Curmudgeoning (was Re: [CentOS] Problems with writing Dual Layer DVD)

[William L. Maltby]

On Thu, 2008-08-28 at 12:17 -0500, David Dyer-Bennet wrote:
> On Wed, August 27, 2008 14:19, William L. Maltby wrote:
> >
> ><snip>

>  On Wed, 2008-08-27 at 20:13 +0200, Chris Geldenhuis wrote:
> 
> >>  From reading your many and interesting posts to this list I realize
> >> that we must be contemporaries (possibly I started programming before
> >> you - circa 1963 on a ICL1500 aka RCA 301 in assembler or directly
> >> punching machine code into punch cards).
> >
> > Yep. I had my 1st professional job in 1969. I was in the "modern" age,
> > S360 stuff was the equipment then. The punch cards were still there,
> > made on 026 and 029 card punches and read by MFCMs to load programs into
> > IBM's DOS.
> >
> > I guess we're both old enough to fill in for JP when the resident
> > curmudgeon is not on-list.  ;-)
> 
> You can list me as a backup curmudgeon as well :-).

If this keeps up, we'll outnumber the "squirts"... uh-oh! We'll incur
the "Wrath of Khan" from regular list denizans too! >:-O

> 
> Started being paid to write software in 1969, for an IBM 1401.  026 and
> 029 card punches for me, too; I preferred the keyboard touch on the 026 by
> quite a lot.  14" five platter removable pack disk drives that
> stored...around 1.5MB if I'm remembering right (can't seem to find the
> info online quickly, either; might be as high as 2MB).

7204 is a number stuck in my mind. Size? Model? Oh well, really puny,
regardless.

> 
> I don't think I still remember much about how to make drum cards, though. 
> I *do* have some cards from back then out near my computer at home; found
> them cleaning out some stuff, and could quite bear to just dump them, so
> they're kicking around.

It took a long time, but a few years ago I ditched the last of the punch
cards I used to keep around just to show to younger folks. They hadn't
even heard the term "Hollarith Code" apparently.

-- 
Bill