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I started with paper tape via a teletype machine on an acoustic coupler to a remote IBM way off in the big city (Manchester). Later I worked with Pr1me computers at the polytechnic - they had greenscreens, advanced technology. I still remember getting 50+ error messages from one missing full stop - none of which mentioned the aforesaid full stop. Eventually got a real job working on ICL equipment (2960s I think) but back to punch cards. We also wrote the code (FORTRAN IV) on coding sheets which were processed by "punch girls" to create overnight compilation runs, debugging involved changing out one or more cards, occasionally punched personally (when the unions weren't being awkward) and eventually straight into production - no, test system. Lots of finger crossing! A year or so later we got green screens but the head of the department hated them and tried to make us stick to punch cards for another year until they took the machines away. He also hated Fortran-77 on the VAX machines we used for the real-time system. He couldn't cope with names longer than six characters in mixed case!
I won't mention the compulsory flowchart requirements... oops, just did.
Aah, the good ol' days!
- I would love to change the world, but they won’t give me the source code.
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Quote: I won't mention the compulsory flowchart requirements... oops, just did.
I go back to the 60's. I remember a human factors course I took in the mid 70's. The professor said they had done an experiment to test flow charters versus non flow charters. Seems the flow charters got their program running with fewer compiles but the non flow charters made friends with the mainframe operators and got more runs. Time came out about the same.
I still have my plastic template around here somewhere. Same drawer with my slide rule 
If you can keep your head while those about you are losing theirs, perhaps you don't understand the situation.
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I still have my flowchart template somewhere. Going to spend the next 5 hours trying to find, it!! 
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I found that the surest way to get more runs was to occasionally show up in the machine room with 12 dozen homemade, still warm chocolate chip cookies (one advantage of living fairly close to work). I could've gotten away with murder for at least a couple of weeks after that.
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and I thought I was old! I started on an AS400
To err is human to really elephant it up you need a computer
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When I started, the first project I was on used a Honeywell 200, a Four Phase mini, a Perkin-Elmer (later Interdata) 8/32 and an IBM 370/158, with languages including Assembler (3 different flavors), Cobol, Fortran, PL/I and RPG, plus MVS JCL. Somewhere around here I still have the textbooks and manuals for the IBM side of things; the others have all thankfully vanished into the mists of time.
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5teveH wrote:
The Four Yorkshiremen Sketch - YouTube[^]
Sounds just like this forum, albeit hilarious.
"One man's wage rise is another man's price increase." - Harold Wilson
"Fireproof doesn't mean the fire will never come. It means when the fire comes that you will be able to withstand it." - Michael Simmons
"You can easily judge the character of a man by how he treats those who can do nothing for him." - James D. Miles
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5teveH wrote: The Four Yorkshiremen Sketch - YouTube[^]
When I were a young'un, we had to do all our computing on stone henge, with missing stones!
Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows.
-- 6079 Smith W.
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5teveH wrote: Your program was compiled overnight
By 'eck lad, you 'ad it easy! When I started we had to punch the 'oles into leather straps with our teeth, then walk 500 miles to feed it by 'and through t'reader, and output was by electric shock!
No but seriously, hand-punched cards (eventually we got one of these[^]) using a hand-held thingy. It was a chunk of metal with 12 square holes in it, and a square "poker" thing you used to push individual chads out, having looked up the hole pattern for the character you wanted. Then you sent the card deck off by post (from the Post Office) to the University, and a couple of weeks later you got your punching errors back. You re-punched, sent it off, and if you were lucky got your compilation errors back. Eventually you got "Hello World" or the equivalent, and jumped for joy!  That was at school...
But yes, once graduated and working in London, initially we wrote out Cobol coding sheets by hand, sent them down to the girls in the punchroom (you were supposed to leave them in the tray outside, but going in was too much temptation for some). The next day you'd take your cards down to the ops room; we had both ICL1904 machines with George III (and a teletype interface too!) or the faster IBM 360 machine. Remember "the well" on the ICL machines - effectively a queue of waiting jobs, but a prioritised one where, as a junior programmer doing testing, your jobs were being constantly overtaken by production work. Some jobs, those needing significant resources (like more than 32kwords), might sit in the well for days... then oh! the Joy of a VDU screen with TSO!
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As kids, we used to draw on these manilla coloured cards with little rectangles missing. Always different to each other and seemingly nonsense patterns.
Years later, found out they all belonged to a single program which had been scattered when Mum tripped over crossing the road at Uni one day.
I still miss the HP calculator Dad used to borrow from work sometimes that took little sticks with magnetic tape on em for storing programs. (Perhaps a HP29C) Playing that moon-lander simulation was teh best! 
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Sorry, I forgot ...
A short mix up around OriginalGriff's barbecue. (3,5)
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Hog roast ?
"I didn't mention the bats - he'd see them soon enough" - Hunter S Thompson - RIP
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I do believe you have it correctly!
"I have no idea what I did, but I'm taking full credit for it." - ThisOldTony
"Common sense is so rare these days, it should be classified as a super power" - Random T-shirt
AntiTwitter: @DalekDave is now a follower!
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Where's the CCC 
"I didn't mention the bats - he'd see them soon enough" - Hunter S Thompson - RIP
modified 9-Jun-21 4:58am.
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Dunno mate, ask Richard MacCutchan. 
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oops 
"I didn't mention the bats - he'd see them soon enough" - Hunter S Thompson - RIP
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Ok, so this subject has probably been done to death in the past but things are always moving on... New job means new laptop, new boss says tell me what you need and we'll get it for you - I'm in R&D working on test software generally, a lot of number crunching maths, data processing and apps for embedded applications. Graphics are typically light. Do I go for something off the shelf or spec me up something special?
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Laptops ARE off the shelf.
1, Most important question as far as I'm concerned if whether you're going to lug it around on a daily basis or not.
If so, make sure it's small and light, otherwise you can go for a "foldable desktop".
2, make sure it has a large enough SSD-drive.
3, Get a docking station, can't stress enough how important proper monitors and keyboard is for productivity
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I will have to lug it around, good point, largest SSD - for sure and I always use external keyboard, mouse, monitors at my desk - surely nobody ever does any real work with a laptop keyboard and mouse pad? Never found one useable yet...
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Jörgen Andersson wrote: "foldable desktop".
Been there, done that... At one point I was (mistakenly) given free hands in choosing a new laptop. So I thought to myself: "A 17" screen must be good for software development. The more screen space, the better".
Yeah, right! So I wound up with a "forcibly moveable laptop". The power adapter alone weighed around 3 kilos.
No need to work out for a couple of years...
Anything that is unrelated to elephants is irrelephant
Anonymous
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The problem with quotes on the internet is that you can never tell if they're genuine
Winston Churchill, 1944
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Never argue with a fool. Onlookers may not be able to tell the difference.
Mark Twain
modified 10-Jun-21 3:36am.
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Jörgen Andersson wrote: otherwise you can go for a "foldable desktop".
"Lugable" is the word we used to use.
Nothing succeeds like a budgie without teeth.
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I can only speak for Dell laptops: Avoid the Inspiron range. The (more expensive) XPS range are a far better quality!.
Get me coffee and no one gets hurt!
modified 8-Jun-21 18:02pm.
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If you are testing software, my recommendation would be to get 2 test machines:
1. The hottest hopped up laptop with the most modern expensive options, lots of memory and large disks
2. The oldest wimpiest crappy laptop that you support for the software with the smallest memory and disk that are reasonable to use with it. Make sure it has Windows Vista.
You'll be seen as the smartest tester in the group.
If pigs could fly, just imagine how good their wings would taste!
- Harvey
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Microsoft won't allow you to install Windows Vista on a new machine. My test machine died and I tried to re-install Windows Vista and it went to the MS website to validate the software, but the URL was no longer active. The oldest OS you can install (before Vista) is XP.
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