Computer Error

**Pleater** · 31st May 12, 10:44 AM

Oh the youngsters are so cheeky these days - my first upgrade in computers was to Octal.

Anne the Pleater :ootd:

**Livingston** · 18th July 12, 10:57 AM

And then there is Mom. She was a keypunch operator at the Rock Island Arsenal when she was in her teens during WWII.

**MNlad** · 18th July 12, 03:16 PM

All together . . . "Do Not Bend, Fold, Spindel, or Mutilate." Ah, the joy of tripping and scattering 150 punch cards of code across the floor. That was back in the day when the company's computer geeks (in lab coats, no less) were the only ones with air conditioning.

Me old? Nah.

**tpa** · 18th July 12, 04:07 PM

So a few of you guys can remember the days when computer programs either worked or did not work. At least you knew where you stood. Now days the chances of getting the same response to the same input 2 days running can't be much more than 50:50. Then the computer does what it wants to do, when you want it to actually do something useful and most of the time when you switch it on, you have no idea what is going to happen or whether you are going to get the same result from the same input as yesterday.
Sure it's often the guy in the chair, but not always the one that is in front of your computer.
I also have a nasty suspicion that automatic MS updates to previous operating systems are not always in your best interests.

**ScotFree** · 18th July 12, 05:34 PM

Computers raise passive/aggressiveness to a level that cats can only hope to aspire to one day.

My first job in the computer field was feeding punch cards into the reader attached to the IBM 360 mainframe. Such memories. That was back in the days when the computer crashed ... you ducked!

**Geoff Withnell** · 19th July 12, 01:02 PM

My first upgrade was to digital - counting on my fingers!

Originally Posted by Pleater

Oh the youngsters are so cheeky these days - my first upgrade in computers was to Octal.

Anne the Pleater :ootd:

**rmccool** · 31st May 12, 11:46 AM

Youngsters? Not moi... Long, long ago, in a galaxy not so far away, I loaded code from paper tape.

**Bill aka Mole** · 3rd June 12, 04:24 PM

Loaded code from paper tape and could likely read keypunch within an hour or so.

Have used One-D-Ten-T error coding for a very long time.

**Really a McQueen** · 3rd June 12, 05:51 PM

Originally Posted by rmccool

Youngsters? Not moi... Long, long ago, in a galaxy not so far away, I loaded code from paper tape.

Loading code from paper tape was easy. The hard part was inspecting that tape to make sure all of the chad was out of the way, so that the tape would be correctly read. And if the tape got damaged, ......