From: arnold@skeeve.com
To: tuhs@tuhs.org, douglas.mcilroy@dartmouth.edu
Subject: [TUHS] Re: Loud machines (was Compatibility Question)
Date: Wed, 20 Dec 2023 00:12:47 -0700 [thread overview]
Message-ID: <202312200712.3BK7ClJX024798@freefriends.org> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <CAKH6PiXPTm2AjxZTwreUjDAHV0V_RZHozGo6fSfQJRLeaRRjSA@mail.gmail.com>
As late as 1981, the university I attended had an IBM 1130. Mainly it
was programmed in Fortran IV (but only 5 letters allowed in an identifier,
not 6) but it also had a Cobol compiler.
The Cobol compiler read cards about 1 every 3/4 second. By contrast, when
the Fortran compiler was reading cards, it sounded like a machine gun firing.
I wrote a program similar to banner(1) but that made the big letters up
out of the actual letters in Fortran. Although the cards are long gone, I
still have the code. :-)
Arnold
Douglas McIlroy <douglas.mcilroy@dartmouth.edu> wrote:
> > Paul -- you left out the other "feature" -- the noise, which was still
> deafening even with a model N1 and its cover.
>
> It was indeed loud, but GE out-roared them with a blindingly fast card
> reader. The machine had a supposedly gentle touch; it grabbed cards with
> vacuum rather than tongs. But the make-and-break pneumatic explosions
> sounded like a machine gun. A noise meter I borrowed from the Labs' tool
> crib read 90db 6 feet away.
>
> Doug
next prev parent reply other threads:[~2023-12-20 7:13 UTC|newest]
Thread overview: 3+ messages / expand[flat|nested] mbox.gz Atom feed top
2023-12-20 4:11 [TUHS] " Douglas McIlroy
2023-12-20 7:12 ` arnold [this message]
2023-12-21 3:56 ` [TUHS] " Rod Bartlett via TUHS
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