Memory suggested and this confirms https://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/historydisplays/FirstFloor/IBM1620/IBM1620Mai= n.php that a 1620 was THE Auckland University computer 'back then'. All this definitely falls in the 'uphill both ways, in the snow, no shoes (or feet), bottom of a lake cardboard box (or none)' class. My recollections are that it operated in BCD rather than binary (which allowed eg accounting software to return exact calculations rather than binary approximations where the cents got munged) (and yes, you can of course also do that on a binary machine) and that the Fortran compiler was two pass, the second part needing to be loaded when the first had run, there not being enough memory in the machine to load the whole compiler at once. Having to punch cards to run your programs and then submit cards decks was bad enough. However, on graduation I moved to Hamilton 70 miles South of Auckland. The available computer was run by "The Ministry of Works' and located 400 miles south in Wellington. We had neither terminal nor card-punch nor any other sign of higher tech. We would fill in squares on a coding sheet. These were couriered daily across town to the local MOW office. There they were punched to card by operators, the cards read locally by a card-reader to feed said computer 400 miles away. Printouts were sent to us "soon after". I'm not sure now (42 years ago) how long it took all up but I think "some days". One tried very hard ot get programs 'right first time'. Russell On 6 September 2016 at 17:35, John Ferrell wrote: > I am certain you are right. I had no training or experience on either > the 1620 or the 1130. > > > On 9/5/2016 8:53 AM, John J. McDonough wrote: > > On Sun, 2016-09-04 at 21:30 -0400, John Ferrell wrote: > > > >> "1620" > >> Kind of an oddball descendant of the 1130 world. Down right wierd in > >> that it used a table lookup scheme rather than an ALU. > >> Sometimes reffered to as the CADET machine, Can't Add Don't Even Try. > >> > > Somehow I don't think the 1620 was a "descendant" of the 1130 given > > that it was introduced six years earlier. > > > > We had 1620's at school, and they were pretty odd. We learned to > > program them in "NCE Load and Go", kind of a FORTRAN-y language. Later > > we could use the "big" 1620 programmed in Kingston FORTRAN 2. We also > > had a FORTRAN IV compiler, but that was too big and new for students. > > > > --McD > > > > -- > John Ferrell W8CCW > Julian NC 27283 > It is better to walk alone, > than with a crowd going the wrong direction. > --Diane Grant > > > -- > http://www.piclist.com/techref/piclist PIC/SX FAQ & list archive > View/change your membership options at > http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/piclist > --=20 http://www.piclist.com/techref/piclist PIC/SX FAQ & list archive View/change your membership options at http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/piclist .