Re: Reification as nesting [off-topic humour]

pat hayes wrote:

> Aaarr, these young whippersnappers nowadays don't know what it was
> like when bits cost about $1.50 each and had to be hand-woven. Why, I
> recall having to crank-start the old KDF-9 when the frost was still
> thick on the disc platters.....


XXM10 30 Nov 1989 17.11
Good grief. The rate's 1.14. Mind you, I remember in the old days when
the rate was 6 regularly. I used to 'ave to wait 'til 11pm before I
logged on. Of course, I only 'ad ten shares in those days.

RPTB1 1 Dec 1989 12.57
Ten shares! Ha! You were lucky. In my day we 'ad minus four shares,
and we were grateful. We couldn't log on to Phoenix at all. We 'ad to
sit there while it would log on t' us!

The rate were 'igh in them days. It used to get up to 1200 on Friday
afternoons. All t'resource units were used up once you logged on, and
you 'ad to log off again and wait for a few years, like.

XXM10 1 Dec 1989 14.07
Luxury. We didn't 'ave chance to log on. We 'ad to submit all our jobs
on punched cards. We 'ad to punch 'em wi' ower teeth, o'course. Users
today, they've got it reet cushy. They don't know 'ow lucky they are.
370 processor, indeed! Luxury!

SA121 1 Dec 1989 15.28
Punched cards wi' y'own teeth? Y' don't know y' bin born, ah can tell
y'. In ar day, we'd no teeth left, we 'ad punch th'cards wi' ower
toenails. An' we didn' 'av non of them fancy proper cards, let me tell
y'. We 'ad do it on used vendecups, wi' all th' gunky brown bits still
stuck to 'em. Eee, th' youth o' today.

PE103 1 Dec 1989 16.20
Punch'd cards? When I were a lad y'ad no fancy punch'd cards. Y'ad to
sit thur turnin' 'andle wi' y' left 'and t' get the 'lectricity, like,
whilst tappin' owt binary down't RS-232 line wi'tother. Ah saw one
bloke uz 'and dropped off from 'strain. Quick as a flash 'e start'd
hittin' morse key wi' 'is 'ead, wi'owt missin' a bit. You lot 'ad it
reet cushy.

RIT10 1 Dec 1989 18.23
Binary? We used to dream o' binary. When I were a lad we'd no digital
computers, like. We 'ad t' build analogue circuits like, wi' ower own
two 'ands, an' every day we'd die of 'lectric shock 'n user services
woul' cum 'n dance on ower graves. Well I say grave, 'n fact 'twere
more of 'n ol' cardboard box wi' radioactive waste in't. You should
think y'selves lucky, young 'uns like you...

XXM10 2 Dec 1989 15.43
Analogue? By 'eck. We used unary. Now that's what I call a number
system.  'Course, we couldn't afford more'n one digit. At t'University
they 'ad octal but even they didn't 'ave a 6 digit. Aye, those were
the days. Four registers and a toggle switch...

CR24 6 Dec 1989 16.19
Toggle switch? Toggle switch? In my young day we started out as
apprentice binary registers. Six o'clock in the morning, come rain,
sleet, hail, or snow, we'ed be there kicking each other in the
buttocks-right for 1, left for zero.

JS138 6 Dec 1989 17.26
Buttocks?  Luxury.  In my day we use t'have 12 inch nails knocked
through our skulls and were made to spend 28hrs a day bang heads
gainst brick walls to produce output.  You binary registers had it
easy.

XXM10 6 Dec 1989 17.28
Well a'course I say registers, cause they were registers to us. But it
were a stack really. None o' this modern stack pointer rubbish,
either. You used to 'ave to remember which were t'top element in yer
'ead.

IMG12 6 Dec 1989 22.18
Stack? You were lucky. We used to have hole in t'ground. We'd 'ave to
bury each digit separately like, and then dig 'em up again three weeks
later t'refresh 'em, or eed jus vanish.

FJMD1 9 Dec 1989 20.38
'lectriciteh eeh bah gumm, we 'ad nevr een heard o'tricity when ah
were young.  No my old supervisor, Mr Babbage, 'e used ter say. Theres
nowt can beat these new steam powered flip flops. Course in those days
t'were all xperimenal like.  Folks like us were lucky if'n we were
allowed t'ave chisl (for punched stone tablets o' course - don't tell
me you young uns dont 'ave ter use them now). Eh those were the days.
It took 6 or 7 year to do quicksort on one number (mind you we didn't
have NO DIGITS AT ALL, though they ad one in Manchesyer).

Punched cards? electricity? Nails through t'ead?

LUXURY!


The original Four Yorkshiremen Sketch came from Monty Python; this one
is what happens when you let phoenix hackers at it. [The Cambridge (UK)
University IBM mainframe running a locally-developed package called
PHOENIX, which ran on top of TSO, part of MVS (which in turn ran over
VM). The machine was also called PHOENIX (or 'phx' for short), and was
turned off and decommissioned on Sept 1st 1995 at 9.17am (by its own
clock)

-- 
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A/A z sub X add d B 2 m m Y add d z add 4 gt{exit}if/f 64 d}for f 64 div
setgray X Y moveto 0 q neg u 0 0 q u 0 r r r r fill/Y}for/X}for showpage

Received on Thursday, 7 June 2001 04:38:44 UTC