TMG-L Archives
Archiver > TMG > 2004-01 > 1072978227
From: "Ronald J. Emery" <>
Subject: Re: [TMG] Re: Problem 3: corrupted pdf file for Individual detail report of whole project
Date: Thu, 1 Jan 2004 12:30:30 -0500
References: <CLEDKMONADFEACGECFGJMEMBEAAA.lorna.henderson@paradise.net.nz>
Lorna & Walt,
You have brought back old memories.
The first computer I ever programmed was the IBM 650 computer which we
installed while waiting for the UNIVAC II computer to arrive. It was 1957.
The program was on a deck of punched cards, each card containing one
"instruction" and the "word" in memory that that instruction was to be
stored.
When the big machine arrived, we went off to progam it and one of our
replacements was a keen young fellow who thought that we had been pretty
sloppy and who decided that he was going to document things properly.
So he took each program deck of punched cards, sorted them in order of
memory location, produced a printout of the program and made a file folder
for each program. You had to admit, it was pretty.
But what the poor fellow hadn't realized was that when we were debugging
these programs and found an error, we had simply punched up a new card for
that address and placed it at the back of the deck. So there were multiple
cards aimed at the same address but the last card read in would replace
anything that was there before.
These multiple cards of course ended up in random order after his sort of
the program deck. All of a sudden none of the programs worked. We were
called back to fix up the mess, and we did. But I don't think I ever lost my
disdain for documentation.
It effects me to this day, with my use of TMG.
Happy New Year to all
Ron Emery,
Willowdale ON Canada
----- Original Message -----
From: "Lorna McIntosh" <>
To: <>
Sent: Thursday, January 01, 2004 6:11 AM
Subject: RE: [TMG] Re: Problem 3: corrupted pdf file for Individual detail
report of whole project
> Walt,
> It's a wonder they didn't drop the cards on the floor to shuffle them at
the
> same time - I sometimes thought it might make a better program<g>
> And did you ever have to carefully replace punched out by mistake chads?
> (Yes - you've guessed it, I started out as a Fortran programmer with decks
> of cards)
>
> Lorna McIntosh
> Waikanae, NZ
> Family Tree on web at
> http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~hendersonandandrews/
> Rootsweb (http://wc.rootsweb.com) Jump to database LornaHenderson
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Walt [mailto:]
> Sent: Thursday, 1 January 2004 3:39 p.m.
> To:
> Subject: Re: [TMG] Re: Problem 3: corrupted pdf file for Individual detail
> report of whole project
>
> At 09:11 PM 31/12/2003, Lee Hoffman wrote:
> <snip>
> >"Cut the project in half"? Literally or figuratively ..
> <snip>
>
>
> Lee
>
> I was called in to consult for IBM on some FORTRAN programs which were
> literally "cut in half". Right through the middle of DO LOOPS, they cut.
> Just took half of a deck of program cards, then put the necessary control
> cards around them.
>
> That was the damnedest mess I ever did see. For some reason they were
> running behind schedule on the project. <grin>
>
> Walt
>
>
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