I'll look around for it. I never throw things away... but others do.

 

I only learned the C & D scales (can’t remember precisely anymore ). I was happy to replace it with my HP calculator that performed four functions plus sq. roots. WhooHoo!

gary

 

Fun thread. Think I'll start another next week.

The poem is, as gary sort of indicated, about keypunching data and/or programs from handwriting on data forms or program forms. You always slashed your zeros, put a horizontal bar across your Z's, made sure your S's were curvy and the top part of your fives was not, etc.

My first program language (other than Fortran and a little BAL in the military and later in school) was RPGII. If you worked on a system from IBM GSD you wrote in RPGII. System/3, System/32, System/34, System/38. Of course the mainframe boys didn't think much of our little GSD machines but they, and other mini-computers, were the first wave of "distributed processing", pushing computing power closer to the end user in large organizations and providing first-time data processing capability to smaller businesses. Who else worked on DEC PDP-11s and VAX's, Data General Nova's and Eclipse's, HP 1000s, IBM System 3x's and AS/400s, Wang 2200s and VSs or mini-computer systems from PR1ME, CDC, Burroughs, and Honneywell?

 

Worked on PDP-8, PDO-11, VAX 850, AS/400, DEC Windows Servers, Wang word processors, AT&T 8086 machines, Novell dedicated servers, Banyan Vines Servers with Street-Talk, Programed in Assembler, WhiteSmith C for IBM 360s, Fortran, JPL, RPGII, Pascal, AT&T C, and a bunch of other obscure languages.

 

I still have three of them. A linear bamboo, a linear aluminum and a circular aluminum. And I can still remember how to use them!

 

Circular slide rules are really cool.

kgf, did you ever work FOR Wang? I mean not many people ever worked with Wang word processing systems except users and Wang employees. And Banyan Vines was the NOS that Wang eventually went with as an 802.3 alternative to "WangNet" broadband.

 

I had a job supporting a business with a TON of Wang word processors (Wang OIS). They were moving to WordStar very slowly so I got to support (ancient, well they seemed that way at the time) Wang word processing terminals, rip large cables out of the ceiling and install IBM PC2 computers with a single 360k floppy all connected to a Novell Netware 86 server. That was a huge leap forward at the time. The network ran on IBM Baseband cards, and compared to today, was slower than "sneaker net". At the time, that was amazing technology.

 

I don't suppose they were running those IBM PCs on Token Ring? Slower than Ethernet but at least there were no retransmits after packet collisions. That was IBMs big selling point but frankly 4 Mb/Sec is 4 MB/Sec no matter how you slice it.

I also worked with OIS systems but mostly with the VS and 2200 lines of minicomputers. The OIS was old tech as soon as the first MS-DOS (or PC-DOS for IBM'ers) hit the market. But it was revolutionary when it came out. Especially in terms of ease-of-use. I remember the first daisy-wheel printers that supported variable pitch fonts. Your documents could look almost like they came from a type-setter.

 

I don't suppose they were running those IBM PCs on Token Ring? Slower than Ethernet but at least there were no retransmits after packet collisions. That was IBMs big selling point but frankly 4 Mb/Sec is 4 MB/Sec no matter how you slice it.

I also worked with OIS systems but mostly with the VS and 2200 lines of minicomputers. The OIS was old tech as soon as the first MS-DOS (or PC-DOS for IBM'ers) hit the market. But it was revolutionary when it came out. Especially in terms of ease-of-use. I remember the first daisy-wheel printers that supported variable pitch fonts. Your documents could look almost like they came from a type-setter.
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Nope, not Token but I did have a bunch of government clients who did use it. Actually, if they transmit speed had been faster, Token would have beaten Ethernet. The biggest pain was that Ring configuration (well, that and the addressing scheme too).

 

Back when I did some programming for a local bank, their Token Ring network was so badly set up that it took more time to copy a 1.44MB floppy to a server across Public Square than it took to walk it over there yourself. I actually tried it, and was back at my desk before the copy completed. Definitely left a bad taste in my mouth for Token Ring. I think the ring kept falling out somewhere, leading to massive retries.

Someone there told me that, electronically, the Seattle branch of the bank was closer to the Cleveland office than the building across the Square. I believe it.