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From: Thomas Koenig <tkoenig@netcologne.de>
Newsgroups: comp.arch
Subject: Re: ALTER, ASSIGN and labels-as-values (was: Unicode in strings)
Date: Tue, 28 May 2024 18:38:44 -0000 (UTC)
Organization: A noiseless patient Spider
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Stephen Fuld <SFuld@alumni.cmu.edu.invalid> schrieb:
> Thomas Koenig wrote:
>
>> Stephen Fuld <SFuld@alumni.cmu.edu.invalid> schrieb:
>> > Scott Lurndal wrote:
>> > 
>> >> "Stephen Fuld" <SFuld@alumni.cmu.edu.invalid> writes:
>> >> > John Levine wrote:
>> >> > 
>> >> >> According to Stephen Fuld <SFuld@alumni.cmu.edu.invalid>:
>> >> >> > As I said before, you could easily scan the source code and
>> find >> all >> > the ALTER statements ...
>> >> >> 
>> >> >> Hm, I'm guessing you've never dropped a box containing 2000
>> source >> >> cards.
>> >> > 
>> >> > 
>> >> > I have (remember using a marker to put a diagonal line across the
>> >> > top of the deck to make it easier to spot an out of order card?
>> >> > :-(.  But that isn't the point.  When I said scan, I was
>> referring >> > to the paper listings that, in the day, were easily
>> available.  >> 
>> >> We always used the sequence number field with COBOL, so the
>> >> deck could be sorted using a card sorter if dropped.
>> > 
>> > Good point.  I had forgotten about that.
>> 
>> The ISPF editor used to add these automagically, without them being
>> visible, for FB80 files.
>> 
>> Worked great the first time I tried to run LaTeX, which was on a
>> mainframe... I could not make heads or tails of the error messages.
>
>
> See what problems you get when you use that newfangled technology!
>:-)
>
> *Real* programmers used actual punched cards!  :-)

Never had the chance, they were discontinued before I started
doing things on a mainframe.

But the mainframe was cool, mainly because it had a laser printer
and could do 300 dpi black/white output.  That was a revelation at
a time when the best I had seen so far were dot matrix printers.

There was even a graphics terminal which could actually display
LaTeX output before printing, and you didn't even have to wait
to pick up the printout.  That was extra cool, but burnt up the
allotted CPU time of a free student account faster than anything.

Before long, I got an account on UNIX workstations and never
looked back (except for using the vector computer, which also
ran a MVS variant).