-admin@lists.sowder.com] On Behalf Of Deskin, Bob
>Sent: 22 April 2005 22:43
>To: Joe Boyle; Guy Werry; powerh-l@lists.sowder.com
>Subject: RE: Powerhouse and my personality disorder.
>
>You could do an amazing amount of processing with 4K, but not colour
>graphics.
>
>Bob
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: powerh-l-admin@lists.sowder.com
>[mailto:powerh-l-admin@lists.sowder.com] On Behalf Of Joe Boyle
>Sent: April 22, 2005 5:32 PM
>To: 'Guy Werry'; powerh-l@lists.sowder.com
>Subject: RE: Powerhouse and my personality disorder.
>
>
>I am splitting my sides after reading enough to create even an image of
>where this might be heading - for which many thanks :)
>
>Presumably with only 4K they were able to logon - which verified that
>if they had more memory - the 'whole computing thing' might be worth
>pursuing
>:)
>
>Regards, Joe.
>
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: powerh-l-admin@lists.sowder.com
>[mailto:powerh-l-admin@lists.sowder.com] On Behalf Of Guy Werry
>Sent: 22 April 2005 21:53
>To: powerh-l@lists.sowder.com
>Subject: RE: Powerhouse and my personallity disorder.
>
>I can't top that, although I did talk to an old-timer who had been in
>computers since 1958. The first machine he worked on had 4K. They
>used to diagnose memory problems by turning all of the memory on and
>then turning the lights in the memory ROOM off, walking in and looking
>for burned-out tubes! (I think that the 'valves' term might be
>British).
>
>Guy.
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: Joe Boyle [mailto:atla38@dsl.pipex.com]
>Sent: Friday, April 22, 2005 3:42 PM
>To: 'Deskin, Bob'; powerh-l@lists.sowder.com
>Subject: RE: Powerhouse and my personallity disorder.
>
>
>my first boss in COBOL used to regail us with stories of having to
>smack 'valves' with a broom handle to test which one had failed - beat
>that !
>
>Regards, Joe.
>
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: powerh-l-admin@lists.sowder.com
>[mailto:powerh-l-admin@lists.sowder.com] On Behalf Of Deskin, Bob
>Sent: 22 April 2005 21:13
>To: powerh-l@lists.sowder.com
>Subject: RE: Powerhouse and my personallity disorder.
>
>Hey, I figure I can still code a mean COBOL program. By the way, it
>should be spelled in uppercase since it's an acronym for COmmon
>Business Oriented Language. And I'm not THAT old. Mind you, I never
>learned how to touch type or keyboard as it's called now. My son puts
>me to shame. On the other hand, I made fewer mistakes with those
>punched cards :-)
>
>Bob
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: powerh-l-admin@lists.sowder.com
>[mailto:powerh-l-admin@lists.sowder.com] On Behalf Of Ken Langendock
>Sent: April 22, 2005 3:59 PM
>To: powerh-l@lists.sowder.com
>Subject: RE: Powerhouse and my personallity disorder.
>
>
>ARGGGGG COBOL. Haven't used that since my first year
>of professional programming....back in 1986.
>
>As for your typing teacher...mine looked like an old battle-axe. Hence
>I took auto mechanics instead. Maybe if yours was at my school I would
>have taken it...definately would have learned to type without looking
>at the keys...watching her instead.
>
>I thought all the Cobol programmers died of with the Dinosaurs....lol
>
>
>
>--- Guy Werry <guy.werry@hbms.ca> wrote:
>
>
>>Two things come to mind:
>>
>>1) Isn't everyone on the list just shocked to the
>>core by the revelation
>>that a technical / programmer type person has a
>>"personality disorder"???!!!
>>
>>2) REAL programmers can so type! I learned to type
>>in grade 10 in one of
>>those situations that demonstrate that God really
>>does have a sense of
>>humour. I signed up for typing only because I
>>needed a credit and the
>>(young) female teacher was one of the most gorgeous
>>creatures I had ever
>>seen! She crushed my heart by getting married at
>>Christmas, I scraped
>>through with a "D" grade, but DID learn to
>>touch-type!
>>
>>Then, I got into programming. REAL programming ...
>>COBOL! Still the
>>language of the future!
>>
>>Guy.
>>
>>-----Original Message-----
>>From: Ken Langendock
>>[mailto:ken.langendock@rogers.com]
>>Sent: Friday, April 22, 2005 1:46 PM
>>To: Joe Boyle; Ken@Langendock.com;
>>powerh-l@lists.sowder.com
>>Subject: RE: Powerhouse and my personallity
>>disorder.
>>
>>
>>I have never been known to be subtle....but this is
>>was not a criticism on your code. As soon as you
>>said
>>Ghost screen, I didn't go any further.
>>
>>As for your typing...no comment. LOL.
>>
>>Being a REAL programmer...I can't type worth beans myself...actually I
>>
>>
>
>
>
>>hate to type...go figure.
>>--
>>= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
>>= =
>>Mailing list: powerh-l@lists.sowder.com
>>Subscribe: "subscribe" in message body to
>>powerh-l-request@lists.sowder.com
>>Unsubscribe: "unsubscribe <password>" in
>>message body to powerh-l-request@lists.sowder.com
>>http://lists.sowder.com/mailman/listinfo/powerh-l
>>This list is closed, thus to post to the list you
>>must be a subscriber.
>>
>>
>>
This message may contain privileged and/or confidential information. If you have received this e-mail in error or are not the intended recipient, you may not use, copy, disseminate or distribute it; do not open any attachments, delete it immediately from your system and notify the sender promptly by e-mail that you have done so. Thank you.