20 Questions

[witpqs]

As an operator on mainframes back in the 70's it was always entertaining to watch the newly hired programmers' first efforts fail as they tried to write to a card reader.

[Yes, ones you could write to existed, but they were long out of favor to disk packs and tapes and we sure didn't have any.]

PS: The more stubborn ones had to be shown the reader and its workings in detail - cover up, tour of path of cards, light sensors, etc. "See, no card punching mechanism, just reading."

[tocaff]

I believe that remark belonged to the '60s.  [8D]

Was it Dr Hook who sang the song "I Got Stoned And I Missed It"?

[witpqs]

It was the 70's, which is why card writers were long out of favor. I'm sure they had old textbooks or used older computers at school. New computers didn't exactly grow on trees back then!

[jwilkerson]

ORIGINAL: witpqs

It was the 70's, which is why card writers were long out of favor. I'm sure they had old textbooks or used older computers at school. New computers didn't exactly grow on trees back then!

I used key punch machines (what you guys are calling "card writers") up until 1980 (in the US Army BTW). We had to create the code and data for the "card readers" somehow - and we did it using "key punch" machines!

I first used a "CRT" in 1973, so the two technologies lived side by side for most of the decade, but cards were still used for code/data IO as late as 1980.

[NormS3]

ORIGINAL: witpqs

It keeps getting pushed back because they're all too busy volunteering to save kittens:

As my father has told me every day of my life, "cats and kids suck"

So I need more incentive, [:D]

Kill away![8D]

[JWE]

ORIGINAL: jwilkerson
I used key punch machines (what you guys are calling "card writers") up until 1980 (in the US Army BTW). We had to create the code and data for the "card readers" somehow - and we did it using "key punch" machines!

I first used a "CRT" in 1973, so the two technologies lived side by side for most of the decade, but cards were still used for code/data IO as late as 1980.

Remember, at school, carrying around that brown oblong 'card box' on top of my books. Didn't even call it a program back then, it was a 'deck'. Remember, too, the day we got our first Beehive terminal, so we could type input to the mainframe at Dartmouth. Woof.

[witpqs]

ORIGINAL: jwilkerson

ORIGINAL: witpqs

It was the 70's, which is why card writers were long out of favor. I'm sure they had old textbooks or used older computers at school. New computers didn't exactly grow on trees back then!

I used key punch machines (what you guys are calling "card writers") up until 1980 (in the US Army BTW). We had to create the code and data for the "card readers" somehow - and we did it using "key punch" machines!

I first used a "CRT" in 1973, so the two technologies lived side by side for most of the decade, but cards were still used for code/data IO as late as 1980.

Yes I used those too, but that's different. They also previously had peripherals hooked up to mainframes that wrote/punched card decks. Card writers!

[Yamato hugger]

ORIGINAL: jwilkerson

ORIGINAL: witpqs

It was the 70's, which is why card writers were long out of favor. I'm sure they had old textbooks or used older computers at school. New computers didn't exactly grow on trees back then!

I used key punch machines (what you guys are calling "card writers") up until 1980 (in the US Army BTW). We had to create the code and data for the "card readers" somehow - and we did it using "key punch" machines!

I first used a "CRT" in 1973, so the two technologies lived side by side for most of the decade, but cards were still used for code/data IO as late as 1980.

Cards dont get wiped out by the magnetic pulse. As long as you can protect them from getting burned up, you can recreate your system from them. Thats likely the reason they were still in use so long. Wouldnt surprise me if somewhere deep in Cheyenne Mountain they had everything on cards. They probably dont, but it wouldnt surprise me if they did.

[OldCoot]

As an operator in the late 60's I worked at a bank in Chicago that had the latest and greatest IBM marvel: A 360 mainframe with an astounding 1MB of memory!

The darn thing with its attendant disk drives, tape drives, printers, etc filled up half of a pretty large computer room. You could run three jobs at once, but in order to do so efficiently, you had to learn an intricate "dance" in order to have the right tapes premounted in the right drive, the right forms in the printers etc.

[JeffroK]

ORIGINAL: jjax

ORIGINAL: Andy Mac

Getting better we have a test in progress now to see how the AI copes with an out of the box move by one of the testers....

So...what would you consider an out of the box move?

Taking Hokkaido in 1943

[JeffroK]

ORIGINAL: RevRick

Move over, squirt. The first computer I worked with in business had a card sorter, fed by some eye-weary young lady with glasses that looked like coke bottles, which fed raw data into tape drives, and printed readouts on page after page after page of multi-copy green and white striped paper that had to be run through a burster. Monitor! We don't need no stinkin' monitor! Of course, I was an infant at that time, but we thought we were positively up town!!!

Worked for a computer pay company in 1979, always in awe of the guys who could read those data cards for errors before putting them into the system.

[Ron Saueracker]

ORIGINAL: JeffK

ORIGINAL: jjax

ORIGINAL: Andy Mac

Getting better we have a test in progress now to see how the AI copes with an out of the box move by one of the testers....

So...what would you consider an out of the box move?

Taking Hokkaido in 1943

Because of a lack of a decent weather model, a player using the Aleutians or Burma bases mount an aerial offensive.

[witpqs]

ORIGINAL: Ron Saueracker

Because of a lack of a decent weather model, a player using the Aleutians or Burma bases mount an aerial offensive.

The emergency is over! Everything is normal. Ron is complaining. [;)] [:D]

[Ron Saueracker]

ORIGINAL: witpqs

ORIGINAL: Ron Saueracker

Because of a lack of a decent weather model, a player using the Aleutians or Burma bases mount an aerial offensive.

The emergency is over! Everything is normal. Ron is complaining. [;)] [:D]

Not really, just an example of weird player moves to pork an AI script..[;)]

[John 3rd]

ORIGINAL: witpqs

It keeps getting pushed back because they're all too busy volunteering to save kittens:

This note and picture made me laugh REALLY hard! I am TRYING to save the kitties...

[kmussler]

My early work was on a "key punch" machine like Joe mentioned. Sounds like the card writer Witpqs mentioned was the next logical step towards monitor and keyboard. Yes, and YH, I do remember efforts to store boxes of cards as a "hardcopy" backup for a program. Wow, this discussion has certainly been a trip in the "way-back machine". [:D]

Kurt

[51st Highland Div]

Jeez, i thought i was old growing up in the days of the Spectrum + and Commodore 64,not to mention to suffering the woes of various bug-ridden versions of Windows (95,ME) etc...guess i must be a young'un on these boards lol...(ducks to avoid any incoming fire) [:D]

[witpqs]

ORIGINAL: 51st Highland Div

Jeez, i thought i was old growing up in the days of the Spectrum + and Commodore 64,not to mention to suffering the woes of various bug-ridden versions of Windows (95,ME) etc...guess i must be a young'un on these boards lol...(ducks to avoid any incoming fire) [:D]

Which Spectrum are you talking about? The first computer I worked on was an RCA (sold to Sperry-Rand) Spectra 70/60 36-bit mainframe.

[51st Highland Div]

The ZX Spectrum and Spectrum + : -
 
http://www.nvg.ntnu.no/sinclair/computers/zxspectrum/specplus.htm
 
on which i started my computer wargaming habit playing Arnhem and other great wargames that were later converted over to PC and still as playable as before..[:)]

[Rossj]

If the AI is the hold up, isn't going from 60 mile hex to a 40 mile hex going to double the number of hexes and complicate the AI solution?