Klarinet Archive - Posting 000052.txt from 2012/02

From: dgilbert <dgilbert@-----.com>
Subj: Re: [kl] IBM 1620
Date: Thu, 02 Feb 2012 14:30:04 -0500

Frieden calculators anyone?

On Feb 2, 2012, at 10:56 AM, Oliver Seely wrote:

>
> 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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