OT: Fun with printer displays

[Bill Campbell]

On Mon, Oct 22, 2007, Bob Rasmussen wrote:
>On Mon, 22 Oct 2007, Bill Campbell wrote:
>
>> Back in the days of punch cards and IBM 360s, I saw a parody of the
>> ubiquitous green fold-out cards of 360 opcodes with thing like:
>> 
>> ROC Read Operator Character
>> POP Punch Operator
>> MCD Mangle Card in Card Reador
>> BMT Break Mag Tape
>
>I remember a similar list of assembler OP codes that included
>
>   BH = Branch and Hang
>
>and the ultimate in spaghetti code:
> 
>   FG = From Goto
>
>as in "from point A, goto point B", totally out of line with A and B.

Only IBM could come up with something that ridiculous :-).

My first programming languase was Bendix's Mishewaka FORTRAN on
their G-20 Main Frame.  Unlike FORTRAN on the IBM systems of the
day, the Bendix version tested ``DO'' loops at the top instead of
passing through once without testing the control variable against
the upper limit which is what any engineer would expect it to do.
Furthermore it didn't really grok integer arithmatec, with all
variables floating point including loop variables as that's what
engineers would expect.  It had unformatted input as well where
one could put things like ``X=12.54 PI=3.14159265'' on a card,
simply say READ, and it would figure out where to put the data.
Unlike the IBM systems, one could put a deck of cards in the
reader which would compile and execute in a single pass without
the ``benefit'' of JCL.  When they got a couple of IBM 360/50s
the engineers were totally frustrated by crappy IBM OS/360 in
comparison with the Bendix system.

After leaving Bendix Radio I went on to use Burroughs main frames
and their MCP operating system was orders of magnitude better
than the garbage that IBM put out and called an OS.  It took me a
while to figure out that IBM was essentially renting computer
time, and inefficient operating systems with error prone JCL
meant that it required more equipment to do a job.  It also
required a small army of ``systems engineers'' to care and feed
the beasts which weren't necessary on a Burroughs installation.
Needless to say these folks had a strong incentive to promote IBM
systems (there's a strong similarity to the current industry
whose raison d'etre is cleaning up after Microsoft's insecure and
unreliable systems).

Bill
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