Re: [libreoffice-users] Re: LibreOffice is listed as an educational software for math

On 05/25/2012 04:16 AM, Tom Davies wrote:
> Hi :)
> First time i went up to Manchester the university had just completed building a huge building 
> that had been designed to fit the latest best machine of the day.  
>
> Unfortunately by the time the building work was done a better machine was small enough to fit on 
> one of the desks in one of the rooms.  I'm not quite sure if that says more about the speed of 
> computer development or the slowness of English builders!  
> Regards from
> Tom :)  
Slowness of any government contractor, it is just as bad in the US
> --- On Thu, 24/5/12, webmaster-Kracked_P_P <webmaster@krackedpress.com> wrote:
>
> From: webmaster-Kracked_P_P <webmaster@krackedpress.com>
> Subject: Re: [libreoffice-users] Re: LibreOffice is listed as an educational software for math
> To: users@global.libreoffice.org
> Date: Thursday, 24 May, 2012, 19:30
>
> On 05/24/2012 12:14 PM, Joep L. Blom wrote:
> > On 24-05-12 16:06, Tony Sumner wrote:
> > > On May 24, 2012, Jay Lozier wrote:
> > >
> > > > This trip down memory lane makes one feeil old. Anyone remember
> > > > teletypes with punched tape?
> > > Of course. My favourite paper tape story. At AEE, Winfrith, we did
> > > serious computing on the IBM704 at Risley in Lancashire. We would type
> > > the program onto paper tape and run it though a teletype to send it by
> > > phone to Risley. At their end they would punch it out and to check that
> > > it was ok they would send it back. At the Winfrith end we then had the
> > > original tape and a copy and we would hold these up to the light to
> > > check for errors. If there were none we'd phone Risley and say yes ok
> > > go ahead.  This was a communication protocol, yes? Later we installed a
> > > punched card system so we could put the program on cards and fly them
> > > to Risley by plane.
> > >
> > > Tony
> > I assume you never worked with the folded papertape used with the DEC PDP-8! coded in ASCII. 
> > Years before we used an  Electrologica X-1 with papertape coded in EBSDIC!You could edit the 
> > tapes with a manual punch and nontransparent sellotape. We thought punched cards were 
> > old-fashioned!.
> > Joep
> DEC PDP 11 and similar was most of my main-frame and mini-main-frame work back in the 80's and 
> early 90's.  I used  IBM main-frames in the late 70's bunch cards and dumb terminals in then in 
> late 90's with terminals dumb and smart.  In the mid 70's I used a teletype style 
> printer/terminal connected via phone to a computer 50+ miles way, for my first coding experience, 
> then went to punch cards before I ever got to use a dumb terminal CRT display and text editor to 
> type in and edit program code for COBOL, FORTRAN, BASIC, RPG-II/III, Assembly, and a few other 
> languages.   Now people use PCs with "smart" color coded editors to help them code, edit, and 
> debug their programs.
>
> I wrote an RPG-III coding editor so it would be easier to line up the cryptic codes in their 
> proper columns.  It was well received at that place that used RPG-II/III.  It took half the time 
> to type in the programs in the dumb terminals.
>
> I started my computer work experience when most computers I had "terminal" access to, or had to 
> load tapes for, were bigger than all my apartment rooms combined, and then some.  I worked a 
> terminal with one that used more floor space than a basketball court.  I remember when a college 
> put up a Bulletin Board System [via phone modems] that had a brand new 10 MEG of drive space and 
> the people could not think of why it needed so much space to store files.  10 MEG was too large 
> to imagine using.  Those were the days when floppies were floppy.
>
> ---
>
> Well we really went off thread topic with this one.
>
> As I stated in the original post, it was interesting that LO was listed under free Math software.
>
> Now it seems we are talking about the "grand old days" of computers before they could fit on a 
> desk.
>
> I still know many people who do not have the money to buy a computer or if they have one be able 
> to get online with broadband.  In the '50 it was thought there was no need for more than 50 to 
> 100 computers in the whole USA.  Now there are millions of them in the USA, with people like me 
> having several desktops/laptops running side by side when needed.  Then add their smart phones, 
> tablet phones, and the wifi reader/tablet non-phones that people [and kids] thing are a 
> requirement it their lives.  Well, this generation does not appreciate what their fathers and 
> grandfathers had to deal with when they were working with computers in those early years when the 
> smallest computer was the size of a stove or refrigerator.


-- 
Jay Lozier
jslozier@gmail.com


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