Ferrari Mailing List: Re: Apple, Android, and watches...Oh my!

[Rick Lindsay (richardolindsay]

Doug wrote,

> Fortran?  The bane of my early existence - - -
> “Rest of Control Cards ignored.” 
> The IBM typewriteh would peck out.
> Alas
> DOUG

Yep. Good old fortran. Handles big arrays really well. Seriously optimized compilers too.

Lots of old school computer science. Remember making a diagonal line across the top edge of your punch card deck so if you dropped it you could easily (Ha!) re-sort the deck? 

We punched card decks on the IBM 360, then 370, then 3090. Those decks were converted to punch tape. No kidding, we really did, because we did initial processing on a Phoenix-Apollo computer (left over from NASA). That was the computer of choice because it was simple, and took its instruction from paper tape. We got 9-track round reels from the field, in terrible conditions. They were dirty, broken reels, and even contained staples where the tape had broken!!! Couldn't read them on the IBM mainframe, (1) because the operators wouldn't allow them on their drives, and (2) because at the first bad read, the system would ABEND! Now there's a word you haven't heard lately: ABEND (IBM-speak for ABnormalEND). The old P-A would stop when it found a bad read...or a staple...then the operator would advance the tape manually past the damage, and hit 'run'. The dumb old P-A woukd just keep going. Beautiful old machines.

> Acoustic?  Really?

Yes, multi-channel marine seismic data. 5-100 Hz., typically.

-rick

Happy Connecting. Sent from my Sprint Samsung Galaxy S® 5