From hnsngr@sirius.com Thu Feb 8 16:11:25 CST 1996 Article: 131921 of alt.folklore.computers Xref: uchinews alt.folklore.computers:131921 Path: uchinews!gw2.att.com!news.midplains.net!chi-news.cic.net!newsfeed.internetmci.com!in1.uu.net!sun.sirius.com!ppp176-sf2.sirius.com!user From: hnsngr@sirius.com (Ron Hunsinger) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: The first machine you learn to hate? Date: Tue, 06 Feb 1996 00:46:23 -0800 Organization: ErsteSoft Lines: 35 Message-ID: References: <4elfmt$75f@dot.cstone.net> <4emgji$ppe@news.mr.net> <4erdvq$r5d@cloud9.net> <4etco7$6jj@server05.icaen.uiowa.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: ppp176-sf2.sirius.com X-Newsreader: Yet Another NewsWatcher 2.0b27.4 Status: R In article , noko@clinet.fi wrote: > All I can remember about HP2000 and roomfull of ASR33s (in 1973) was > how baffled I was. I could not believe that there was actually A > Machine doing the Basic-interpretation. I was sure that this was sort > of academic test for newcomers, like how gullible the stupid ones > really are. It's easy to misinterpret new sensory data. When I first walked into that IBM 1620 computer room, while I was standing there looking at everything in amazement, there was a guy running a deck of cards through the card reader. Suddenly, one card went into the second stacker, and the machine stopped. I thought "Aha! It found the card he was looking for. But why does he seem unhappy? Did it find the wrong card?" Later, I learned about read checks. He was unhappy because the card reader misread one of his cards, and he had to clear the card reader and run the card through again. It was the TV show "$64,000 Question" that had led me astray on that one. They made a big show of using a simple card sorter to "select" the next question "by computer", and in my innocence I couldn't tell the difference between the reader/punch and a card sorter. Later that day, when I submitted my first program to the FORGO (FORtran-to-GO) compiler, I had my back to the typewriter when it started typing. I turned around to see that it had typed PROGRAM. Then, after a brief hesitation, it continued: NOT ACCEPTED. I thought "How nice. It took the time to double-check." Later, when I could read assembler and got hold of the listing for FORGO, I found that the pause was put in there on purpose, with a simple count-to-1000 loop. If the program had no errors, it would type PROGRAM ACCEPTED, with no delay. -Ron Hunsinger