Xref: utzoo comp.misc:5123 rec.humor.d:1636 rec.humor:18914
Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!wasatch!cs.utexas.edu!rutgers!njin!princeton!phoenix!pucc!BVAUGHAN
From: BVAUGHAN@pucc.Princeton.EDU (Barbara Vaughan)
Newsgroups: comp.misc,rec.humor.d,rec.humor
Subject: Re: Looking for Computer Folklore
Message-ID: <7188@pucc.Princeton.EDU>
Date: 14 Feb 89 17:11:22 GMT
References: <7143@pyr.gatech.EDU> <532@geovision.UUCP> <768@ur-cc.UUCP> <7136@pucc.Princeton.EDU> <293@cosi.UUCP>
Reply-To: BVAUGHAN@pucc.Princeton.EDU
Organization: Princeton University, NJ
Lines: 33
Disclaimer: Author bears full responsibility for contents of this article

>] >>I had to
>] >>write a routine to read all keyboard input as characters.
>] >>to numbers, and add a friendly message to explain what a number was.
>] >
>] >Even if you're not dealing with "MBA types", you should always do this
>] >in any serious program.
>] >
>]  This was the early 1970's... most input was still on punched cards.
>]  My program was pretty advanced for its time. (paraphrase)
>
>Well, how did the non-numeric field ever get past the program on the
>keypunch drum card???   (-:
I said  most input was still on punched cards. My task was to add a
interface to an existing FORTRAN program so that it could be run by
non-computer professionals on paleolithic terminals. If I remember
correctly, we had two types: The old noisy teletype things that printed
on what looked like a roll of bad paper towels, and the portable
TI terminals that printed on heat-sensitive paper and had a telephone
coupler. There were no screens then. I worked for a large management
consulting firm. The program I was modifying was used by local offices
throughout the U.S. People used to fill out a keypunch form and mail it
to the New York office, where we would keypunch it, run the program
and mail back the output. My user interface allowed them to dial the
New York number of a time-sharing vendor (another idea in its infancy
then), log into our account, answer the questions posed by the user
interface, and get the results typed out immediately on their paper
towel or whatever. This was considered truly revolutionary and
impressed the clients no end.
This is beside the point, but the time-sharing vendor used to print
log-on messages; at least twice a week they would have a message that
began:"Attention London users:". I was convinced that these were
phony messages to impress on their other users that they had a London
office.