16 May
2017
16 May
'17
1:25 p.m.
... When you
submitted a card deck in the early days, you had to include both the
function definition and the data--the function was compiled, the data
was read, and, for the most part there were no significant side
effects (just a printout, and maybe some stuff on mag tape).
In the late 1970s I had a summer job which involved writing FORTRAN
programs to analyse card decks. This was on some IBM machine, which had a
combi card punch/reader. On one run the program loaded and compiled, and
the first two data cards went through. Then the machine crashed.
After a bit of head-scratching, I realised that it was because the punch
station came immediately before the read station, and there was a small
typo in the program. It processed the first data card, but rather than
logging to the printer it overpunched the second card instead resulting in
an invalid hole combination. That card then went into the read station,
and the machine didn't like it...
--
George D M Ross MSc PhD CEng MBCS CITP, University of Edinburgh,
School of Informatics, 10 Crichton Street, Edinburgh, Scotland, EH8 9AB
Mail: gdmr(a)inf.ed.ac.uk Voice: 0131 650 5147 Fax: 0131 650 6899
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