Any Body Else?

[d. wain]

I just found this group. I started with the IBM 360 and had to teach myself
to program in order to get by Ellie "the computer lady" and be able use to
beast to do an item analysis of my examination results. Then TRS-80 and
BASIC, So I have been around puters since 1965. I'll offer help when I can,
but I expect that I will learn more than I contribute. I am so old that I
top post.

Wain

 

[Alex Clayton]

Won't bother me, I have not been able to understand the people who complain
about top posting ever since I found Usenet in the late 90's. Hell if the
poster has something interesting to me to say I could care less if it's top,
bottom, or middle. <G>

 

[Leythos]

Won't bother me, I have not been able to understand the people who complain
about top posting ever since I found Usenet in the late 90's. Hell if the
poster has something interesting to me to say I could care less if it's top,
bottom, or middle. <G>

Having been on Usenet since 84, I've always bottom posted or posted in-
between while snipping the parts that didn't matter.

In the old days Usenet wasn't reliable and posts could/would expire
before people got to read all of them in a thread, so it was common
place to quote the part you were replying to (at the top) so the readers
could read what you were replying to BEFORE they read your reply.

What bothers me is the people that don't snip and add just a little to
the END of a large post, so that you have 80 lines of quoted text to 1
line of reply.

 

[Allen]

Hi, Gadfly.

Yes, I found this newsgroup a few days ago. I see only one message
besides your latest (dated today, 10/17/09). That other one was dated
9/19/09 and was a Reply to one in July. My Sync setting in WLM is "All
messages".

Looks like it's just you and me, kid. :^{

RC

It looks like several hundred people have found it so far, but happily
that doesn't seem to include the nuts and creeps who have taken over so
many of the ngs. I found it only yesterday, and already I have gotten an
answer to a question. Thanks again, RC; I now remember that I had bought
one of the RK books--for Win 98, used at Half price books, just before
Release 2, after which I didn't need it any more.
Allen

 

[Richard Crowley]

It looks like several hundred people have found it so far,

So far? I count ~75 different users in the last 10 days.
This newsgroup has been around for several years.

 

[Allen]

I just found this group. I started with the IBM 360 and had to teach
myself to program in order to get by Ellie "the computer lady" and be
able use to beast to do an item analysis of my examination results. Then
TRS-80 and BASIC, So I have been around puters since 1965. I'll offer
help when I can, but I expect that I will learn more than I contribute.
I am so old that I top post.

Wain

Hey, kid, I started eleven years before you, on an analog computer with
1500 dual and triple purpose vacuum tubes. It was a fire control
computer for the Nike surface-to-air missile. I was stationed just west
of Pittsburgh and with four feet of snow on the ground we had to run a
huge air conditioner 24 hours a day or the computer would convert itself
to a pizza oven. Digital was way too big and way, way too slow to use
back then. The computer received info from a target tracking radar and
converted it into data for a missile tracking radar and detonated at
the proper distance from the target. A strange thing that you find in
the army: we had three technicians who had spent 54 weeks each learning
how to service the things, but they were specifically _not_ authorized
to make a soldered connection. They were supposed to take anything that
needed soldering to a ordnance depot, where any of several part-time
high school students would do the "highly technical" work. I had built
all sorts of audio equipment and when they found that out, and that no
one had ever told me that I was not authorized, my job expanded. Crazy
army. Anyway later on I got involved with an IBM 1401, IBM 360 and its
successors, various minis (my favorite was the IBM Series 1) and micros.
I've forgotten how many languages I knew (and I hated COBOL).
Allen

 

[Jack Gillis]

Hey, kid, I started eleven years before you, on an analog computer with
1500 dual and triple purpose vacuum tubes. It was a fire control computer
for the Nike surface-to-air missile. I was stationed just west of
Pittsburgh and with four feet of snow on the ground we had to run a huge
air conditioner 24 hours a day or the computer would convert itself to a
pizza oven. Digital was way too big and way, way too slow to use back
then. The computer received info from a target tracking radar and
converted it into data for a missile tracking radar and detonated at the
proper distance from the target.

That distance, as I recall, was set by the Burst Time Bias. Do you remember
those whirly gigs called Zero Set switches? Those were the days.

I was at the 75th Battalion near Waldorf, Md.

 

[Trevor]

Hi Children

That distance, as I recall, was set by the Burst Time Bias. Do you
remember those whirly gigs called Zero Set switches? Those were the days.

I was at the 75th Battalion near Waldorf, Md.

I beat you all, I worked on Stonehenge as it was built

 

[Dabbler]

Hey, kid, I started eleven years before you, on an analog computer
with 1500 dual and triple purpose vacuum tubes. It was a fire control
computer for the Nike surface-to-air missile. I was stationed just
west of Pittsburgh and with four feet of snow on the ground we had to
run a huge air conditioner 24 hours a day or the computer would
convert itself to a pizza oven. Digital was way too big and way, way
too slow to use back then. The computer received info from a target
tracking radar and converted it into data for a missile tracking radar
and detonated at the proper distance from the target. A strange thing
that you find in the army: we had three technicians who had spent 54
weeks each learning how to service the things, but they were
specifically _not_ authorized to make a soldered connection. They were
supposed to take anything that needed soldering to a ordnance depot,
where any of several part-time high school students would do the
"highly technical" work. I had built all sorts of audio equipment and
when they found that out, and that no one had ever told me that I was
not authorized, my job expanded. Crazy army. Anyway later on I got
involved with an IBM 1401, IBM 360 and its successors, various minis
(my favorite was the IBM Series 1) and micros.
I've forgotten how many languages I knew (and I hated COBOL).

Don't you get annoyed by those young sales guys in computer stores who
try to help you with that certain downtalking way? I like to watch their
faces when I ask a highly technical question that they have no clue
about. It usually works to make them leave me alone. ;-)

 

[Allen]

That distance, as I recall, was set by the Burst Time Bias. Do you
remember those whirly gigs called Zero Set switches? Those were the days.

I was at the 75th Battalion near Waldorf, Md.

Those must have been in the launcher section, and I never even saw our
launcher area. I had good friends in it because we had all trained
together at Ft Bliss and we all shared the same barracks in Pittsburgh.
I was in the control area (forgot its official name) where I drew the
enviable job of managing the supply van (because I had a portable
typewriter), which exempt me from KP and other chores. Since the North
Koreans never got near our main activity was volleyball, which I had
never played, but I loved it, bad as I was. When I heard that's where
our package was going I envisioned smoke everywhere, but when we got
there they were well into a huge cleanup project and what I saw was a
shiny, clean place set in the middle of beautiful country.
Allen

 

[Jack Gillis]

Those must have been in the launcher section, and I never even saw our
launcher area. I had good friends in it because we had all trained
together at Ft Bliss and we all shared the same barracks in Pittsburgh. I
was in the control area (forgot its official name) where I drew the
enviable job of managing the supply van (because I had a portable
typewriter), which exempt me from KP and other chores. Since the North
Koreans never got near our main activity was volleyball, which I had never
played, but I loved it, bad as I was. When I heard that's where our
package was going I envisioned smoke everywhere, but when we got there
they were well into a huge cleanup project and what I saw was a shiny,
clean place set in the middle of beautiful country.
Allen

No, they were on the computer in the Fire Control Van. The Burst Time Bias
was the upper left knob right next to the Parallax Settings and the Zero Set
switches were in the far left cabinet. The potentiometers were in the
center cabinet.

What package were you? I was in 16 (1954) originally destined for Pittsburgh
but wound up in Waldorf. My favorite memories are the 6 weeks we spent up
at Red Canyon before training. Don't ask me how that happened. We finally
fired in September and went back two times afterwards to show the new troops
how it could be done. I'll never forget getting off the plane in Roswell
before dawn with a load of draftees out of Brooklyn and watching their
expressions as they got there first glimpse of the West.

I wouldn't mind continuing this conversation by email. You are the first
person I have run across since then that served in Nike battery. We would
take up too much time and space here in this NG.

 

[Allen]

I wouldn't mind continuing this conversation by email. You are the first
person I have run across since then that served in Nike battery. We would
take up too much time and space here in this NG.

I'm at (e-mail address removed). Let me know your email and I'll contact you
privately. And I was in package 23.
Allen

 

[Allen]

No, they were on the computer in the Fire Control Van. The Burst Time
Bias
was the upper left knob right next to the Parallax Settings and the Zero
Set
switches were in the far left cabinet. The potentiometers were in the
center cabinet.

What package were you? I was in 16 (1954) originally destined for
Pittsburgh
but wound up in Waldorf. My favorite memories are the 6 weeks we spent up
at Red Canyon before training. Don't ask me how that happened. We finally
fired in September and went back two times afterwards to show the new
troops
how it could be done. I'll never forget getting off the plane in Roswell
before dawn with a load of draftees out of Brooklyn and watching their
expressions as they got there first glimpse of the West.

I wouldn't mind continuing this conversation by email. You are the first
person I have run across since then that served in Nike battery. We would
take up too much time and space here in this NG.

 

[Mac G]

I just found this group. I started with the IBM 360 and had to teach myself
to program in order to get by Ellie "the computer lady" and be able use to
beast to do an item analysis of my examination results. Then TRS-80 and
BASIC, So I have been around puters since 1965. I'll offer help when I can,
but I expect that I will learn more than I contribute. I am so old that I
top post.

Hello.
I started with the IBM 1401 in '63, then on to the IBM 360 in '65.
The rest is a long story.
IMO top posting is the way to go.

 

[Mac G]

Anyway later on I got involved with an IBM 1401, IBM 360 and its
successors, various minis (my favorite was the IBM Series 1) and micros.
I've forgotten how many languages I knew (and I hated COBOL).

I must have beaten you to digital computers.
My first was the Buroughs E101 in '58.

Cobol was a bit rigid, not my first choice, but very good to organize a
programs parts.

 

[Dabbler]

I must have beaten you to digital computers.
My first was the Buroughs E101 in '58.

Cobol was a bit rigid, not my first choice, but very good to organize
a
programs parts.

I used to program Burroughs computers in the early '70's when they were
popular in the banking industry. I actually liked them, especially the
B-3500. It had the easiest assembly language I ever encountered and
after a short time I could almost figure out what Cobol instruction
generates what assembly code, mostly because their assembly language was
based on binary-coded decimal (BCD) system instead of pure binary. Then
I had to learn to program and operate a much more ancient computer used
at a bank to read magnetic ink encoded checks and sort them (reader
sorters.) The machine code on that computer had to be loaded in punched
cards and you had to push some buttons on its panel to give it the
starting instruction address as well. It's amazing how much work could
actually be done with such primitive computers at the time.

 

[Allen]

I must have beaten you to digital computers.
My first was the Buroughs E101 in '58.

Cobol was a bit rigid, not my first choice, but very good to organize a
programs parts.

My problem with COBOL (D was the only version I ever used) was its sheer
wordiness. Things like "USAGE IS COMPUTATIONAL 3" that in 360-370
assembler could be expressed in two characters. I wasn't officially a
programmer or even in our data processing department but I learned a lot
about programming. The bank I worked for knew I was tri-lingual (spoke
computer, banker and English) and they sent me to a 10-week IBM class
titled "Fundamentals of Systems Science", where I learned 360/370
assembler, COBOL D, Fortran, even RPG2, and my favorite, PL/1, which was
a great language but such a resource hog that few sites could handle it.
One of its charms was that it was free-form. One of our assignments was
to write a program to calculate the present value of the $24 the Indians
were paid for Manhattan at a 6% annual compounding rate. The exercise
was to write it as concisely as possible--most of the people in my class
did it in 41 columns on one punchcard. I don't know how many keystrokes
and cards it would have required in COBOL. My mainframe programming was
limited to cases where our programming department wouldn't write
something I needed--I used COBOL in those cases to eat up as many
resources as possible and shame them into doing it right. Several times
I had to explain to them that they were the bank's programming
department, not that the bank wasn't a department of Programming.
Actually, just about every programmer was a good friend because they
also didn't like their management. To continue with the wordiness, in a
meeting to talk about a request, the programming manager said "We can't
do that" once too many times. I asked "What do you mean by you can't do
it? Is it an illogical request? Not enough resources? then a few other
things, then "Or you just don't want to do it?" He never again said "we
can't" without explaining. More than ten years later, after we had
merged and some of our people who had been transferred to branches in
other cities were calling asking me what the ten questions I had asked
were.
Allen