From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: dave@horsfall.org (Dave Horsfall) Date: Thu, 22 Feb 2018 13:38:55 +1100 (EST) Subject: [TUHS] Dave Cutler (was Re: Re: Happy birthday, Dick Hustvedt!) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Thu, 22 Feb 2018, George Michaelson wrote: > Actually I tell a lie. Snobol defeated me. I had no brain capacity to > understand it. APL had left me behind, on the DECwriter with the > modified alphabet. Keyboard in greek? Ok.. fool me once, more fool you: > fool me twice, Lambda Sigma Phi me. In final year Comp Sci we had to write a compiler, so I told my lecturer (Ken Robinson) that I was going to do it in SNOBOL. He threatened to fail me if I did... I ended up using ALGOLW instead, and IMHO it was an amazing piece of work, being able to correct syntax errors so that it could continue compiling etc, and proved it by writing a program with every possible error being auto-corrected and producing the correct output when run. That listing and deck of cards are long gone, alas. As for APL, I see you've never used APL\360 on the Kleinschmidt (pronounced "Kline-shit") terminal. A matrix printer, it regularly punched holes right through the paper; one joker put a page on the Comp Sci noticed board with a reddish IBM JCL card showing through, with the inscription "Who said APL programs weren't transparent?". No, it wasn't me; I was responsible for certain other shenanigans instead, but I'm unsure of the Statute of Limitations... -- Dave Horsfall DTM (VK2KFU) "Those who don't understand security will suffer."