fortran programmers and scammers - what have they in common?

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Posted: Tue Apr 21, 2009 2:37 pm

apparently, they are the only people on the planet who use the capslock key!
according to this article anyway - http://www.engadget.com/2006/08/17/the-war-against-the-caps-lock-key-is-on/

Quote:

We've seen our fair share of battles in the consumer electronics industry, but this war is distinctly different than those waged in courtrooms or even conference centers, as the focal point here isn't a person, company, or even an entity. Pieter Hintjens is rounding up his troops in order to bring about a change that's most improbable: to have the Caps Lock key retired, permanently. Although some of you may chuckle at the idea and deem it unworthy of such an effort, we can imagine Pieter isn't alone in his disdain for the awkward key. Judging solely by the rate at which fellow petitioners are claiming their allegiance on the CAPSoff website, there are indeed an army of haters gaining strength. The group's mission is to awaken the public and get them to seriously think about the precious keyboard real estate that is so unfairly utilized by the (nearly) worthless uppercasing shortcut. Hintjens is a man on a mission, but he's keeping a cool head, and by offering up alternatives that could hopefully appease both camps, some sort of resolution can presumably be found; he has suggested that Caps Lock be relocated beside Scroll Lock, so that Fortran programmers (about the only folks on the planet aside from Nigerian email scammers who use this key with any frequency) can still have access to quick uppercasing. Now that you've been briefed, and you're fully aware of what's at stake, there's really only one question that remains: will you just sit around and gawk, or will you fight for CAPSoff?

Posted: Tue Apr 21, 2009 2:43 pm

We did have a baiter here once who had lived in West Africa and who said that Caps Lock triggered keyboards between Arabic charachters and Roman charachters so that might account for the prevalence of emails in capitals, certainly from the mainly Muslim north of Nigeria.

And I am old enough to remember coding in Fortran 77 when I was at university Embarassed

Posted: Tue Apr 21, 2009 2:49 pm

and I had actually started my programming career in 1977 Embarassed

Posted: Tue Apr 21, 2009 5:09 pm

Ah, yes. Those lovely stacks of punchcards, with the big "EOF" one at the end.

Not quite a Newb Joined: 16 Feb 2009 Posts: 78

Wow - a blast from the past. I remember using punch cards to program an 1130 in FORTRAN. Being elated when you could use an unformated PRINT command.

Youngsters. What do they know...

Posted: Wed Apr 22, 2009 2:54 am

jlc419 wrote:

Wow - a blast from the past. I remember using punch cards to program an 1130 in FORTRAN. Being elated when you could use an unformated PRINT command.

Youngsters. What do they know...

Punch cards? PUNCH CARDS??????

You need to enter your code with paper tape or better yet, console switches, to call yourself an old-timer. Smile

Remember when debugging involved real bugs?

Not quite a Newb Joined: 16 Feb 2009 Posts: 78

(No need to post a full requote of the above post, we can see it there ^^^^^) - JF Wink

Heh. Real oldtimers read badot code from the tape...

Posted: Fri Apr 24, 2009 6:14 pm

1977 Intro to Programming class - We learned two use both punch cards and tape.

I have a pile of old punch cards laying around someplace. I admit I have used it with my kids when they whine about not having the latest and greatest new technology. Like the old..."When I was a kid we walked a mile to school everyday even in the snow"...that my parents used on me.

Not quite a Newb Joined: 16 Feb 2009 Posts: 78

(No need to post a full requote of the above post, we can see it there ^^^^^) - JF Wink

and uphill, both ways, to boot.

I was lucky - we had an 1170 with a card reader. Used tape primarily elsewhere.

Posted: Fri Apr 24, 2009 7:55 pm

jlc419 wrote:

and uphill, both ways, to boot.

Barefoot.... Smile

Posted: Sat Apr 25, 2009 11:27 am

I got really quick with the old hand punch and I had a mate who could read bar codes or so he said Laughing

Posted: Sat Apr 25, 2009 11:52 am

Quote:

You need to enter your code with paper tape or better yet, console switches, to call yourself an old-timer.

Like the red/blue toggles on the Imsai 8080 we had in high school? It was the s**ts when we got a teletype.

Posted: Sat Apr 25, 2009 7:21 pm

Bugs in relays are one thing, I found a mummified mouse in my 1400 Athlon. It had crawled in to escape from the cat, and either as a result of the heat, entrapment or prior injuries, perished and become dessicated by my half-computer-half-storage-heater. I put it on ebay but they pulled the auction, miserable twats.

Posted: Sat Apr 25, 2009 7:44 pm

^^^ what was the bidding up to when they pulled it?

Hello I'm New here! Joined: 22 Apr 2009 Posts: 9

I agree with the sentiments of moving the Caps Lock key, and of their users. But please do not put me and my mugus in the same sentence (I'm a FORTRAN programmer).

And speaking of old languages programming languages, FORTRAN 77 is easy... try 1401 FORTRAN or FORTRAN IV (I wasn't around when FORTRAN was in vogue, but I've taken it as my secondary programming language, mostly in protest to my school's incompetant computer science teachers; take that teacher who can't teach a grade 12 class Java!).

Other then FORTRAN I know some other "out of fashion" languages... like COBOL, PL/1, ADA and PDP-11 assembler (and a teeny bit of PDP-8 assembler)*.

Woot for old comps!

* : I actually own a PDP-11 and a PDP-8. My '11 is a VT-103 (an LSI-11 crammed into a VT-100 case) but with some modifications (like the (relatively) crappy LSI-11 processor replaced with a 23+ board, and a backplane extension cab... plus a menagerie of various third party bits and bobs for the '11 series); my '8 is a relatively normal PDP-8/e (relatively: the comp came from a university, but it has a LORAN style PDP-8 front panel -- meaning it has long boot instructions on it, and the DEC logos and such are made smaller) but it has an ETOS card and a homebrewed 802.11 networking interface (it uses an AUI port as the interface, so currently it has a MAU to a thinnet segment running to my '11 and to an old IBM PC/300GL (nothing special) and then running a small "server" of sorts which is a custom rig); because of the network of old comps and new comps, a friend of mine taped the message "And the 1337 train goes w00t w00t!" to the cabinet of the 8/e.

{{Excuse the rambling.}}

Not quite a Newb Joined: 15 Jan 2006 Posts: 62

I've toggled in a couple of programs... The tech college I went to had a PDP11 with like 16K of core memory - it was a seperate one, not set up the typical big system way. I think it was the boot loader for the paper tape.

Wrote a little FORTRAN in high school. No punch cards, just a printer / keyboard terminal with a 300 baud acoustic coupled modem.

I have an old Ithica Intersystems S-100 computer here.

Posted: Sun Apr 26, 2009 9:47 am

Transverter wrote:

I agree with the sentiments of moving the Caps Lock key, and of their users

i found it while researching sticky keys, as it may be a long while before i can use my left arm again
it sounded like a bizarre suggestion, but after a while it makes sense

Posted: Sun Apr 26, 2009 1:24 pm

Quote:

Woot for old comps!

I read on CNN that Bernie Madoff kept his whole ponzi scheme on an 80's vintage AS/400. He kept it locked in an office on his floor. It's a testament to IBM that it was still running, but I doubt they'll put it in their next ad campaign. Very Happy

Posted: Sun Apr 26, 2009 1:43 pm

^^ R2D2 - about five pounds iirc. Could do with that fiver about now. meh, internets, who'd have it.

G-code for CNC machines is usually written in capslock too, as much to satisfy legacy standards as anything else.

Quote:

(parabola generator, incomplete)
(SET THE VERTEX POINT OF THE PARABOLA AS 0,0,0)
G21 G40 G64
G0 Y5
G0 Z0
G0 X0
G0 Y100
#1=5
M98 P33 L300
M30

O33
#2=[0.0015*#1*#1]
G0 Z#2
G2 X0 i0 j0 F300
G0 Z[#2+10]
G0 Y#1
#1 = [#1+1]
M99

%

For those untutored in the art, this code generates a circular paraboloid. It's incomplete since it simply moves the controlled point around the shape of the required form and takes no allowance of the size of the tool. I'm working on that Wink

usefully, G-code interpreters usually parse nonsense well by ignoring it altogether, and they ignore capitals/lowercase disputes, but it looks much neater in capitals.

Not quite a Newb Joined: 16 Feb 2009 Posts: 78

Transverter wrote:

And speaking of old languages programming languages, FORTRAN 77 is easy... try 1401 FORTRAN or FORTRAN IV (I wasn't around when FORTRAN was in vogue, but I've taken it as my secondary programming language, mostly in protest to my school's incompetant computer science teachers; take that teacher who can't teach a grade 12 class Java!).

I learned to program in Fortran in the days when you had to format output; later used Waterloo's version that had BASIC like Print statements.

Never did COBOL; although it still appears to be an in demand skill simply do to the sheer volume of companies taht rely on programs written in COBOL.

Today, most newbs don't even know what FORTRAN and COBAL stand for, let alone WAT IV or WAT V.

Posted: Sun Apr 26, 2009 11:31 pm

jlc419 wrote:

Wow - a blast from the past. I remember using punch cards to program an 1130 in FORTRAN.

Ahhhh...the memories. I cut my teeth on the 1130 in high school.

You might like this: http://ibm1130.org/

I stumbled on to it one night whilst surfing aimlessly and thoroughly enjoyed the reminder of days gone by.

Regards,

Not quite a Newb Joined: 16 Feb 2009 Posts: 78

Ishkabibble wrote:

jlc419 wrote:

Wow - a blast from the past. I remember using punch cards to program an 1130 in FORTRAN.

Ahhhh...the memories. I cut my teeth on the 1130 in high school.

You might like this: http://ibm1130.org/

I stumbled on to it one night whilst surfing aimlessly and thoroughly enjoyed the reminder of days gone by.

Regards,

Same here. Great site.

Ever switch the parity check and run light covers when the admin wasn't looking?

or run a program that read the following run as data, printed out the program and then random garbage as output?

Ah, the memories...

Posted: Mon Apr 27, 2009 11:58 am

No, never thought of doing that one.

Recall the huge disk packs? I remember learning how to spin them down quicker when patience didn't come in equally large measure - open the door and squeeze the underside of the plastic cover up against the underside of the metal platter. A little oxide scrubbed off and floating around inside something the size of a large pizza was good for it.

I remember carrying around the 16 toggle switch load-and-go instructions for booting the thing when all else failed.

Kids these days - they don't know how good they have it. When WE booted the machine, it broke your toe in return. And we liked it.

Regards,

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