The 50th Anniversary of the Legendary IBM 1401
Anne & Lynn Wheeler
The 50th Anniversary of the Legendary IBM 1401
http://www.computerhistory.org/events/index.php?id=1246917465
was last night at computer history museum.
i'd come in to the bay area for the first time in couple years (for
conference in santa cruz over last weekend) and stayed around in
monterey bay area. considered going last night, but couldn't quite get
the motivation up for driving back over the hill last night for the
event.
when i was undergraduate at the univ., they had a 709 with 1401 doing
tape<->unit-record front-end (for the 709 which would just run
tape-to-tape). in process of moving from 709 to 360/67 (anticipating
running tss/360) ... the 1401 was replaced with 360/30. Although the
360/30 had 1401 hardware emulation mode ... i was hired to write a 360
assembler program performing the 709 front-end function. I got to
design/implement my own monitor, storage management, interrupt handlers,
device drivers, recovery, etc. I got to touch the 1401 a few times ...
and ran the 1401 "MPIO" application on 360/30 quite a large number of
times (in took me a couple months to get my 360 replacement working
... and verify it did the same thing that the original was doing)
--
40+yrs virtualization experience (since Jan68), online at home since Mar1970
Joe Morris
> when i was undergraduate at the univ., they had a 709 with 1401 doing
> tape<->unit-record front-end (for the 709 which would just run
> tape-to-tape). in process of moving from 709 to 360/67 (anticipating
> running tss/360) ... the 1401 was replaced with 360/30. Although the
> 360/30 had 1401 hardware emulation mode ... i was hired to write a 360
> assembler program performing the 709 front-end function.
I wonder if anyone ever counted the number of shops that wrote an app for
the S/360 to do the functions of the 1401 IOUP to support the sysin/sysout
tape processing for a 70x/70xx mainframe. Even with SHARE and the Type 4
program library there didn't seem to be any movement to share those
programs.
At my PPOE we wrote a service program that ran in P0 under MFT on a /40,
providing sysin, sysout, and utility (card-tape, tape-print, card-card,
etc.) functions, all initiated from the console typewriter. One programmer
wrote the supervisor for this, another wrote the sysin/sysout code, and I
wrote the utility tool; the supervisor moved the programs into and out of
memory as required and provided memory management and a round-robin
scheduler...all in an 18K partition (later reduced to 16K when the nucleus
of MFT version 14 grew by 2K), leaving a full 86K for batch processing.
It was for the sysout tool that I wrote the code to allow an application to
read the console lever switches; they were used to pause or abort the
output. And yes, there were people at other shops who tried to use it but
who didn't note that it had to be configured for the particular model of
S/360 being used; choose the wrong one and you've got a red-light hardstop.
Joe Morris
Anne & Lynn Wheeler
"Joe Morris" <j.c.m...@verizon.net> writes:
> I wonder if anyone ever counted the number of shops that wrote an app for
> the S/360 to do the functions of the 1401 IOUP to support the sysin/sysout
> tape processing for a 70x/70xx mainframe. Even with SHARE and the Type 4
> program library there didn't seem to be any movement to share those
> programs.
>
> At my PPOE we wrote a service program that ran in P0 under MFT on a /40,
> providing sysin, sysout, and utility (card-tape, tape-print, card-card,
> etc.) functions, all initiated from the console typewriter. One programmer
> wrote the supervisor for this, another wrote the sysin/sysout code, and I
> wrote the utility tool; the supervisor moved the programs into and out of
> memory as required and provided memory management and a round-robin
> scheduler...all in an 18K partition (later reduced to 16K when the nucleus
> of MFT version 14 grew by 2K), leaving a full 86K for batch processing.
>
> It was for the sysout tool that I wrote the code to allow an application to
> read the console lever switches; they were used to pause or abort the
> output. And yes, there were people at other shops who tried to use it but
> who didn't note that it had to be configured for the particular model of
> S/360 being used; choose the wrong one and you've got a red-light hardstop.
re:
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009p.html#74 The 50th Anniversary of the Legendary IBM 1401
lincoln labs wrote "LLMPS" which was a small 360 multi-tasking monitor
supporting mostly unit record and tape functions (a little like souped
up DEBE). It was a SHARE contribution ... and somewhere in boxes i've
had the manual (I've also done some work with the authors since lincoln
was also an early cp67 installation).
old post with bits from the (share library) llmps manual
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2000g.html#0 TSS ancient history, was X86 ultimate CISC? designs)
the folklore is that Univ of Mich started of with LLMPS as the basis for
implementing MTS (michigan terminal system).
misc other past posts mentioning LLMPS:
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/93.html#15 unit record & other controllers
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/93.html#23 MTS & LLMPS?
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/93.html#25 MTS & LLMPS?
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/93.html#26 MTS & LLMPS?
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/98.html#15 S/360 operating systems geneaology
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2000.html#89 Ux's good points.
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001m.html#55 TSS/360
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001n.html#45 Valid reference on lunar mission data being unreadable?
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001n.html#89 TSS/360
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002n.html#54 SHARE MVT Project anniversary
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002n.html#64 PLX
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2003f.html#41 SLAC 370 Pascal compiler found
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2004d.html#31 someone looking to donate IBM magazines and stuff
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2004l.html#16 Xah Lee's Unixism
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2004o.html#20 RISCs too close to hardware?
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2005g.html#56 Software for IBM 360/30
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006k.html#41 PDP-1
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006m.html#42 Why Didn't The Cent Sign or the Exclamation Mark Print?
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007t.html#54 new 40+ yr old, disruptive technology
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007u.html#18 Folklore references to CP67 at Lincoln Labs
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007u.html#23 T3 Sues IBM To Break its Mainframe Monopoly
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007u.html#85 IBM Floating-point myths
Anne & Lynn Wheeler
re:
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009p.html#74 The 50th Anniversary of the Legendary IBM 1401
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009p.html#76 The 50th Anniversary of the Legendary IBM 1401
my program ended up about 2000 cards (almost exactly box of cards) with
comments and "conditionals". I started out doing stand-alone version
with all my own hardware support ... but then added conditionals that
did version that ran under os/360 on the (64kbyte) 360/30. The
"stand-alone" version took almost 30mins to assemble (under os/360)
... but the os/360 version took closer to an hour (elapsed time) to
assemble.
the difference was that the os/360 version had five DCBs which would
take nearly six minutes each to assemble (could tell from the 360/30
front panel lights when the assembler had hit the DCB macros ... had its
own distinctive pattern).
in any case, because assembly took so long, i got proficient patching
the assembled/"TXT" cards ... finding the card that corresponded to the
code to be patched ... feeding it into card punch machine
... duplicating columns until got to the columns needing changing ...
and then "multi-punching" the changes into the specific columns ... and
then finishing duplicating the remainder of the card.
i got proficient at reading "hex" paper dumps ... recognizing
instruction and data hex values ... but also got proficient reading hex
punch card patterns ... being able to fan TXT deck looking for card with
the hex (displacement) address containing fields/columns to be patched.
Morten Reistad
Joe Morris <j.c.m...@verizon.net> wrote:
>"Anne & Lynn Wheeler" <ly...@garlic.com> wrote:
>
>> when i was undergraduate at the univ., they had a 709 with 1401 doing
>> tape<->unit-record front-end (for the 709 which would just run
>> tape-to-tape). in process of moving from 709 to 360/67 (anticipating
>> running tss/360) ... the 1401 was replaced with 360/30. Although the
>> 360/30 had 1401 hardware emulation mode ... i was hired to write a 360
>> assembler program performing the 709 front-end function.
>
>I wonder if anyone ever counted the number of shops that wrote an app for
>the S/360 to do the functions of the 1401 IOUP to support the sysin/sysout
>tape processing for a 70x/70xx mainframe. Even with SHARE and the Type 4
>program library there didn't seem to be any movement to share those
>programs.
I get instant flashbacks to the 1401 code we ported to PL/1 in 1984.
That was truly an act of computer archelolgy.
>At my PPOE we wrote a service program that ran in P0 under MFT on a /40,
>providing sysin, sysout, and utility (card-tape, tape-print, card-card,
>etc.) functions, all initiated from the console typewriter. One programmer
>wrote the supervisor for this, another wrote the sysin/sysout code, and I
>wrote the utility tool; the supervisor moved the programs into and out of
>memory as required and provided memory management and a round-robin
>scheduler...all in an 18K partition (later reduced to 16K when the nucleus
>of MFT version 14 grew by 2K), leaving a full 86K for batch processing.
>
>It was for the sysout tool that I wrote the code to allow an application to
>read the console lever switches; they were used to pause or abort the
>output. And yes, there were people at other shops who tried to use it but
>who didn't note that it had to be configured for the particular model of
>S/360 being used; choose the wrong one and you've got a red-light hardstop.
I just realised this month is the 30th anniversary for my last login
on a machine with console lever switches.
-- mrr
des...@verizon.net
> "Anne & Lynn Wheeler" <ly...@garlic.com> wrote:
>
>> when i was undergraduate at the univ., they had a 709 with 1401...
At one shop I worked at we had a 1440. (Basically the same as a 1401.)
We ran a lot of small jobs and a significant amount of time went to
waiting for card input to run out, then collect the paper, put the
next deck in the reader, press load.
So, looking at the first card of each load deck, I noticed that
all programs start with ".008" in column 1.
So I went through all our programs and "enhanced" the end of file
detection to not only test the "last card" indicator, but also
look for ".008" in column 1.
After handling all final processing, if the job found the ",008"
it would save the card image, clear the read area, set a word mark
in 1, move the card back and branch to 1.
That was the same thing pressing load did.
Seemed like a good idea to me.
des...@verizon.net
hanc...@bbs.cpcn.com
> The 50th Anniversary of the Legendary IBM 1401http://www.computerhistory.org/events/index.php?id=1246917465
>
> was last night at computer history museum.
Thanks for the info.
Would anyone know if the talks were recorded or transcribed in some
way? I'd love to know what was said.
I'd love to know when the last 1401 emulation on a modern computer
shut down, or if any are still running. I figure Y2k conversions
would've killed off any remaining applications.
'course who knows--maybe there's some Internet app with a GUI front
end and a 1401 back-end.
One of the manuals recently uploaded to bitsavers explains running
terminals off a 1401.
Morten Reistad
Isn't the 1401 support "hardware" included in Hercules? In which
case you can fore up a partition under VM and start running your
1401 code.
-- mrr
Al Kossow
>> Would anyone know if the talks were recorded or transcribed in some
>> way? I'd love to know what was said.
>>
It was recorded, and will appear on youTube as part of the CHM Lecture
series there.
des...@verizon.net
If I remember that manual correctly the terminal program was supposed to
hide out in high memory and the running batch programs were supposed to
periodically give up control to the terminal program.
That always seemed completely unworkable to me.
Has anyone ever seen that used?
hanc...@bbs.cpcn.com
> > One of the manuals recently uploaded to bitsavers explains running
> > terminals off a 1401.
> If I remember that manual correctly the terminal program was supposed to
> hide out in high memory and the running batch programs were supposed to
> periodically give up control to the terminal program.
> That always seemed completely unworkable to me.
I never saw it used, but I heard of it being done on a very limited
basis. One needed a full sized 1401 and disk drives. The programs
included a protocol to load themselves in and out of disk as needed.
I suspect a great deal of disk activity was required.
The interactive portion was very austere.
the terminals were typewriters and response time was probably slow.
Anne & Lynn Wheeler
> The 50th Anniversary of the Legendary IBM 1401
> http://www.computerhistory.org/events/index.php?id=1246917465
>
> was last night at computer history museum.
>
> i'd come in to the bay area for the first time in couple years (for
> conference in santa cruz over last weekend) and stayed around in
> monterey bay area. considered going last night, but couldn't quite get
> the motivation up for driving back over the hill last night for the
> event.
re:
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009p.html#74 The 50th Anniversary of the Legendary IBM 1401
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009p.html#76 The 50th Anniversary of the Legendary IBM 1401
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009p.html#77 The 50th Anniversary of the Legendary IBM 1401
somebody at the weekend conference (and returned over the hill and made
it to the 1401 anniversary gala) ... commented that they
were-being/had-been sent copy of cp40 (paper) source listing.
there were some number of people from France that did assignments at the
cambridge science center in the 60s. one of them recently found the
listing cleaning out their attic.
science center had custom hardware modifications for 360/40 supporting
virtual memory and implemented virtual machine cp40 system. later when
360/67 with virtual memory support standard became available ... cp40
morphed into cp67.
misc. past posts mentioning science center
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#545tech
Al Kossow
> somebody at the weekend conference (and returned over the hill and made
> it to the 1401 anniversary gala) ... commented that they
> were-being/had-been sent copy of cp40 (paper) source listing.
>
Do they have any interest in donating this to CHM?
hanc...@bbs.cpcn.com
> If I remember that manual correctly the terminal program was supposed to
> hide out in high memory and the running batch programs were supposed to
> periodically give up control to the terminal program.
> That always seemed completely unworkable to me.
The earliest on-line computer 'information systems' of the 1960s-1970s
had extremely austere command interfaces and responses. The commands
were positional made up of a series of codes, nothing was intuitive.
The responses were equally terse. Response time was slow. Everything
had to be looked up in manuals to decipher.
The public newspaper/magazine articles normally didn't go into the
command structure and made the system seem glitzier than it really
was. But some magazines did cover the command lines, such as the
Western Union Technical Review or other newsletters.
Even in the early 1980s an online CRT system could still be pretty
terse, say with 12 x 40 screens. Names would be entered as first and
middle initials, then last names. Street addresses often had to be
abbreviated. Dates might have single digit years.
Peter Flass
> On Nov 14, 9:33 am, des...@verizon.net wrote:
>
>> If I remember that manual correctly the terminal program was supposed to
>> hide out in high memory and the running batch programs were supposed to
>> periodically give up control to the terminal program.
>> That always seemed completely unworkable to me.
>
> The earliest on-line computer 'information systems' of the 1960s-1970s
> had extremely austere command interfaces and responses. The commands
> were positional made up of a series of codes, nothing was intuitive.
> The responses were equally terse. Response time was slow. Everything
> had to be looked up in manuals to decipher.
>
I used to watch the airline people make reservations in the old days.
"Terse" is probably an understatement. I have a James Martin book on
interactive systems from the 60's (IIRC). It would be interesting to
dig it out and re-read what he has to say.
jmfbahciv
Terse is a lot more efficient than having to make a million finger
or hand movements to get to the first form. Sheesh!
More productive energy is wasted trying to wrestle with these
OSes and their GUI gift wrappings. This time wastage has
dripped into the comm biz. I should not have to spend 1/2 hour
trying to get one yes/no question answered via the telephone.
And I'm being optimistic when I said 1/2 hour. It's usually
an hour or two.
/BAH
Anne & Lynn Wheeler
> I used to watch the airline people make reservations in the old
> days. "Terse" is probably an understatement. I have a James Martin
> book on interactive systems from the 60's (IIRC). It would be
> interesting to dig it out and re-read what he has to say.
they resembled the os/360 operator commands quite a bit; 00,....,...,...
possibly same heritage & vintage.
a decade or so ago, we were asked to come in and redo some pieces
... started with "routes" ... which represented something like 25% of
the computing load ... and typically accounted for 3-4 of these computer
interactions. they also had 10 impossible things that they wanted to do
but couldn't. i came back in 2 months with a rewrite that did all ten
impossible things ... and had optional GUI that collapsed the multiple
interactions into single operation (that was much more intuitive and
carried a lot more information).
the ten impossible things appeared to be mostly an artifact of the
implementation trade-offs based on the technology in the 60s ... and
perpetrated down thru the years. a fresh look at the paradigm and
current technology allowed different trade-offs to be made. sort of
littered thru the whole infrastructure were trade-offs made because of
limited (60s) computer resources ... and having it done manually instead
(literially permeating the whole infrastructure starting with how plane
routes were represented and maintained). A fresh look, different
trade-offs based on 90s computer resources, allowed eliminating enormous
number of manual operations that permeated the whole infrastructure ...
and then being able to do the 10 impossible things became a trivial
side-effect.
then there was a lot of hand-wringing ... and eventually ignoring that
we were even called in. behind the scenes manual operations, accounted
for several hundred, very highly paid individuals ... that were no
longer required. I had wanted to start on "fares" ... which accounted
for about 40% of the processing load (nearly double that of "routes")
... but apparently after their experience with "routes" ... they weren't
going to allow me near it.
misc. past posts mentioning the "routes" work:
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/99.html#136a checks (was S/390 on PowerPC?)
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2000f.html#20 Competitors to SABRE?
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001d.html#69 Block oriented I/O over IP
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002g.html#2 Computers in Science Fiction
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2002j.html#83 Summary: Robots of Doom
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2004b.html#6 Mainframe not a good architecture for interactive workloads
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2004o.html#23 Demo: Things in Hierarchies (w/o RM/SQL)
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2004q.html#85 The TransRelational Model: Performance Concerns
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006o.html#18 RAMAC 305(?)
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007g.html#22 Bidirectional Binary Self-Joins
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007g.html#41 US Airways badmouths legacy system
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007h.html#41 Fast and Safe C Strings: User friendly C macros to Declare and use C Strings
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008i.html#19 American Airlines
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008j.html#32 CLIs and GUIs
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008p.html#41 Automation is still not accepted to streamline the business processes... why organizations are not accepting newer technologies?
grey...@mail.com
> Peter Flass wrote:
>> hanc...@bbs.cpcn.com wrote:
>>>
>>
>> I used to watch the airline people make reservations in the old days.
>> "Terse" is probably an understatement. I have a James Martin book on
>> interactive systems from the 60's (IIRC). It would be interesting to
>> dig it out and re-read what he has to say.
Pity its not in PDF :). I remember some of those systems, was it
(Logitech, anyway, as I remember, an offshoot of Boing) would tell
you where to get the information you needed
>
> Terse is a lot more efficient than having to make a million finger
> or hand movements to get to the first form. Sheesh!
>
> More productive energy is wasted trying to wrestle with these
> OSes and their GUI gift wrappings. This time wastage has
> dripped into the comm biz. I should not have to spend 1/2 hour
> trying to get one yes/no question answered via the telephone.
> And I'm being optimistic when I said 1/2 hour. It's usually
> an hour or two.
>
>
> /BAH
Thought you were in Michigan?.. SOunds like Ireland :)
--
Greymaus....
\/\
\?
hanc...@bbs.cpcn.com
> I used to watch the airline people make reservations in the old days.
> "Terse" is probably an understatement. I have a James Martin book on
> interactive systems from the 60's (IIRC). It would be interesting to
> dig it out and re-read what he has to say.
I forgot about him, he was the 'guru' of modern systems in his day. I
wonder whatever happened to him.
Funny, today big box chain bookstores have huge computer sections, but
likely nothing by Martin or published by Mike Murach Assoc or Daniel
McCracken.
I think there are still books out there by management guru Peter
Drucker even though I believe he has passed on.
hanc...@bbs.cpcn.com
> Peter Flass wrote:
Keying in a string like "XG24K$03X7943LN$" where each position is
closely defined is not intuitive for humans and is very prone to
error. Transmitting erroneous data is inefficient and has
consequences.
A more intuitive entry, even in a batch mode, makes it much easier:
FLGT=345,DAY=1117,PSGS=2,HOTL=YES etc despite the extra keystrokes and
interpreation time.
I generally don't think much of GUI interfaces, especially dropdown
menus for dates. But dropdowns for other fields do make it helpful.
In the old days operators had to have a reference card with all the
abbreviations for various field codes. Further, the GUI interfaces
have some built in edits, like for bad dates, which saves programming
time.
Morten Reistad
<hanc...@bbs.cpcn.com> wrote:
>On Nov 17, 7:54�am, jmfbahciv <jmfbahciv@aol> wrote:
>> Peter Flass wrote:
>> Terse is a lot more efficient than having to make a million finger
>> or hand movements to get to the first form. �Sheesh!
>>
>> More productive energy is wasted trying to wrestle with these
>> OSes and their GUI gift wrappings. �This time wastage has
>> dripped into the comm biz. �I should not have to spend 1/2 hour
>> trying to get one yes/no question answered via the telephone.
>> And I'm being optimistic when I said 1/2 hour. �It's usually
>> an hour or two.
>
>Keying in a string like "XG24K$03X7943LN$" where each position is
>closely defined is not intuitive for humans and is very prone to
>error. Transmitting erroneous data is inefficient and has
>consequences.
>
>A more intuitive entry, even in a batch mode, makes it much easier:
>
>FLGT=345,DAY=1117,PSGS=2,HOTL=YES etc despite the extra keystrokes and
>interpreation time.
This is pretty close to what a http POST actually looks like.
You can sometimes see them in the URL field in the browser.
>I generally don't think much of GUI interfaces, especially dropdown
>menus for dates. But dropdowns for other fields do make it helpful.
>In the old days operators had to have a reference card with all the
>abbreviations for various field codes. Further, the GUI interfaces
>have some built in edits, like for bad dates, which saves programming
>time.
The http forms are pretty effective tools for doing such
queries. They must have read the spec for cics/vtam/3270, or worked
with those forms.
The form layout, the parsing and posting, and all the stuff behind
can use exactly the same design as a cics/ims or cics/db2 transaction.
The parsing av validation can run on different processors without
any locking before you generate the SQL. And you can easily build
ONE sql transaction and run that; with SQL itself handling locking.
Crypto, pretty images and page layout can also be handled by separate
processors that does not need to be involved in locking or business
logic.
I often design such core systems, and customers are usually awestruck
at how modular the system really is. You can have an embedded form
in a nice page that inherits style, and look/feel, but actually
runs on a completely different system.
But I still get 3270 flashbacks. I STILL get small flashes of
"do we have enough space in the 3270 stream" when adding fields
to html forms. Just like the recurring nightmares sometime
during May of "oh God, I have an exam in $SUBJECT tomorrow, and
haven't prepared at all"; where I just wake up, tell self you
haven't been in College in 25 years, and go back to sleep.
-- mrr
Peter Flass
> On Nov 17, 7:01 am, Peter Flass <Peter_Fl...@Yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>> I used to watch the airline people make reservations in the old days.
>> "Terse" is probably an understatement. I have a James Martin book on
>> interactive systems from the 60's (IIRC). It would be interesting to
>> dig it out and re-read what he has to say.
>
> I forgot about him, he was the 'guru' of modern systems in his day. I
> wonder whatever happened to him.
I did too; after I posted I had to google him.
Peter Flass
My pet peeve is dropdowns for US states. It takes twice as long to get
the dropdown, scroll down to "NY", and click on it than it would to just
key "NY." Every time I do this, it REALLY ANNOYS ME. Unfortunately,
probably not too many GUI designers read this newsgroup.
> In the old days operators had to have a reference card with all the
> abbreviations for various field codes. Further, the GUI interfaces
> have some built in edits, like for bad dates, which saves programming
> time.
>
That's how you could tell a good operator from bad. A good operator had
all this committed to memory, along with alternate ways of doing things
and fixes for various possible problems.
Peter Flass
>
> But I still get 3270 flashbacks. I STILL get small flashes of
> "do we have enough space in the 3270 stream" when adding fields
> to html forms. Just like the recurring nightmares sometime
> during May of "oh God, I have an exam in $SUBJECT tomorrow, and
> haven't prepared at all"; where I just wake up, tell self you
> haven't been in College in 25 years, and go back to sleep.
>
Ah, so I'm not the only one who has those. Nowadays it's just as likely
to be an "oh, oh, I forgot to take my pill" nightmare.
jmfbahciv
If I want to talk to the auto insurance company w.r.t. the auto
insurance policy I had in Massachusetts, I cannot get from here
to there on the phone. Their software is written so that a
call from Michigan connects to the Michigan reps, not the Mass
reps even though I punch in my Massachusetts' zip code. I can
find all kinds of logic bugs in the flow chart of that software.
It takes, literally, 1/2 hour to "convince" the software to get
me to a human; however, that human is only allowed to handle
Michigan issues. So the human, trying to be very helpful,
transfers the call to the Massachusetts people, which never
works. It appears that all software which handles transferred
calls (and not just with this insurance company) puts you
on hold for 60 minutes and then hangs up. I've had this
happen with American Express and Social SEcurity.
/BAH
/BAH
jmfbahciv
I agree. I doubt the designers live in states that start with a letter
above L so they never have to mouse a long stroke.
>
>> In the old days operators had to have a reference card with all the
>> abbreviations for various field codes. Further, the GUI interfaces
>> have some built in edits, like for bad dates, which saves programming
>> time.
>>
>
> That's how you could tell a good operator from bad. A good operator had
> all this committed to memory, along with alternate ways of doing things
> and fixes for various possible problems.
and you write the software to not require the field to be typed in.
That's what forms control software was all about. I helped with
DEC's first attempt at forms control. The company was Nabisco
but we didn't get the bid. This was in 1972.
/BAH
Walter Bushell
Peter Flass <Peter...@Yahoo.com> wrote:
I thought those kind of nightmares were mostly confined to women.
--
A computer without Microsoft is like a chocolate cake without mustard.
Lawrence Statton
>> I generally don't think much of GUI interfaces, especially dropdown
>> menus for dates. But dropdowns for other fields do make it helpful.
>
> My pet peeve is dropdowns for US states. It takes twice as long to
> get the dropdown, scroll down to "NY", and click on it than it would
> to just key "NY." Every time I do this, it REALLY ANNOYS ME.
> Unfortunately, probably not too many GUI designers read this
> newsgroup.
I wish to $DEITY my principal client would believe this discussion.
Daily I am compelled to use dropdowns for both dates AND states, and it
drives me insane. They're a pain in the ass to generate, use and decode.
They serve NO USEFUL PURPOSE.
--L
Patrick Scheible
For me, the nightmare goes: I am looking up my schedule to see when
the final exams are scheduled next week, and I discover that I am
still enrolled in another class that I thought I dropped the first
day.
-- Patrick
Patrick Scheible
You think it's bad for you... I live in Washington.
A few web forms allow either typing or clicking down the scroll
list, but most require clicking and hunting.
-- Patrick
grey...@mail.com
> Peter Flass wrote:
>>
>> That's how you could tell a good operator from bad. A good operator had
>> all this committed to memory, along with alternate ways of doing things
>> and fixes for various possible problems.
>
> and you write the software to not require the field to be typed in.
> That's what forms control software was all about. I helped with
> DEC's first attempt at forms control. The company was Nabisco
> but we didn't get the bid. This was in 1972.
>
> /BAH
Was that the company and around the time, that F. Ross Johnson took
over?. Frigging idiot.
--
Greymaus....
\/\
\?
grey...@mail.com
No, the idiots are taking over here too, only not so competent as in
the US. Spent several hours trying to get through to get my landline
number removed from the spamming landline lists, and never got to the
end of the process. This was after getting several calls in one day,
and now some of these pests are getting, somehow, false numbers when
you try to trace the calls to protest.
>
> If I want to talk to the auto insurance company w.r.t. the auto
> insurance policy I had in Massachusetts, I cannot get from here
> to there on the phone. Their software is written so that a
> call from Michigan connects to the Michigan reps, not the Mass
> reps even though I punch in my Massachusetts' zip code. I can
> find all kinds of logic bugs in the flow chart of that software.
>
> It takes, literally, 1/2 hour to "convince" the software to get
> me to a human; however, that human is only allowed to handle
> Michigan issues. So the human, trying to be very helpful,
> transfers the call to the Massachusetts people, which never
> works. It appears that all software which handles transferred
> calls (and not just with this insurance company) puts you
> on hold for 60 minutes and then hangs up. I've had this
> happen with American Express and Social SEcurity.
That could be expensive with American Express. Smart thieves would
take your mobile as well as your credit/debit card, so you couldn't
ring to stop the card until you got home. (Probably A.E. has some
fast access number for that).
--
Greymaus....
\/\
\?
grey...@mail.com
> In article <7a405b93-96bb-4109...@l13g2000yqb.googlegroups.com>,
> <hanc...@bbs.cpcn.com> wrote:
>>On Nov 17, 7:54 am, jmfbahciv <jmfbahciv@aol> wrote:
>>> Peter Flass wrote:
>
>>> Terse is a lot more efficient than having to make a million finger
>>> or hand movements to get to the first form. Sheesh!
>>>
>>> More productive energy is wasted trying to wrestle with these
>>> OSes and their GUI gift wrappings. This time wastage has
>>> dripped into the comm biz. I should not have to spend 1/2 hour
>>> trying to get one yes/no question answered via the telephone.
>>> And I'm being optimistic when I said 1/2 hour. It's usually
>>> an hour or two.
>>
>>Keying in a string like "XG24K$03X7943LN$" where each position is
>>closely defined is not intuitive for humans and is very prone to
>>error. Transmitting erroneous data is inefficient and has
>>consequences.
>>
>>A more intuitive entry, even in a batch mode, makes it much easier:
>>
>>FLGT=345,DAY=1117,PSGS=2,HOTL=YES etc despite the extra keystrokes and
>>interpreation time.
>
> This is pretty close to what a http POST actually looks like.
> You can sometimes see them in the URL field in the browser.
>
You can actually operate HTTP through telnet, possibly with a
cribsheet in front of you, and some way of getting the size of
whatever you are sending.
As for the exams, when ours were doing them, I used say that these
were only the first of many that one would do going through life, now
we have to do car tests, or finally be tested for senility :)
--
Greymaus....
\/\
\?
Dave Garland
> My pet peeve is dropdowns for US states. It takes twice as long to get
> the dropdown, scroll down to "NY", and click on it than it would to just
> key "NY." Every time I do this, it REALLY ANNOYS ME. Unfortunately,
> probably not too many GUI designers read this newsgroup.
If you could do the whole screen with the mouse, it might even make
sense. But they've just made you take your hand off the mouse to type
in your city name.
Once in a great while, I'll find one of those where you can type into
it, not just the first letter (which usually gives you the hit at the
bottom of the dropdown, and makes you scroll down further if you don't
want the first state that starts with that letter), but both letters
(memo to programmers: there are 50 states, but only 26 letters, so you
probably need to plan for the case where more than one state begins
with the same letter). (The first letter usually gives you the hit
at the _bottom_ of the dropdown, and makes you scroll down further if
you don't want the first state that starts with that letter.)
Dave
Charles Richmond
I have seen drop-down lists of state abbreviations, where I could
type "T" to get to the abbreviation for Tennessee, then type "T"
again and it would advance to "Texas".
What I'd like to see is a menu that is two dimensional--horizontal
as well as vertical. Then I could move my mouse *across* the menu
to select "TX" or "WA" or even "WY".
--
+----------------------------------------+
| Charles and Francis Richmond |
| |
| plano dot net at aquaporin4 dot com |
+----------------------------------------+
Walter Bushell
Dave Garland <dave.g...@wizinfo.com> wrote:
Use the letter after the one you want. For NY, I enter "O" and mouse up
to NY.
Charlie Gibbs
<f0ef2bf2-d147-474a...@w19g2000yqk.googlegroups.com>,
hanc...@bbs.cpcn.com (hancock4) writes:
> On Nov 17, 7:01�am, Peter Flass <Peter_Fl...@Yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>> I used to watch the airline people make reservations in the old days.
>> "Terse" is probably an understatement. �I have a James Martin book on
>> interactive systems from the 60's (IIRC). �It would be interesting to
>> dig it out and re-read what he has to say.
>
> I forgot about him, he was the 'guru' of modern systems in his day. I
> wonder whatever happened to him.
>
> Funny, today big box chain bookstores have huge computer sections, but
> likely nothing by Martin or published by Mike Murach Assoc or Daniel
> McCracken.
Of course not. They've been crowded out by al the books which make you
think you're a guru by telling you which button to click on the latest
fad app.
> I think there are still books out there by management guru Peter
> Drucker even though I believe he has passed on.
They're probably buried among the "pop management" books.
"Ninety percent of everything is crud."
-- Sturgeon's Revelation
"And your agent gets the other ten percent."
-- Bloch's Corollary to Sturgeon's Revelation
However, one need go no farther than the World Wide Waste to observe
that Sturgeon's Revelation is, if anything, conservative.
"We've all heard that a million monkeys banging on a million
typewriters will eventually reproduce the entire works of
Shakespeare. Now, thanks to the Internet, we know this is
not true."
-- Robert Wilensky (1996)
--
/~\ cgi...@kltpzyxm.invalid (Charlie Gibbs)
\ / I'm really at ac.dekanfrus if you read it the right way.
X Top-posted messages will probably be ignored. See RFC1855.
/ \ HTML will DEFINITELY be ignored. Join the ASCII ribbon campaign!
Charlie Gibbs
Peter...@Yahoo.com (Peter Flass) writes:
> My pet peeve is dropdowns for US states. It takes twice as long
> to get the dropdown, scroll down to "NY", and click on it than it
> would to just key "NY." Every time I do this, it REALLY ANNOYS ME.
> Unfortunately, probably not too many GUI designers read this
> newsgroup.
Even if they did, they'd just shrug and say, "Oh, they're
experienced users - they don't count." After all, the purpose
of modern user interface design is to cater to people who know
nothing about the application and/or use it only once a year.
The fact that such designs often penalize experienced users
who use the thing day in and day out doesn't seem to register.
My pet peeve? IT DOESN'T HAVE TO BE THIS WAY. With a bit of
thought you can design a user interface that's easy for beginners
(e.g. menus and drop-downs), while providing options that are
efficient for experienced users (keyboard shortcuts and typeable
values). But most designers are too lazy - or too enamored by
flashy gizmos - to bother trying.
I love that phrase "eat your own dog food" - and it's painfully
obvious which software designers don't.
Roland Hutchinson
Write them a letter, by certified mail.
If that doesn't get their attention, it's time to have an attorney write
them a letter.
--
Roland Hutchinson
He calls himself "the Garden State's leading violist da gamba,"
... comparable to being ruler of an exceptionally small duchy.
--Newark (NJ) Star Ledger ( http://tinyurl.com/RolandIsNJ )
Dave Garland
> In article <tv2dnXCIkaCJvZnW...@posted.visi>,
> Dave Garland <dave.g...@wizinfo.com> wrote:
>> Once in a great while, I'll find one of those where you can type into
>> it, not just the first letter (which usually gives you the hit at the
>> bottom of the dropdown, and makes you scroll down further if you don't
>> want the first state that starts with that letter), but both letters
>> (memo to programmers: there are 50 states, but only 26 letters, so you
>> probably need to plan for the case where more than one state begins
>> with the same letter). (The first letter usually gives you the hit
>> at the _bottom_ of the dropdown, and makes you scroll down further if
>> you don't want the first state that starts with that letter.)
>
> Use the letter after the one you want. For NY, I enter "O" and mouse up
> to NY.
That's a small improvement, but not much. My gripe is having to
scroll at all, since the pulldown is usually embedded in a bunch of
other fields that require typing, making you take your hand off of the
keyboard to use the mouse, and then drop the mouse and put your hands
back on the keyboard to do the postal code. Either make the data
entry all mouse, or all keyboard, but mixing the two is horrid,
especially when dealing with a fixed set of choices that have been
well-known standards for 50 years.
Perhaps it saves labor for people who type with two fingers, and have
trouble finding where the keys are (senior management)?
In your case, pressing "N" should put the focus on "NE" at the _top_
of the selection window, and then pressing "Y" should skip NH, NJ, NM,
and NV and land on NY.
Dave
Anne & Lynn Wheeler
jmfbahciv <jmfbahciv@aol> writes:
> Terse is a lot more efficient than having to make a million finger
> or hand movements to get to the first form. Sheesh!
>
> More productive energy is wasted trying to wrestle with these
> OSes and their GUI gift wrappings. This time wastage has
> dripped into the comm biz. I should not have to spend 1/2 hour
> trying to get one yes/no question answered via the telephone.
> And I'm being optimistic when I said 1/2 hour. It's usually
> an hour or two.
re:
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009q.html#10 The 50th Anniversary of the Legendary IBM 1401
some of the current web reservation webpages are getting close to the
rewrite. the infrastructure had been a PC simulating a dumb terminal
... doing a very structured query ... followed by 2-3 additional queries
based on previous responses. demo we did had client/server (could have
simulated dumb terminal ... but we were returning significant more
information in response). Client was an X-window application with menu
for origin, destination, date, time, etc. (again similar to some
current).
response was possibly up to best 30-50 possible that somewhat satistifed
the query. The client code supported being able to sort the list in
several different ways ... and also expand default display to additional
information returned about specific flts. it turns out some people have
different sorting priorities ... not necessarily shortest travel time
... or departure (or arrival) close to some specific time.
while it had all commercial scheduled flts in the world (from master OAG
data source) ... the quicky demo only included some things for US
flts. Got a lits of all latitude/longitude for all airports in the world
with commercial schedule flts. For the US ... calculated position on
graphical map for the (US) airports. Clicking on flts (within the US)
... it would draw approx. route (more impressive for multi-airport flt
... with or w/o connections). Would also click and be able to retrieve
most recent weather condition map ... and overlay flt routes over
current weather map (only had real meaning for flts that were flying on
some day that corresponding weather map was available).
part of all this was also being able to do the server-side lookup about
100 times faster than the production system (involved changing the
paradigm and how the problem was viewed).
Morten Reistad
Patrick Scheible <k...@zipcon.net> wrote:
>Morten Reistad <fi...@last.name> writes:
>
>> In article <7a405b93-96bb-4109...@l13g2000yqb.googlegroups.com>,
>> But I still get 3270 flashbacks. I STILL get small flashes of
>> "do we have enough space in the 3270 stream" when adding fields
>> to html forms. Just like the recurring nightmares sometime
>> during May of "oh God, I have an exam in $SUBJECT tomorrow, and
>> haven't prepared at all"; where I just wake up, tell self you
>> haven't been in College in 25 years, and go back to sleep.
>
>For me, the nightmare goes: I am looking up my schedule to see when
>the final exams are scheduled next week, and I discover that I am
>still enrolled in another class that I thought I dropped the first
>day.
Yep. Except with the variation "oh, I enrolled in course $X, only
1 hr a week; 4 hour exam, should cover this in less than a weeks
reading, but exam is TOMORROW, and I forgot to cancel".
In real life, I used the 4 "exam delays" you get as a student
chairman to zigzag through courses, always enlisting in a little
heavier courseload than what is realistic, and then "adjusting"
just before the exams. But you had to cancel a week before the exam.
Normally you are allowed two such cancels without affecting exam
results.
The national record for how far this could be utilised is held by
our current Prime Minister. He was (and is) legendary for workload.
-- mrr
Peter Flass
Or type "N" and if I can't remember what's next, type '?' to bring up
the menu. Otherwise let the whole thing stay hidden and out of the way.
D.J.
<Peter...@Yahoo.com> wrote:
>My pet peeve is dropdowns for US states. It takes twice as long to get
>the dropdown, scroll down to "NY", and click on it than it would to just
>key "NY." Every time I do this, it REALLY ANNOYS ME. Unfortunately,
>probably not too many GUI designers read this newsgroup.
You don't need to do that scrolling down.
Click on the state pulldown menu. Press the first letter on the state
you want to select. In this case NY. First you will get NJ, etc. Just
keep pressing the N until to get to NY. Click elsewhere on the web
page, all done. You should now have NY selected. Some of these
pulldown menus don't allow that though.
JimP.
--
Brushing aside the thorns so I can see the stars.
http://www.linuxgazette.net/ Linux Gazette
http://www.drivein-jim.net/ Drive-In movie theaters
http://poetry.drivein-jim.net/ Aug 26, 2009
Morten Reistad
Patrick Scheible <k...@zipcon.net> wrote:
>Peter Flass <Peter...@Yahoo.com> writes:
>
>> My pet peeve is dropdowns for US states. It takes twice as long to get
>> the dropdown, scroll down to "NY", and click on it than it would to just
>> key "NY." Every time I do this, it REALLY ANNOYS ME. Unfortunately,
>> probably not too many GUI designers read this newsgroup.
>
>You think it's bad for you... I live in Washington.
>
>A few web forms allow either typing or clicking down the scroll
>list, but most require clicking and hunting.
All modern browsers support keying the first letter and then
stepping from there. O + uparrow get you to Norway, t and two
uparrows to Sweden, D goes directly to Denmark.
-- mrr
Joe Morris
> My pet peeve is dropdowns for US states. It takes twice as long to get
> the dropdown, scroll down to "NY", and click on it than it would to just
> key "NY." Every time I do this, it REALLY ANNOYS ME. Unfortunately,
> probably not too many GUI designers read this newsgroup.
And then there are the idjuts who have another way to get the state without
*any* pulldown list but dont use it. It's this very obscure datum called a
"ZIP code".
A decently designed form that asks for the ZIP will autofill the field for
the state if the ZIP code is given, but will allow the state to be manually
specified if no ZIP is provided.
Sadly, decently designed forms are very a rare species.
Badly designed forms are sometimes good for a laugh. Several years ago I
had to fill out a certain US gov'mt form that had recently been converted
from paper to a computer application. It seems that it was "converted" with
a forklift.
At one place it wanted the city and state where I was born; for the state
the on-screen instructions tell the user to "enter the two-letter
abbreviation from the table on the back of this page."
The current implementation of this form (now a web form, not an installable
application, and generally well-constructed) has its own oddities. My
favorite is that the form asks for country of citizenship and offers a table
of country identifications from which you can copy and paste one of the
acceptable names. Guess what country is missing from that list?
Joe Morris
hanc...@bbs.cpcn.com
While some states, like NY or NJ, are obvious, others are not
especially to non-natives. For instance, Maine and Massachusetts,
Arkansas-Alabama-Alaska-Arizona-American Samoa, Missisippi-Misouri.
Sometimes it's the first two letters of a state name, sometimes it's
the first and last letters. Throw in the Canadian provinces and
territories and it's more confusing.
hanc...@bbs.cpcn.com
> If I want to talk to the auto insurance company w.r.t. the auto
> insurance policy I had in Massachusetts, I cannot get from here
> to there on the phone. Their software is written so that a
> call from Michigan connects to the Michigan reps, not the Mass
> reps even though I punch in my Massachusetts' zip code. I can
> find all kinds of logic bugs in the flow chart of that software.
I had that problem, too, calling from a different state.
> It takes, literally, 1/2 hour to "convince" the software to get
> me to a human; however, that human is only allowed to handle
> Michigan issues. So the human, trying to be very helpful,
> transfers the call to the Massachusetts people, which never
> works. It appears that all software which handles transferred
> calls (and not just with this insurance company) puts you
> on hold for 60 minutes and then hangs up. I've had this
> happen with American Express and Social SEcurity.
Many automated software systems do everything possible to discourage
connection to a human. They REALLY want you to use their machine
interface, and tough-sh** if it doesn't work.
But I'm surprised the call center is in the home state. Many times
call centers have been relocated to low labor cost states or overseas.
hanc...@bbs.cpcn.com
> and you write the software to not require the field to be typed in.
> That's what forms control software was all about. I helped with
> DEC's first attempt at forms control. The company was Nabisco
> but we didn't get the bid. This was in 1972.
As an aside, I applied for a job in a Nabisco bakery. Driving by the
plant it smelled good. Inside the plant the dough/baking smells were
overpowering and discomforting. After I left I couldn't eat for a
long time.
hanc...@bbs.cpcn.com
> For me, the nightmare goes: I am looking up my schedule to see when
> the final exams are scheduled next week, and I discover that I am
> still enrolled in another class that I thought I dropped the first
> day.
I've had that.
hanc...@bbs.cpcn.com
wrote:
> Write them a letter, by certified mail.
Yes, whenever anyone is having a serious problem with any
organization, write to them by certified mail*, with return-receipt.
It's worth the few bucks and trip to the post office. Keep a copy of
your letter and clip the postal receipts to it.
Certified mail, since it has to be signed for, tends to get more
serious attention than regular mail or emails.
Some people are confused by Certified Mail and Registered Mail.
Certified Mail is for regular letters and provides proof of delivery.
Registered Mail is for valuables, where the item is more secured en
route. Sometimes the term "registered letter" is used as a generic
term.
Roland Hutchinson
> Badly designed forms are sometimes good for a laugh. Several years ago
> I had to fill out a certain US gov'mt form that had recently been
> converted from paper to a computer application. It seems that it was
> "converted" with a forklift.
>
> At one place it wanted the city and state where I was born; for the
> state the on-screen instructions tell the user to "enter the two-letter
> abbreviation from the table on the back of this page."
But on the other side
It didn't say nothin'--
That screen was made for you and me!
Roland Hutchinson
I think I've go the t-shirt.
(It has Maxwell's equations printed on it.)
Charles Richmond
And if you have trouble with social security, write your
congressman. They can fix it for you, or see that it is fixed.
(I'm talking about whatever problem *you* have, *not* the menu
system.)
Patrick Scheible
> On Nov 18, 7:00=A0am, Peter Flass <Peter_Fl...@Yahoo.com> wrote:
> > hanco...@bbs.cpcn.com wrote:
> > > On Nov 17, 7:54 am, jmfbahciv <jmfbahciv@aol> wrote:
> > >> Peter Flass wrote:
> > >>> hanco...@bbs.cpcn.com wrote:
> > >>>> On Nov 14, 9:33 am, des...@verizon.net wrote:
> > >>>>> If I remember that manual correctly the terminal program was suppos=
> ed to
> > >>>>> hide out in high memory and the running batch programs were suppose=
> d to
> > >>>>> periodically give up control to the terminal program.
> > >>>>> That always seemed completely unworkable to me.
> > >>>> The earliest on-line computer 'information systems' of the 1960s-197=
> 0s
> > >>>> had extremely austere command interfaces and responses. =A0The comma=
> nds
> > >>>> were positional made up of a series of codes, nothing was intuitive.
> > >>>> The responses were equally terse. =A0Response time was slow. =A0Ever=
> ything
> > >>>> had to be looked up in manuals to decipher.
> > >>> I used to watch the airline people make reservations in the old days.
> > >>> "Terse" is probably an understatement. =A0I have a James Martin book =
> on
> > >>> interactive systems from the 60's (IIRC). =A0It would be interesting =
> to
> > >>> dig it out and re-read what he has to say.
> > >> Terse is a lot more efficient than having to make a million finger
> > >> or hand movements to get to the first form. =A0Sheesh!
> >
> > >> More productive energy is wasted trying to wrestle with these
> > >> OSes and their GUI gift wrappings. =A0This time wastage has
> > >> dripped into the comm biz. =A0I should not have to spend 1/2 hour
> > >> trying to get one yes/no question answered via the telephone.
> > >> And I'm being optimistic when I said 1/2 hour. =A0It's usually
> > >> an hour or two.
> >
> > > Keying in a string like "XG24K$03X7943LN$" where each position is
> > > closely defined is not intuitive for humans and is very prone to
> > > error. =A0Transmitting erroneous data is inefficient and has
> > > consequences.
> >
> > > A more intuitive entry, even in a batch mode, makes it much easier:
> >
> > > FLGT=3D345,DAY=3D1117,PSGS=3D2,HOTL=3DYES etc despite the extra keystro=
> kes and
> > > interpreation time.
> >
> > > I generally don't think much of GUI interfaces, especially dropdown
> > > menus for dates. =A0But dropdowns for other fields do make it helpful.
> >
> > My pet peeve is dropdowns for US states. =A0It takes twice as long to get
> > the dropdown, scroll down to "NY", and click on it than it would to just
> > key "NY." =A0Every time I do this, it REALLY ANNOYS ME. =A0Unfortunately,
> > probably not too many GUI designers read this newsgroup.
>
> While some states, like NY or NJ, are obvious, others are not
> especially to non-natives. For instance, Maine and Massachusetts,
> Arkansas-Alabama-Alaska-Arizona-American Samoa, Missisippi-Misouri.
> Sometimes it's the first two letters of a state name, sometimes it's
> the first and last letters. Throw in the Canadian provinces and
> territories and it's more confusing.
The two-letter abbreviations were a bad idea to start with. WA is for
Washington, but it's also for Western Australia.
-- Patrick
Charles Richmond
>
> [snip...] [snip...] [snip...]
>
> Many automated software systems do everything possible to discourage
> connection to a human. They REALLY want you to use their machine
> interface, and tough-sh** if it doesn't work.
>
> But I'm surprised the call center is in the home state. Many times
> call centers have been relocated to low labor cost states or overseas.
Perhaps the call center that BAH is getting... is the
Massachusetts call center in Bangalore, instead of the Michigan
call center in Bangalore. The difference is: The Massachusetts
call center will tell BAH that they can't help her because it's
the wrong state. The Michigan call center in Bangalore will tell
BAH they can't help her because they only have the authority to
tell her that they don't know.
Patrick Scheible
> And if you have trouble with social security, write your
> congressman. They can fix it for you, or see that it is fixed.
> (I'm talking about whatever problem *you* have, *not* the menu
> system.)
Because even your congressman is powerless to fix the menu system...
-- Patrick
Charles Richmond
I have heard this kind of thing often. I guess everyone who has
been to college... has been traumatized!!! ;-)
Kim Enkovaara
> My pet peeve is dropdowns for US states. It takes twice as long to get
Maybe they should first learn that there are other countries than USA,
and not all countries in the world have states :) Even if the forms
have country as one field, in the checking they want some state written
in, and sometimes only those two letter US codes are accepted etc.
--Kim
Dave Garland
> The two-letter abbreviations were a bad idea to start with. WA is for
> Washington, but it's also for Western Australia.
The postal codes are different. Those screens always want the postal
codes.
Dave
grey...@mail.com
Or you can have country with Alternate names, even in sorta-English.
One has Ireland as Eire. (You can waste a morning arguing about
that).
--
greymaus
.
.
...
jmfbahciv
> On 2009-11-18, jmfbahciv <jmfbahciv@aol> wrote:
>> Peter Flass wrote:
>>>
>>> That's how you could tell a good operator from bad. A good operator had
>>> all this committed to memory, along with alternate ways of doing things
>> and you write the software to not require the field to be typed in.
>> That's what forms control software was all about. I helped with
>> DEC's first attempt at forms control. The company was Nabisco
>> but we didn't get the bid. This was in 1972.
>>
>
> Was that the company and around the time, that F. Ross Johnson took
> over?. Frigging idiot.
>
>
I have no idea. I demo'ed the system for the president and his
VPs. The name isn't familiar but I don't recall any of their
names.
/BAH
jmfbahciv
laughter.
/BAH
jmfbahciv
> On Wed, 18 Nov 2009 07:00:14 -0500, Peter Flass
> <Peter...@Yahoo.com> wrote:
>> My pet peeve is dropdowns for US states. It takes twice as long to get
>> the dropdown, scroll down to "NY", and click on it than it would to just
>> key "NY." Every time I do this, it REALLY ANNOYS ME. Unfortunately,
>> probably not too many GUI designers read this newsgroup.
>
> You don't need to do that scrolling down.
>
> Click on the state pulldown menu. Press the first letter on the state
> you want to select. In this case NY. First you will get NJ, etc. Just
> keep pressing the N until to get to NY. Click elsewhere on the web
> page, all done. You should now have NY selected. Some of these
> pulldown menus don't allow that though.
>
field.
/BAH
jmfbahciv
> On Nov 18, 7:35 am, jmfbahciv <jmfbahciv@aol> wrote:
>
>> If I want to talk to the auto insurance company w.r.t. the auto
>> insurance policy I had in Massachusetts, I cannot get from here
>> to there on the phone. Their software is written so that a
>> call from Michigan connects to the Michigan reps, not the Mass
>> reps even though I punch in my Massachusetts' zip code. I can
>> find all kinds of logic bugs in the flow chart of that software.
>
> I had that problem, too, calling from a different state.
>
>> It takes, literally, 1/2 hour to "convince" the software to get
>> me to a human; however, that human is only allowed to handle
>> Michigan issues. So the human, trying to be very helpful,
>> transfers the call to the Massachusetts people, which never
>> works. It appears that all software which handles transferred
>> calls (and not just with this insurance company) puts you
>> on hold for 60 minutes and then hangs up. I've had this
>> happen with American Express and Social SEcurity.
>
> Many automated software systems do everything possible to discourage
> connection to a human. They REALLY want you to use their machine
> interface, and tough-sh** if it doesn't work.
In the Mass auto insurance case, the insurance could not be
cancelled until I turned in the plates. While the insurance
company was waiting for the plates, they "transferred" my
town of residence to Framingham which increased the premium by
50%. For six months after the plates were received, I was still
getting a bill for auto insurance: from Dec. 14, 2008-Dec. 14, 2008
for $700+. plus the late fees.
The gals in the center could not convince the software to cancel
the insurance nor negate the billing amount.
All this hogwash because of Massachusetts' inane auto insurance
laws.
/BAH
jmfbahciv
cereal after that.
/BAH
jmfbahciv
> hanc...@bbs.cpcn.com wrote:
>>
>> [snip...] [snip...] [snip...]
>>
>> Many automated software systems do everything possible to discourage
>> connection to a human. They REALLY want you to use their machine
>> interface, and tough-sh** if it doesn't work.
>>
>> But I'm surprised the call center is in the home state. Many times
>> call centers have been relocated to low labor cost states or overseas.
>
> Perhaps the call center that BAH is getting... is the Massachusetts call
> center in Bangalore, instead of the Michigan call center in Bangalore.
> The difference is: The Massachusetts call center will tell BAH that
> they can't help her because it's the wrong state. The Michigan call
> center in Bangalore will tell BAH they can't help her because they only
> have the authority to tell her that they don't know.
>
in Ohio.
/BAH
Patrick Scheible
Then why bother getting the state abbreviation at all?
-- Patrick
grey...@mail.com
A relative had shares in several US companies, boring, predictable
ones like Standard Brands, Nabisco, from the time she worked in the
states. Suddenly, around the early 70's, that 'thrusting,
enterprising, etc' idiot arrived, and in a couple of years, f*****
the whole lot up. I had a job at the time, cashing dividends for
her, etc. I remember the cashiers looking at the cheques, which in
some cases, were like cards. Her own family took up the job then,
when they got big enough, but it left me with a permanent suspicion
of those sort of people. (Most of my family live either in the
States, Canada, or Australia)
grey...@mail.com
Consider that Kelloggs have a reputation of strict quality control!
(So, what are the rest like?).
Stan Barr
> And then there are the idjuts who have another way to get the state without
> *any* pulldown list but dont use it. It's this very obscure datum called a
> "ZIP code".
>
> A decently designed form that asks for the ZIP will autofill the field for
> the state if the ZIP code is given, but will allow the state to be manually
> specified if no ZIP is provided.
There are a few well designed systems here in the UK. Last week I was
ordering something online and the website only asked for two bits of
information: the house number and the postcode. It then filled in
the full address and surname, leaving me to only edit the name if
necessary. No drop-down menus either until we got to the finance
company's credit card system!
--
Cheers,
Stan Barr plan.b .at. dsl .dot. pipex .dot. com
The future was never like this!
Charlie Gibbs
(Charles Richmond) writes:
> I have seen drop-down lists of state abbreviations, where I could
> type "T" to get to the abbreviation for Tennessee, then type "T"
> again and it would advance to "Texas".
>
> What I'd like to see is a menu that is two dimensional--horizontal
> as well as vertical. Then I could move my mouse *across* the menu
> to select "TX" or "WA" or even "WY".
I've noticed that on most Windows apps, you can scroll through
the values in a drop-down list with the left and right arrow keys.
Combined with my habit of using the tab key to skip to the next
field (and in lucky cases, back-tab to go to the previous field),
I can do most of my forms entry mouse-free - if you tab into a
drop-down list, you can make your selection without even making
it drop down.
--
/~\ cgi...@kltpzyxm.invalid (Charlie Gibbs)
\ / I'm really at ac.dekanfrus if you read it the right way.
X Top-posted messages will probably be ignored. See RFC1855.
/ \ HTML will DEFINITELY be ignored. Join the ASCII ribbon campaign!
Charlie Gibbs
my.sp...@verizon.net (Roland Hutchinson) writes:
> On Wed, 18 Nov 2009 20:34:55 -0500, Joe Morris wrote:
>
>> Badly designed forms are sometimes good for a laugh. Several years
>> ago I had to fill out a certain US gov'mt form that had recently been
>> converted from paper to a computer application. It seems that it was
>> "converted" with a forklift.
>>
>> At one place it wanted the city and state where I was born; for
>> the state the on-screen instructions tell the user to "enter the
>> two-letter abbreviation from the table on the back of this page."
Some things never change. I still remember the Univac OS/3 disk
prep program. New disk packs had a sticker on the cover listing
the defective tracks which were detected by factory testing.
You listed these tracks in the JCL so that the prep knew to
mark them even before doing any surface testing. The kicker
was that you were required to list the cylinder and head numbers
in hexadecimal, while they were listed on the pack in decimal.
That was stupidly lazy on the part of whoever wrote the program.
It wouldn't have been any trouble to have it accept the numbers
in decimal - or even better, either way.
To add insult to injury, the manual was quite explicit about your
having to do the conversion yourself. That goes beyond lazy and
into downright cruel.
Worst of all, if you blew the conversion, the program didn't tell
you about it up front. No, it waited until the 45-minute prep run
was finished, and then it would print a report telling you that
you blew it and would have to re-do the prep.
> But on the other side
> It didn't say nothin'--
"Kid, we don't like your kind."
> That screen was made for you and me!
That screen ain't your screen, that screen ain't my screen.
Charlie Gibbs
(Patrick Scheible) writes:
> hanc...@bbs.cpcn.com writes:
>
>> While some states, like NY or NJ, are obvious, others are not
>> especially to non-natives. For instance, Maine and Massachusetts,
>> Arkansas-Alabama-Alaska-Arizona-American Samoa, Missisippi-Misouri.
>> Sometimes it's the first two letters of a state name, sometimes it's
>> the first and last letters. Throw in the Canadian provinces and
>> territories and it's more confusing.
Yup. Here in B.C. it's no problem, but Alberta is particularly bad.
> The two-letter abbreviations were a bad idea to start with. WA is
> for Washington, but it's also for Western Australia.
Hear, hear.
At the time that these codes were introduced, I found it ironic that
these concessions to computers were being made just at the time that
computers were becoming powerful enough to be able to deal with the
original abbreviations - which I persist in using out of sheer spite.
Charlie Gibbs
kim.en...@iki.fi (Kim Enkovaara) writes:
And in the case of other countries that do have states, not all of
them fit a two-character field, e.g. Mexico's Baja California Sur,
locally known as BCS (to distinguish it from Baja California Norte,
BCN).
Ironic, isn't it, that we're now lavishing gigabytes (and MIPS)
on just about everything else, while still forcing users to fit
state codes into a Procrustean two-byte field. Internally it
might make sense, but I thought the purpose of a good user interface
was to isolate users from internal encoding. Oh, wait, I added the
word "good"...
grey...@mail.com
> In article <he17v4$9dm$1...@news.eternal-september.org>, fri...@tx.rr.com
> (Charles Richmond) writes:
>
>> I have seen drop-down lists of state abbreviations, where I could
>> type "T" to get to the abbreviation for Tennessee, then type "T"
>> again and it would advance to "Texas".
>>
>> What I'd like to see is a menu that is two dimensional--horizontal
>> as well as vertical. Then I could move my mouse *across* the menu
>> to select "TX" or "WA" or even "WY".
>
> I've noticed that on most Windows apps, you can scroll through
> the values in a drop-down list with the left and right arrow keys.
> Combined with my habit of using the tab key to skip to the next
> field (and in lucky cases, back-tab to go to the previous field),
> I can do most of my forms entry mouse-free - if you tab into a
> drop-down list, you can make your selection without even making
> it drop down.
>
Handy. We have no zip-codes here yet, (coming shortly, with the deluge
of junk mail shortly after), so I usually enter `000000' into
US-designed, British based forms. Stuff arrives later, no prob. ( I
addressed a letter recently, for an experiment, to "Lady that lives
in third house after turning left from Dublin in Timolin, Timolin,
Co. Kildare" (details changed) and it got there, so we don't really
need zip codes yet.
Walter Bushell
wrote:
Eat something sane for breakfast. Like sausage. Hey, at least sausage is
well cooked.
--
A computer without Microsoft is like a chocolate cake without mustard.
Dave Garland
> In article <he17v4$9dm$1...@news.eternal-september.org>, fri...@tx.rr.com
> (Charles Richmond) writes:
>
>> I have seen drop-down lists of state abbreviations, where I could
>> type "T" to get to the abbreviation for Tennessee, then type "T"
>> again and it would advance to "Texas".
>>
>> What I'd like to see is a menu that is two dimensional--horizontal
>> as well as vertical. Then I could move my mouse *across* the menu
>> to select "TX" or "WA" or even "WY".
>
> I've noticed that on most Windows apps, you can scroll through
> the values in a drop-down list with the left and right arrow keys.
> Combined with my habit of using the tab key to skip to the next
> field (and in lucky cases, back-tab to go to the previous field),
> I can do most of my forms entry mouse-free - if you tab into a
> drop-down list, you can make your selection without even making
> it drop down.
>
Hah. I didn't know that trick. Interesting. Not perfect (a perfect
solution wouldn't move my fingers from home row) but a vast
improvement over keyboard->mouse->keyboard.
Dave
Peter Flass
>
> While some states, like NY or NJ, are obvious, others are not
> especially to non-natives. For instance, Maine and Massachusetts,
> Arkansas-Alabama-Alaska-Arizona-American Samoa, Missisippi-Misouri.
> Sometimes it's the first two letters of a state name, sometimes it's
> the first and last letters. Throw in the Canadian provinces and
> territories and it's more confusing.
They're confusing to me too for states I don't use very often. For
example, Alaska and Alabama, but the dropdowns don't give you the name,
just the abbreviation, so they're just as confusing.
Patrick Scheible
> In article <w9z6397...@zipcon.net>, k...@zipcon.net
> (Patrick Scheible) writes:
>
> > hanc...@bbs.cpcn.com writes:
> >
> >> While some states, like NY or NJ, are obvious, others are not
> >> especially to non-natives. For instance, Maine and Massachusetts,
> >> Arkansas-Alabama-Alaska-Arizona-American Samoa, Missisippi-Misouri.
> >> Sometimes it's the first two letters of a state name, sometimes it's
> >> the first and last letters. Throw in the Canadian provinces and
> >> territories and it's more confusing.
>
> Yup. Here in B.C. it's no problem, but Alberta is particularly bad.
>
> > The two-letter abbreviations were a bad idea to start with. WA is
> > for Washington, but it's also for Western Australia.
>
> Hear, hear.
>
> At the time that these codes were introduced, I found it ironic that
> these concessions to computers were being made just at the time that
> computers were becoming powerful enough to be able to deal with the
> original abbreviations - which I persist in using out of sheer spite.
So does the Associated Press stylebook for bylines, and library
catalogers (when they are not quoting what it says in the book).
-- Patrick
Patrick Scheible
Patrick Scheible
Funny.
On the other hand, soon after 9-digit zip codes were introduced here,
P.O. box holders each had their own unique 9-digit zip. We addressed
a letter with just the zip code and nothing else and it got there.
-- Patrick
D.J.
I didn't try to type in the state field. I pressed a key on the
keyboard and it went right to the state abbreviation I wanted.
Seems like I was trying to type into a field that didn't allow it, but
the affect is different.
JimP.
--
Brushing aside the thorns so I can see the stars.
http://www.linuxgazette.net/ Linux Gazette
http://www.drivein-jim.net/ Drive-In movie theaters
http://poetry.drivein-jim.net/ Aug 26, 2009
Joe Pfeiffer
Don't ask that question.
--
As we enjoy great advantages from the inventions of others, we should
be glad of an opportunity to serve others by any invention of ours;
and this we should do freely and generously. (Benjamin Franklin)
Joe Morris
> On Wed, 18 Nov 2009 18:18:10 -0800, hancock4 wrote:
>
>> On Nov 18, 10:28 am, Patrick Scheible <k...@zipcon.net> wrote:
>>
>>> For me, the nightmare goes: I am looking up my schedule to see when the
>>> final exams are scheduled next week, and I discover that I am still
>>> enrolled in another class that I thought I dropped the first day.
>>
>> I've had that.
>
> I think I've go the t-shirt.
>
> (It has Maxwell's equations printed on it.)
When I was an undergrad sweatshirts with Maxwell's equations on them were
popular on campus (and I've still got mine, almost fifty years later). There
was a story making the rounds of someone who wore his Maxwell sweatshirt
while taking final exams -- after carefully rearranging some of the glyphs.
Joe
Walter Bushell
Joe Pfeiffer <pfei...@cs.nmsu.edu> wrote:
Yes, sausage is much like religion.
Gene Wirchenko
wrote:
>Walter Bushell <pr...@panix.com> writes:
[snip]
>> Eat something sane for breakfast. Like sausage. Hey, at least sausage is
>> well cooked.
>
>Ah, but well-cooked *what* is the question.
It might not be all that bad:
From My Sig Collection:
"Mark Twain famously noted that those who are interested in the law or
sausage should never watch either made. In the years since he made
the remark, there has been considerable reform in sausage making." --
Dennis E. Powell
Sincerely,
Gene Wirchenko
Gene Wirchenko
wrote:
[snip]
>Ironic, isn't it, that we're now lavishing gigabytes (and MIPS)
>on just about everything else, while still forcing users to fit
>state codes into a Procrustean two-byte field. Internally it
>might make sense, but I thought the purpose of a good user interface
>was to isolate users from internal encoding. Oh, wait, I added the
>word "good"...
1) It allows for fast DE by those who are familiar with the abbrevs.
That is called an advantage if you are one of those people or their
manager. It can be a bother for others.
2) If you allow end users to enter anything, they will oblige you.
Sincerely,
Gene Wirchenko
Al Kossow
>
> "Mark Twain famously noted that those who are interested in the law or
> sausage should never watch either made. In the years since he made
> the remark, there has been considerable reform in sausage making." --
> Dennis E. Powell
>
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/21/magazine/27wwwl-guestsafire-t.html?_r=1
When a candidate refers to Otto von Bismarck�s famous maxim about �laws and sausages,�
grin knowingly, point out that the Iron Chancellor was not associated with that
quip until the 1930s and cite The Daily Cleveland Herald, Mar. 29, 1869, quoting
the lawyer-poet John Godfrey Saxe that �Laws, like sausages, cease to inspire
respect in proportion as we know how they are made.
Morten Reistad
Kim Enkovaara <kim.en...@iki.fi> wrote:
>Peter Flass wrote:
>> My pet peeve is dropdowns for US states. It takes twice as long to get
>> the dropdown, scroll down to "NY", and click on it than it would to just
>> key "NY." Every time I do this, it REALLY ANNOYS ME. Unfortunately,
>> probably not too many GUI designers read this newsgroup.
>
>and not all countries in the world have states :) Even if the forms
>have country as one field, in the checking they want some state written
>in, and sometimes only those two letter US codes are accepted etc.
And not all places are even in a county. I live in a city that, like
Washington DC, is not in a county; but it is it's own municipality.
And "+" is a valid part of a telephone number, as of 1992. All the
four ITU number plans (E.161/162/163/164) require support of the "+"
where technically possible. This was incorporated into bellcore
standards as of the next revision. However, space. "(", ")" and
"-" are NOT valid parts of a telephone number.
-- mrr
ArarghMai...@not.at.arargh.com
wrote:
<snip>
>
>On the other hand, soon after 9-digit zip codes were introduced here,
>P.O. box holders each had their own unique 9-digit zip. We addressed
>a letter with just the zip code and nothing else and it got there.
Usually, but not always. Zips that have too many boxes can't assign a
unique number to each.
OTOH, with 11 digit zips, the same could be said to be true for single
family homes. The 11 digit zip for me is unique and only applies to
my house.
--
ArarghMail911 at [drop the 'http://www.' from ->] http://www.arargh.com
BCET Basic Compiler Page: http://www.arargh.com/basic/index.html
To reply by email, remove the extra stuff from the reply address.
Charles Richmond
> In article <w9z6397...@zipcon.net>, k...@zipcon.net
> (Patrick Scheible) writes:
>
>> hanc...@bbs.cpcn.com writes:
>>
>>> While some states, like NY or NJ, are obvious, others are not
>>> especially to non-natives. For instance, Maine and Massachusetts,
>>> Arkansas-Alabama-Alaska-Arizona-American Samoa, Missisippi-Misouri.
>>> Sometimes it's the first two letters of a state name, sometimes it's
>>> the first and last letters. Throw in the Canadian provinces and
>>> territories and it's more confusing.
>
> Yup. Here in B.C. it's no problem, but Alberta is particularly bad.
>
When I lived in San Diego, CA, I saw several cars driving around
with BC license plates. Then it came to me... the plates were from
Baja California, *not* British Columbia!!!
--
+----------------------------------------+
| Charles and Francis Richmond |
| |
| plano dot net at aquaporin4 dot com |
+----------------------------------------+
Charles Richmond
> In article <MQ5Nm.41722$La7....@uutiset.elisa.fi>,
> kim.en...@iki.fi (Kim Enkovaara) writes:
>
>> Peter Flass wrote:
>>
>>> My pet peeve is dropdowns for US states. It takes twice as long to
>>> get the dropdown, scroll down to "NY", and click on it than it would
>>> to just key "NY." Every time I do this, it REALLY ANNOYS ME.
>>> Unfortunately, probably not too many GUI designers read this
>>> newsgroup.
>> Maybe they should first learn that there are other countries than
>> USA, and not all countries in the world have states :) Even if the
>> forms have country as one field, in the checking they want some state
>> written in, and sometimes only those two letter US codes are accepted
>> etc.
>
> And in the case of other countries that do have states, not all of
> them fit a two-character field, e.g. Mexico's Baja California Sur,
> locally known as BCS (to distinguish it from Baja California Norte,
> BCN).
>
> Ironic, isn't it, that we're now lavishing gigabytes (and MIPS)
> on just about everything else, while still forcing users to fit
> state codes into a Procrustean two-byte field. Internally it
> might make sense, but I thought the purpose of a good user interface
> was to isolate users from internal encoding. Oh, wait, I added the
> word "good"...
>
The U.S. post office does *not* need to worry about overseas
things, or even things in Canada for that matter. If you send
something to Canada, just put a big CANADA on the bottom of the
address, the U.S. will send it to some central center in Canada,
and after that the Canadians can worry about it.
If the Canadian post office does *not* like the remainder of the
address, they can put the letter in "file 13".
Charles Richmond
> On 2009-11-19, Joe Morris <j.c.m...@verizon.net> wrote:
>> "Peter Flass" <Peter...@Yahoo.com> wrote:
>>
>>> My pet peeve is dropdowns for US states. It takes twice as long to get
>>> the dropdown, scroll down to "NY", and click on it than it would to just
>>> key "NY." Every time I do this, it REALLY ANNOYS ME. Unfortunately,
>>> probably not too many GUI designers read this newsgroup.
>> *any* pulldown list but dont use it. It's this very obscure datum called a
>> "ZIP code".
>>
>> A decently designed form that asks for the ZIP will autofill the field for
>> the state if the ZIP code is given, but will allow the state to be manually
>> specified if no ZIP is provided.
>>
>>
>>
>> Badly designed forms are sometimes good for a laugh. Several years ago I
>> had to fill out a certain US gov'mt form that had recently been converted
>> from paper to a computer application. It seems that it was "converted" with
>> a forklift.
>>
>> At one place it wanted the city and state where I was born; for the state
>> the on-screen instructions tell the user to "enter the two-letter
>> abbreviation from the table on the back of this page."
>>
>> application, and generally well-constructed) has its own oddities. My
>> favorite is that the form asks for country of citizenship and offers a table
>> of country identifications from which you can copy and paste one of the
>> acceptable names. Guess what country is missing from that list?
>
> Or you can have country with Alternate names, even in sorta-English.
> One has Ireland as Eire. (You can waste a morning arguing about
> that).
>
>
Or you can write the whole address in Arabic script, as long as
at the bottom of the address, it says in big letters "SAUDI
ARABIA". The U.S. post office should only care that it goes to the
right country, and the rest is *not* up to any U.S. agency.
Of course, if it said Saudi Arabia, then it probably would have to
go through a few security agencies before being sent out.
Charles Richmond
I grew up in a very small town, only about 50 people. The
postmaster knew everyone. So I could send a letter with just a
name and the zip code. The postmaster would know who to give it to.
Charles Richmond
Mess-Dos used to do something similar. If you tried to copy a file
to a floppy disk, the copy would begin. And maybe after the copy
was 4/5 complete, you would get an error message "Out of Disk Space".
On the Mac (and on the PC now I think), if there is *not* enough
room to copy the file, you get a message saying that and the copy
is *never* started. This worked for things like ZIP disks too.
Morten Reistad
That is not unusual. The largest municipality here without mandatory
street addresses here is Arendal, population 40.000. OK, probably
35000 of those have street addresses; but the city council just
postponed imposing street names yet again. Costs too much.
-- mrr
grey...@mail.com
> grey...@mail.com wrote:
>>
>>
> Or you can write the whole address in Arabic script, as long as
> at the bottom of the address, it says in big letters "SAUDI
> ARABIA". The U.S. post office should only care that it goes to the
> right country, and the rest is *not* up to any U.S. agency.
>
> Of course, if it said Saudi Arabia, then it probably would have to
> go through a few security agencies before being sent out.
>
Or even when it gets there. Local lady arranges gymnastics, and one
of her former pupils is now working in Qatar, and asked that she send
out a DVD of a course of excercises with someone going out, it would
probably be stopped going in in regular mail. (Qatar is a fairly
relaxed country)
jmfbahciv
> On 2009-11-19, jmfbahciv <jmfbahciv@aol> wrote:
>> hanc...@bbs.cpcn.com wrote:
>>> On Nov 18, 7:41 am, jmfbahciv <jmfbahciv@aol> wrote:
>>>
>>>> and you write the software to not require the field to be typed in.
>>>> That's what forms control software was all about. I helped with
>>>> DEC's first attempt at forms control. The company was Nabisco
>>>> but we didn't get the bid. This was in 1972.
>>> As an aside, I applied for a job in a Nabisco bakery. Driving by the
>>> plant it smelled good. Inside the plant the dough/baking smells were
>>> overpowering and discomforting. After I left I couldn't eat for a
>>> long time.
>>>
>> My class took a tour through Kellogg's. I couldn't eat breakfast
>> cereal after that.
>>
>> /BAH
>
> Consider that Kelloggs have a reputation of strict quality control!
> (So, what are the rest like?).
>
I looked at a bowl of cereal.
/BAH