Klarinet Archive - Posting 000037.txt from 2012/02

From: "Keith Bowen" <keith.bowen@-----.com>
Subj: Re: [kl] IBM 1620
Date: Thu, 02 Feb 2012 10:58:17 -0500

Agreed Oliver. I too used to be able to read paper tape (in my case 8 hole)
without bothering to run it through a printer! Punch cards ... thought I'd
died and gone to heaven!

Keith

-----Original Message-----
From: Oliver Seely [mailto:oseely@-----.com]
Sent: 02 February 2012 15:57
To: klarinet list
Subject: Re: [kl] IBM 1620

Oh yeah? How about the vacuum tube ILLIAC I where I had to punch programs
on 9-track paper tape in one room and feed them through the reader in
another, with a tech standing at the other corner to catch and wrap the
program tape as it shot out of the reader. And how the filament voltage was
set at 70% of normal during the day but raised to 100% after 5pm when a
utility was run to locate all of the bad tubes.

You guys are kids! 8-)

Oliver

> Date: Thu, 2 Feb 2012 08:23:05 -0500
> To: klarinet@-----.com
> From: gkidder@-----.org
> Subject: [kl] IBM 1620
>
> My goodness, yourself! That sure does take me back. I first started into

> computers at the old Biophysics Laboratory at Harvard Med. School as a
> young post-doc in (I think) 1963, and remember that beast well.
>
> For the benefit of those who missed this experience: To write a program,
> you first cut a bunch of key-punch cards, and loaded them into the card
> reader along with the first-pass compiler. This produced a stack of
> intermediate cards, which were loaded into the reader along with the
> second-stage compiler deck. Then, and only then, would it cough and say
> "mixed mode", a common error caused (simplified version) by using a
> variable name beginning with i, j, k, l, m, or n for a real (as opposed to

> an integer) number. Or vice-versa. The amount of hard language this
> produced had to be experienced!
>
> I don't remember using Leeson's material, but it's been a long time now.
I
> never stopped using computers as aids to my work, but it sure got easier
> and cheaper.
>
> George
>
>
>
> At 06:46 PM 2/1/2012, you wrote:
> >My goodness. How did you ever get hold of that
> >film? I was the producer and it was made for the
> >25th anniversary of the introduction of FORTRAN
> >somewhere around 1980. If anything can be credited
> >for bringing about the beginning of the computer
> >revolution, it was FORTRAN. I don't know if
> >anyone uses it today, but it was a cash cow in the
> >1950s, 60s, and early 70s, and without it, the
> >introduction of large scale computers (which led
> >Jobs to the personal computers) would have been
> >delayed enormously.
> >
> >Dan Leeson
> >email: dnleeson@-----.net
> >alternate email: leesondaniel899@-----.net
> >
> >
> >-----Original Message-----
> >From: Mark Charette [mailto:charette@-----.org]
> >
> >Sent: Wednesday, February 01, 2012 1:23 PM
> >To: The Klarinet Mailing List
> >Subject: Re: [kl] Saying goodbye
> >
> >I never met Dan, yet I had read some of his early
> >work ...
> >
> >Basic programming concepts and the IBM 1620
> >computer
> >
> >and seen his movie
> >
> >http://www.softwarepreservation.org/projects/FORTR
> >AN/video/FORTRAN-1982.wmv
> >
> >way before I knew he was interested in clarinets.
> >
> >Software programming, movies, and the clarinet.
> >
> >What a guy!
> >
> >Mark C.
> >_______________________________________________
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> >to:
> >http://klarinet-list.serve-music.com
> >
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>
>
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