Did he watch the movie Office Space?

Rather Office Space was probably a bit of a rip on this and other similar scenarios. Others have manipulated computer systems since the incident I described, which occurred in 1973, some 42 years ago. The difference now is access to systems is relatively easier now than back then, given the many 'entries' provided by the Net. Way back then, computer systems were massive, filling huge rooms in controlled environments with very little physical access other than 'dumb' terminals. Programming was done with punch cards, punched paper tapes, or, if you were one of the lab coated elite called programmers, via the mainframe consoles (this was usually only used for minor tweaks and adjustments). When I first started out, I actually used a keypunch machine (Google it, kids) to create programs, basically one punch card per line of code using languages like RPG, COBOL, FORTRAN, and other relatively "dead" languages. Looking back, you kind have to be impressed with guys like the one at my former employer who pulled off some rather impressive hacks in rather primitive environments...


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Yeah I know all about punch card machines.

Don't feel too bad. Steed. No different there as it is here. They vote for the pig here in the States most all the time. ;)

Hmm, I know people who still use Fortran, even though there is only C and Ritchie it's prophet.

(apparently Fortran and Algol still have best physics and math libraries out there, but Algol is dead)

Yep, Fortran still kicks around in the scientific communities; scientific academics are often more prone to stick with what they know than their experimental brethren...

During the Y2K scares, some of the older programmers found lucrative 'second lives' because of the surprising number of systems running apps coded in 'lost languages'. Major corporations, financial institutions, government, and educational institutions were (and probably still are) running those apps due to the high cost and disruption of updating their apps. A lady I worked with at the time of Y2K told me her husband, an employee and programmer of a city owned water and power utility, had been given the option of early retirement or a likely layoff. He reluctantly opted for the early retirement. A few months after retiring he was approached by the utility, hat in hand, to come back because they suddenly realized their COBOL and RPG apps need some major fixes to protect against Y2K; their newer, younger programmers either didn't know the languages or lacked the need skill levels to complete the task. The fellow did go back to work: as a consultant, at a very high rate, with some very serious perks. Padded his retirement nest egg very nicely above and beyond what the utility had given him...


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So we are.:/\\!!

No truer words were said. :yep: