Klarinet Archive - Posting 000039.txt from 2012/02

From: Diego Casadei <casadei.diego@-----.com>
Subj: Re: [kl] IBM 1620
Date: Thu, 02 Feb 2012 11:38:43 -0500

Wow guys! This thread is a lot off-topic but I enjoy it really a lot.
Dan, would you consider remaining subscribed at least for this kind of
messages? :-)
Cheers,
Diego

Oliver Seely wrote:
>
> Yes indeed, Keith. The memory wafts away in little bits, doesn't it. Your post offered an abrupt reminder that we later had 9-track magnetic tape units, but that the paper tape was indeed 8-track.
>
> Oliver
>
>> From: keith.bowen@-----.com
>> To: klarinet@-----.com
>> Date: Thu, 2 Feb 2012 15:58:17 +0000
>> Subject: Re: [kl] IBM 1620
>>
>> 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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>>>
>>>
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>>
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>
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--

Diego Casadei
__________________________________________________________
Physics Department, CERN
New York University bld. 32, S-A19
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