I was a member of the Wellington Computer Club (I think that was its name) = in the early 1980s, and we had a visit to the computer centre at Victoria U= niversity one evening, arranged by a couple of members who worked there. T= hey had a Burroughs machine of some vintage, and when time came to replace = it, they chose an IBM (don't remember the model). But what I do remember is= these guys who ran it telling us they deliberately chose an OS that made i= t hard to use the card reader system, to force everyone to get their card d= ecks onto take which had a lot less handling difficulties. If you were a stick-in-the-mud that insisted on using cards you had to put = up with the operational difficulties in loading them onto the machine. At the same time as installing the IBM they refurbished the computer room, = and they also had this tale of getting the computer to generate a random pa= ttern for the coloured floor tiles, which was duly printed out and given to= the contractors dealing with replacing the tiles. The member said he had v= isions of the tilers wandering around double and triple checking that they = had the layout right ... ;) > -----Original Message----- > From: piclist-bounces@mit.edu [mailto:piclist-bounces@mit.edu] On Behalf > Of RussellMc > Sent: 06 September 2016 09:14 > To: Microcontroller discussion list - Public. > Subject: Re: [OT] ENIAC >=20 > Memory suggested and this confirms >=20 >=20 > https://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/historydisplays/FirstFloor/IBM1620/IBM1620 > Main.php >=20 > that a 1620 was THE Auckland University computer 'back then'. >=20 > All this definitely falls in the 'uphill both ways, in the snow, no shoe= s (or > feet), bottom of a lake cardboard box (or none)' class. >=20 > 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 wa= s > two pass, the second part needing to be loaded when the first had run, th= ere > not being enough memory in the machine to load the whole compiler at > once. >=20 > Having to punch cards to run your programs and then submit cards decks wa= s > bad enough. >=20 > 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 ac= ross > 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 "som= e > days". >=20 > One tried very hard ot get programs 'right first time'. >=20 >=20 > Russell >=20 >=20 > On 6 September 2016 at 17:35, John Ferrell wrot= e: >=20 > > 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 > > > -- > 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 .