Miniskirts and mainframes

[Dave Garland]

Boingboing has an article featuring old (mostly advertising) photos of
computer gear (and a few other high-tech 1960s items) attended by
models in miniskirts.

http://boingboing.net/2015/07/30/miniskirtsandcomputers.html

Anybody know what the tabletop unit that appears to be connected to
either a coffeemaker or a microscope (take your pick) is?

[Anne & Lynn Wheeler]

I remember classroom tables getting modesty panels ... instead of simple
flat table top that 2-3 people sat at ... there was panel on one side
that would obstruct the view of the person standing in front facing the
room

--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

[Scott Lurndal]

We (Burroughs) had internally a great poster for one of
our mainframes with a bikini-clad babe draped across the
top. I wish I had a copy now....

[Michael Black]

Clearly the ad doesn't work, if you are paying more attention to the
computer than the woman in the photo.

I want to point out that in the early days of "home computers" the ads
were lacking the women (well except for that drawing in the Tri-Tek ads),
the hardware was what the readership lusted after. Considering it was
virtually an all male field, there was a fair attempt at being not sexist,
I guess the counterculture influence.

It was only as small computers got more mainstream that the women started
appearing in the ads, draped over the computers. But then I guess that
wider market wasn't as interested in the hardware. I remember one letter
pointing out that the model had her finger over the open space on a floppy
drive.

Michael

[Stephen Sprunk]

On 30-Jul-15 13:55, Michael Black wrote:
> On Thu, 30 Jul 2015, Dave Garland wrote:
>> Boingboing has an article featuring old (mostly advertising) photos
>> of computer gear (and a few other high-tech 1960s items) attended
>> by models in miniskirts.
>>
>> http://boingboing.net/2015/07/30/miniskirtsandcomputers.html

How does their attire compare to typical office attire for women of the
era? Aside from a few blatant exceptions, most do not look any more
revealing (and many less) than what I see in offices today.

I've read that company policies required women to wear skirts or
dresses, so I'm not surprised to see none in pants, but I'm unsure
whether the hem lines in particular were "appropriate".

OTOH, the neck lines seem much higher than today, but I assume that's
due to the fall of neckties and the resulting rise of open collars--for
both sexes.

>> Anybody know what the tabletop unit that appears to be connected
>> to either a coffeemaker or a microscope (take your pick) is?
>
> Clearly the ad doesn't work, if you are paying more attention to the
> computer than the woman in the photo.

> ...

> It was only as small computers got more mainstream that the women
> started appearing in the ads, draped over the computers. But then I
> guess that wider market wasn't as interested in the hardware. I
> remember one letter pointing out that the model had her finger over
> the open space on a floppy drive.

The idea is not that readers will stare at the women and ignore the
product; that's not very useful to the advertiser. It's that readers
(both men and women, interestingly) are more likely to notice the ad if
there is a scantily-clad woman in it and have a more positive impression
of the product as a result.

One might consider this sexist, but if it didn't work, the marketing
industry wouldn't keep doing it.

Also, it's interesting that the article focuses on the women's attire
but doesn't even mention the possible "it's so easy to use that even
women can do it!" subtext, which IMHO is far more sexist.

> I want to point out that in the early days of "home computers" the
> ads were lacking the women (well except for that drawing in the
> Tri-Tek ads), the hardware was what the readership lusted after.
> Considering it was virtually an all male field, there was a fair
> attempt at being not sexist, I guess the counterculture influence.

I'd think that was more due to ads being written by and for engineers
because most marketing folks and purchasing depts didn't understand what
was being advertised, why it mattered or how one product was different
from another.

When that happens, or when the products really don't matter or really
aren't different, marketers always turn to scantily-clad models.

S

--
Stephen Sprunk "God does not play dice." --Albert Einstein
CCIE #3723 "God is an inveterate gambler, and He throws the
K5SSS dice at every possible opportunity." --Stephen Hawking

[Michael Black]

On Thu, 30 Jul 2015, Stephen Sprunk wrote:

> On 30-Jul-15 13:55, Michael Black wrote:
>> On Thu, 30 Jul 2015, Dave Garland wrote:
>>> Boingboing has an article featuring old (mostly advertising) photos
>>> of computer gear (and a few other high-tech 1960s items) attended
>>> by models in miniskirts.
>>>
>>> http://boingboing.net/2015/07/30/miniskirtsandcomputers.html
>
> How does their attire compare to typical office attire for women of the
> era? Aside from a few blatant exceptions, most do not look any more
> revealing (and many less) than what I see in offices today.
>
> I've read that company policies required women to wear skirts or
> dresses, so I'm not surprised to see none in pants, but I'm unsure
> whether the hem lines in particular were "appropriate".
>
> OTOH, the neck lines seem much higher than today, but I assume that's
> due to the fall of neckties and the resulting rise of open collars--for
> both sexes.
>

I think some of it is merely that women are in the ads. I'm not sure that
represents a reality. Oh, there were women, but not that common.

And most of those photos looked like the women were secretaries (and no,
for the time their dress looked about "right"). And surely at best they'd
be at a terminal in some office, not near the actual mainframes and
minicomputers.

I can certainly remember small computer ads (once they got more
mainstream) suddenly having women draped over the computers, I want to say
they were naked (in a "discrete" way) but maybe just deep cleavage. Once
you get those (like that cover of the Atari ST magazine), the fact that
they are draped becomes the thing, they have nothing to do with the
computers.

>>> Anybody know what the tabletop unit that appears to be connected
>>> to either a coffeemaker or a microscope (take your pick) is?
>>
>> Clearly the ad doesn't work, if you are paying more attention to the
>> computer than the woman in the photo.
>> ...
>> It was only as small computers got more mainstream that the women
>> started appearing in the ads, draped over the computers. But then I
>> guess that wider market wasn't as interested in the hardware. I
>> remember one letter pointing out that the model had her finger over
>> the open space on a floppy drive.
>
> The idea is not that readers will stare at the women and ignore the
> product; that's not very useful to the advertiser. It's that readers
> (both men and women, interestingly) are more likely to notice the ad if
> there is a scantily-clad woman in it and have a more positive impression
> of the product as a result.
>
> One might consider this sexist, but if it didn't work, the marketing
> industry wouldn't keep doing it.
>

But the contrast was quite strong at the time. A very male domain, and no
women draped over computers, but once it widened out, the women were on
display.

> Also, it's interesting that the article focuses on the women's attire
> but doesn't even mention the possible "it's so easy to use that even
> women can do it!" subtext, which IMHO is far more sexist.
>

But I think some of that is there. These aren't software writers or
computer scientists, or hardware engineers, they are there only to be
women on display.

>> I want to point out that in the early days of "home computers" the
>> ads were lacking the women (well except for that drawing in the
>> Tri-Tek ads), the hardware was what the readership lusted after.
>> Considering it was virtually an all male field, there was a fair
>> attempt at being not sexist, I guess the counterculture influence.
>
> I'd think that was more due to ads being written by and for engineers
> because most marketing folks and purchasing depts didn't understand what
> was being advertised, why it mattered or how one product was different
> from another.
>

But the language used in the articles reflect an attempt at being
non-sexist. There was an inclusiveness "he or she", that didn't reflect
the reality of the readership in the early days.

Michael

[Shadow]

OMG. That's Bill Gates stealing the first copy of DOS. I'd
recognize him anywhere !!!!!


http://i2.wp.com/media.boingboing.net/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/msm.jpg

Another mystery solved.... Mitnick came nowhere near Gate's
audacity.
;)
[]'s
--
Don't be evil - Google 2004
We have a new policy - Google 2012

[Alfred Falk]

Dave Garland <dave.g...@wizinfo.com> wrote in news:mpdill$qlh$1@dont-
email.me:

Took me a while to find the picture you meant. I'm pretty sure that's a
microscope, not a coffemaker. I suppose it's some sort of lab analysis
system, but I don't see any logos or symbols to identify the maker so I
haven't a clue what it actually is. (Okay, that's an ASR33 on the right,
they were ubiquitous.)

As for the point of the web page's point: including young women in ads might
be a sexist way to sell, but it works even if some object. Then, as now.
The women are all wearing the fashion of the day. If they dressed any other
way they would have looked wierd at the time.
The third picture from the top might not be from an ad. They young women
look real, and like models. And the 11th picture was probably not selling
computer equipment in spite of the presence of desktop PC in the background.

[Quadibloc]

On Thursday, July 30, 2015 at 10:18:29 AM UTC-6, Dave Garland wrote:

> http://boingboing.net/2015/07/30/miniskirtsandcomputers.html

> Anybody know what the tabletop unit that appears to be connected to
> either a coffeemaker or a microscope (take your pick) is?

It's definitely a microscope, if you're talking about the picture I think
you're talking about. I don't recognize the unit, and Google image search is
just giving me more unidentified copies in pages about miniskirts in old
computer ads, but I will broaden my search.

John Savard

[Joe Morris]

"Alfred Falk" <fa...@arc.ab.ca> wrote:

> Dave Garland <dave.g...@wizinfo.com> wrote:

>> Boingboing has an article featuring old (mostly advertising) photos of
>> computer gear (and a few other high-tech 1960s items) attended by
>> models in miniskirts.

>> http://boingboing.net/2015/07/30/miniskirtsandcomputers.html

>> Anybody know what the tabletop unit that appears to be connected to
>> either a coffeemaker or a microscope (take your pick) is?

> Took me a while to find the picture you meant. I'm pretty sure that's a
> microscope, not a coffemaker.

I'll say "clearly a microsocope". You can see four objectives on a turret,
plus binocular eyepieces coming out at a 45 degree angle, what is probably a
motor-driven stage with internal lighting, and a housing above the eyepieces
that's about the right size to hold a high-resolution vidicon image tube.

I'll speculate that we're seeing an early image capture and storage device
(perhaps for medical research?) that includes rudimentary (by today's
standards) *analog* controls for image manipulation.

> As for the point of the web page's point: including young women in ads
> might
> be a sexist way to sell, but it works even if some object. Then, as now.
> The women are all wearing the fashion of the day. If they dressed any
> other
> way they would have looked wierd at the time.

Many years ago (1980?) Datamation Magazine republished some of the ads that
it had run in the very early days of the industry, and some of the ads from
that era weren't republished because the company involved didn't want to be
embarrassed. ISTR that one that didn't make it into the retrospective issue
was one for <I don't recall who> that advertised that its systems "spoke
Fortran, COBOL, and Dumb Blonde".

Joe

[Charlie Gibbs]

No, but dig the sideburns on the guy at the 360/75 front panel.

--
/~\ 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]

On 2015-07-30, Michael Black <et...@ncf.ca> wrote:

> It was only as small computers got more mainstream that the women started
> appearing in the ads, draped over the computers. But then I guess that
> wider market wasn't as interested in the hardware. I remember one letter
> pointing out that the model had her finger over the open space on a floppy
> drive.

I don't think "floppy" is what they were going for.

[Dave Garland]

Yeah, I figured it probably was a microscope. But the thought that
maybe this was a prototype for the first microcomputerized Mr. Coffee
got my hopes up.

[Quadibloc]

On Thursday, July 30, 2015 at 4:17:32 PM UTC-6, Joe Morris wrote:

> I'll speculate that we're seeing an early image capture and storage device
> (perhaps for medical research?) that includes rudimentary (by today's
> standards) *analog* controls for image manipulation.

I'm guessing that it might be a microdensitometer. As is apparent from the
image, the device is of some sort of modular construction, and the same company
made the modules for the TV screen part and the microscope part.

The Teletype in the picture has a front plate which has a logo on the left that
didn't come from Skokie, Illinois. That logo may be the one for the company
that made this system, since there are no conspicuous corporate logos visible
in the scale of the image on the electronic equipment.

John Savard

[Quadibloc]

On Thursday, July 30, 2015 at 5:48:42 PM UTC-6, Dave Garland wrote:

> Yeah, I figured it probably was a microscope. But the thought that
> maybe this was a prototype for the first microcomputerized Mr. Coffee
> got my hopes up.

Indeed, I should have acknowledged - rather than confusing others - that the
reference to it being a coffee maker was obviously intended in jest, rather
than simply answering in a straight-faced manner, thus creating the impression
that you really were confused about the issue.

John Savard

[Quadibloc]

Oh, and since the page referenced shows multiple images, and was slow to load on my computer at least, here is a page with the specific image discussed alone:

https://www.pinterest.com/pin/424605071088536713/

John Savard

[JimP]

Large black rectangle in the way.
--
JimP.

[Michael Black]

On Thu, 30 Jul 2015, Charlie Gibbs wrote:

> On 2015-07-30, Dave Garland <dave.g...@wizinfo.com> wrote:
>
>> Boingboing has an article featuring old (mostly advertising) photos of
>> computer gear (and a few other high-tech 1960s items) attended by
>> models in miniskirts.
>>
>> http://boingboing.net/2015/07/30/miniskirtsandcomputers.html
>>
>> Anybody know what the tabletop unit that appears to be connected to
>> either a coffeemaker or a microscope (take your pick) is?
>
> No, but dig the sideburns on the guy at the 360/75 front panel.
>

IN that context, they were really quite hip (or pretending to be). It
didn't take that much to step over the line.

Michael

[Michael Black]

On Thu, 30 Jul 2015, Charlie Gibbs wrote:

> On 2015-07-30, Michael Black <et...@ncf.ca> wrote:
>
>> It was only as small computers got more mainstream that the women started
>> appearing in the ads, draped over the computers. But then I guess that
>> wider market wasn't as interested in the hardware. I remember one letter
>> pointing out that the model had her finger over the open space on a floppy
>> drive.
>
> I don't think "floppy" is what they were going for.
>

I'm pretty sure the letter made comment on how her cleavage wsa likely
distracting people from looking at the fingers on the wrong part of the
floppy disk.

And yes, it wsa the disk, not a drive.

Michael

[terry+go...@tmk.com]

On Thursday, July 30, 2015 at 2:29:00 PM UTC-4, Scott Lurndal wrote:
> We (Burroughs) had internally a great poster for one of
> our mainframes with a bikini-clad babe draped across the
> top. I wish I had a copy now....

Neve Audio ran an ad (very late 70's or early 80's) with a [clothed] woman draped across the top of the console. I have (had? haven't seen it in 10 years) an 18x36 print of the in-house version where's she's naked (but discreetly positioned) on the console.

[RJH]

On 30/07/2015 20:14, Stephen Sprunk wrote:
> On 30-Jul-15 13:55, Michael Black wrote:
>> On Thu, 30 Jul 2015, Dave Garland wrote:
>>> Boingboing has an article featuring old (mostly advertising) photos
>>> of computer gear (and a few other high-tech 1960s items) attended
>>> by models in miniskirts.
>>>
>>> http://boingboing.net/2015/07/30/miniskirtsandcomputers.html
>
> How does their attire compare to typical office attire for women of the
> era? Aside from a few blatant exceptions, most do not look any more
> revealing (and many less) than what I see in offices today.
>
> I've read that company policies required women to wear skirts or
> dresses, so I'm not surprised to see none in pants, but I'm unsure
> whether the hem lines in particular were "appropriate".
>

Caused an early morning raised eyebrow here in Yorkshire, UK :-)


--
Cheers, Rob

[Stephen Sprunk]

On 30-Jul-15 15:29, Michael Black wrote:
> On Thu, 30 Jul 2015, Stephen Sprunk wrote:
>
>> On 30-Jul-15 13:55, Michael Black wrote:
>>> On Thu, 30 Jul 2015, Dave Garland wrote:
>>>> Boingboing has an article featuring old (mostly advertising)
>>>> photos of computer gear (and a few other high-tech 1960s items)
>>>> attended by models in miniskirts.
>>>>
>>>> http://boingboing.net/2015/07/30/miniskirtsandcomputers.html
>>
>> How does their attire compare to typical office attire for women of
>> the era? Aside from a few blatant exceptions, most do not look any
>> more revealing (and many less) than what I see in offices today.
>>
>> I've read that company policies required women to wear skirts or
>> dresses, so I'm not surprised to see none in pants, but I'm unsure
>> whether the hem lines in particular were "appropriate".
>>
>> OTOH, the neck lines seem much higher than today, but I assume
>> that's due to the fall of neckties and the resulting rise of open
>> collars--for both sexes.
>
> I think some of it is merely that women are in the ads. I'm not
> sure that represents a reality. Oh, there were women, but not that
> common.
>
> And most of those photos looked like the women were secretaries (and
> no, for the time their dress looked about "right").

Okay; I figured from the "miniskirts" in the title that the attire
itself was part of the complaint, but I guess not.

> And surely at best they'd be at a terminal in some office, not near
> the actual mainframes and minicomputers.

...

>> Also, it's interesting that the article focuses on the women's
>> attire but doesn't even mention the possible "it's so easy to use
>> that even women can do it!" subtext, which IMHO is far more
>> sexist.
>>
> But I think some of that is there. These aren't software writers or
> computer scientists, or hardware engineers,

While secretaries and clerks might not have been in data centers as
shown in some of those ads, they _were_ computer users, so it's not
unreasonable to include them. My issue is with the ones showing only
women (even if clad appropriately) when the industry was known to be
male dominated. I'm fine with the ones that show equal numbers to
subtly promote workplace equality, even if that wasn't the reality.

Even today, women are still woefully underrepresented at higher levels
in most tech companies, and what few women are employed at lower levels
are generally in non-technical areas, e.g. sales, marketing, personnel,
accounting, travel, etc., at rates similar to other industries.

> they are there only to be women on display.

Exactly. Our marketing is more subtle now than many other industries,
such as cars or beer, but based on the "booth bunnies" I see at industry
conventions, it's still quite sexist.

>> The idea is not that readers will stare at the women and ignore
>> the product; that's not very useful to the advertiser. It's that
>> readers (both men and women, interestingly) are more likely to
>> notice the ad if there is a scantily-clad woman in it and have a
>> more positive impression of the product as a result.
>>
>> One might consider this sexist, but if it didn't work, the
>> marketing industry wouldn't keep doing it.
>
> But the contrast was quite strong at the time. A very male domain,
> and no women draped over computers, but once it widened out, the
> women were on display.

Ah, but isn't a "very male domain" where you'd _expect_ to see
scantily-clad women draped over products?

OTOH, scantily-clad women have been shown to improve sales to women as
well, despite some of those women complaining about it. Scantily-clad
men also increase sales, but not nearly as much, which is why you only
see it for male-specific products such as boxers or cologne (which are
mostly bought by women for men, not by men themselves).

>>> Considering it was virtually an all male field, there was a fair
>>> attempt at being not sexist, I guess the counterculture
>>> influence.
>>
>> I'd think that was more due to ads being written by and for
>> engineers because most marketing folks and purchasing depts didn't
>> understand what was being advertised, why it mattered or how one
>> product was different from another.
>
> But the language used in the articles reflect an attempt at being
> non-sexist. There was an inclusiveness "he or she", that didn't
> reflect the reality of the readership in the early days.

Ah, I never noticed that. I do know our marketing and documentation
folks avoid gender-specific terms and pronouns when possible, but I
didn't realize the industry did that long before it went mainstream.
Kudos to us :)

[Peter Flass]

Stephen Sprunk <ste...@sprunk.org> wrote:
> On 30-Jul-15 13:55, Michael Black wrote:
>> On Thu, 30 Jul 2015, Dave Garland wrote:
>>> Boingboing has an article featuring old (mostly advertising) photos
>>> of computer gear (and a few other high-tech 1960s items) attended
>>> by models in miniskirts.
>>>
>>> http://boingboing.net/2015/07/30/miniskirtsandcomputers.html
>
> How does their attire compare to typical office attire for women of the
> era? Aside from a few blatant exceptions, most do not look any more
> revealing (and many less) than what I see in offices today.

I don't recall that it was common, but women used to come into work in
miniskirts, or micro-minis, or hot pants. I recall one secretary being
sent home because she had a very short skirt and no underwear.

--
Pete

[Alfred Falk]

Stephen Sprunk <ste...@sprunk.org> wrote in news:mpgacc$c13$1@dont-
email.me:

There were lots of women in datacenters. No, not many were programmers,
system engineers, etc, or managers. Most were data entry clerks, tape
changers, printout pullers, (whatever the proper job titles might be) and
that sort of thing. However, in all three universities I attended 1966-78
there were female profs in the comp sci departments. Minority, but present,
and lots of women in programming courses.

[Stan Barr]

We had a girl in our office who, in the summer, used to come to work
in an almost see-through dress, off the shoulder and slit up the sides.
Most distracting! Short skirts and dresses were the norm. You stop
noticing after a while.

--
Stan Barr pla...@bluesomatic.org

[JHY]

"Stan Barr" <pla...@bluesomatic.org> wrote in message
news:slrnmrorp7...@ID-309335.user.uni-berlin.de...

I never did.

Never stopped noticing the town's most well known gynaecologist
turning up a DECUS conferences wearing a fucking great checkered
lumberjack jacket or the other one from the same national research
organisation who used to chair the meetings wearing what we call
thongs and you lot call flip flops, even in the depth of winter either.

[jmfbahciv]

DEC had female software developers when I started working there.

/BAH

[David Wade]

Depends on where you were, but short skirts and dreses were in fashion...

http://history.cs.ncl.ac.uk/anniversaries/40th/webbook/photos/index.html

has, I assume plenty of pictures fo folks in normal work wear...
.. I also remember the problem with our plotter overheating. Turns out
the floor tile that venilated the plotter room blew up her skirt, and
she kept turning it down.

Dave
G4UGM

[David Wade]

I think thats when they screw down the lid on the coffin.....

[Dave Garland]

Ah me. That happened to the woman who was my wife in the mid-70s, only
it was a short nurse's uniform. She didn't think any of the old
geezers who were patients had complained, though.

[Michael Black]

I doubt the male geezers complained, but maybe the female ones did?

Michael

[Quadibloc]

It just occurs to me that the alliteration of your title follows a famous pattern...

Dungeons and Dragons.
Tunnels and Trolls.
Bunnies and Burrows.
Villains and Vigilantes.
Pirates and Plunder.

And from Sweden,
Drakar och Demoner
...which was an adaptation of Basic Role-Playing.

Mazes and Monsters (fictional)

Could one have an RPG about mainframe computing in the late sixties and early seventies?

John Savard

[Quadibloc]

On Saturday, August 1, 2015 at 7:46:17 PM UTC-6, Quadibloc wrote:
> It just occurs to me that the alliteration of your title follows a famous pattern...
>
> Dungeons and Dragons.
> Tunnels and Trolls.
> Bunnies and Burrows.
> Villains and Vigilantes.
> Pirates and Plunder.

The list goes on, I stopped too soon.

Powers and Perils.
Creeks and Crawdads.

John Savard

[Michael Black]

The mayor of Montreal this week announced something about lighting up one
of the bridges for the 375th anniversary of the founding of the city.

He got a lot of flack, apparently on that twitter thing, and he replied
something like "they are just trolls pissing in your ear".

Nobody knows where that expression came from, but I couldn't help but
wonder if he had played adventure games when he was a kid (he's young
enough that his youth came about the time of small computers). There's
the "troll" angle, but "pissing in your ear" sounds like something that
might happen in an adventure game.

Michael

[Quadibloc]

On Saturday, August 1, 2015 at 10:06:30 PM UTC-6, Michael Black wrote:
> There's
> the "troll" angle, but "pissing in your ear" sounds like something that
> might happen in an adventure game.

And here I'd have blamed Shakespeare's _Hamlet_...

John Savard

[John Levine]

>> the "troll" angle, but "pissing in your ear" sounds like something that
>> might happen in an adventure game.
>
>And here I'd have blamed Shakespeare's _Hamlet_...

Urban Dictionary has a citation from 2008. Not exactly Hamlet, but at
least it's not something just invented on the fly.

[Charlie Gibbs]

On 2015-08-02, Quadibloc <jsa...@ecn.ab.ca> wrote:

> Could one have an RPG about mainframe computing in the late sixties
> and early seventies?

I wrote a lot of RPG on mainframes in the seventies. :-)

[Quadibloc]

On Sunday, August 2, 2015 at 6:45:25 PM UTC-6, Charlie Gibbs wrote:
> On 2015-08-02, Quadibloc <jsa...@ecn.ab.ca> wrote:
>
> > Could one have an RPG about mainframe computing in the late sixties
> > and early seventies?
>
> I wrote a lot of RPG on mainframes in the seventies. :-)

And in addition to Role-Playing Game and Report Program Generator, there's also
Rocket-Propelled Grenade!

John Savard

[Michael Black]

On Sun, 3 Aug 2015, Charlie Gibbs wrote:

> On 2015-08-02, Quadibloc <jsa...@ecn.ab.ca> wrote:
>
>> Could one have an RPG about mainframe computing in the late sixties
>> and early seventies?
>
> I wrote a lot of RPG on mainframes in the seventies. :-)
>

There was a commercial game, maybe 1979, called something like "Prelude"?
There they had a model wearing lingerie, but in that case at least it fit,
since it was some game relating to sex. I don't think it was ever clear
exactly what it was, but I can imagine an adventure game written along
those lines.

I am reminded of 1993 or 94, when one local university women's group
discovered the internet. And they'd found porn on it! Their reaction was
"there should be a law". So it was for many the first time they'd heard
of this internet thing (I knew about it, but from reading computer
magazines), and the message was "this is bad, we need to put limits on
it". The group hadnt' considered that if porn spreads so easily, maybe
it's a good place to be, spread your own message. I tbink that too often
was the reaction of groups that followed, a whole new thing that they
couldn't control, so instead of jumping in and using the power of the
internet, they stuck their heads in the sand and hoped things would remain
as they had.

Michael

[Andrew Swallow]

Sounds a useful way of getting shot of the other two.

[Gene Wirchenko]

On Sun, 2 Aug 2015 21:03:48 -0400, Michael Black <et...@ncf.ca> wrote:

[snip]

>There was a commercial game, maybe 1979, called something like "Prelude"?
>There they had a model wearing lingerie, but in that case at least it fit,
>since it was some game relating to sex. I don't think it was ever clear
>exactly what it was, but I can imagine an adventure game written along
>those lines.

I remember full-page, colour magazine ads for a game called
Interlude. Was that it? Yes, the lingerie fit.

[snip]

Sincerely,

Gene Wirchenko

[Michael Black]

That has to be it, there weren't two games of that nature that had full
page color ads.

No wonder when I've tried to find talk of it, I never found any. I was
using the wrong name. I guess when I tried think of the name, "Prelude"
sounded sort of like foreplay.

Michael

[Charles Richmond]

"Huge" <Hu...@nowhere.much.invalid> wrote in message
news:d28j8h...@mid.individual.net...

> On 2015-08-03, Charlie Gibbs <cgi...@kltpzyxm.invalid> wrote:
>> On 2015-08-02, Quadibloc <jsa...@ecn.ab.ca> wrote:
>>
>>> Could one have an RPG about mainframe computing in the late sixties
>>> and early seventies?
>>
>> I wrote a lot of RPG on mainframes in the seventies. :-)
>

> You poor man.
>
> I loathed RPG with a passion.
>

I thought RPG was mostly for IBM minicomputers. Why would anyone code in
RPG on a *mainframe*???

--

numerist at aquaporin4 dot com

[Osmium]

"Charles Richmond" wrote:

> I thought RPG was mostly for IBM minicomputers. Why would anyone code in
> RPG on a *mainframe*???

I think of RPG (I have no personal interaction) as a contemporary of early
Fortran and COBOL. Wiki says 1959. Remember that Shakespeare wrote in
English.

[Dan Espen]

At a site I worked at, the RPG compiler was ready before the COBOL
compiler. This was for a S/360 30 running DOS.
Very early after S/360 announcement.

So, we gave RPG a try. It didn't work, our users expected reports
to be exactly like they were before. So that place ended up a
COBOL shop.

Other sites I worked at where RPG proved more useful were smaller
(360/20, S/32, S/34). We had some things that just wouldn't fly
with RPG. But if you were willing to compromise on results,
you could save quite a bit of money in salaries. The skill
level for coding RPG is substantially less than COBOL, ASM, or
PL/I.

Minis were the main market for RPG. The main issue I saw was
if you were willing accept RPG limitations, the language was
okay. RPG/II made the language much more acceptable.
I don't think RPG/II ever made it to the mainframe.
(checking...), nope no RPG/II on a mainframe.
So, in the modern era, minis only. Of course an
AS/400 can be pretty powerful.

--
Dan Espen

[John Levine]

>> I thought RPG was mostly for IBM minicomputers. Why would anyone code in
>> RPG on a *mainframe*???

That was later. RPG was quite popular on the smaller IBM 360 series,
including card-only versions.

RPG started as a software version of accounting machine plugboards.
If you already had the data on boxes of cards and needed to produce
inovoices and checks and the like, it was a perfectly adequate
langauge. Yeah, it needed fixed columns, but that was easy enough to
handle on keypunches with drum cards, and you could run useful
programs on a 360/20 with a card reader/punch, a printer, 4K of memory
(not a typo) and no disk or tape.

I will agree that later on RPG kind of jumped the shark as they kept
adding stuff to it and people were doing complex calculations and ISAM
file management that would have been a lot easier in Cobol.

[Quadibloc]

On Monday, August 3, 2015 at 1:58:17 PM UTC-6, Charles Richmond wrote:

> I thought RPG was mostly for IBM minicomputers. Why would anyone code in
> RPG on a *mainframe*???

RPG existed long before IBM *made* minicomputers. (i.e. the Series/1)

It was a much less powerful language than COBOL, but it could be used by people
who weren't real programmers - something like the role spreadsheets play on
micros today.

John Savard

[Dan Espen]

With RPG/II they added a CHAIN command.
Made it dirt simple to access ISAM (like) files on S/34.
At least as simple as COBOL if not more so.

--
Dan Espen

[hanc...@bbs.cpcn.com]

On Thursday, July 30, 2015 at 2:29:00 PM UTC-4, Scott Lurndal wrote:


> We (Burroughs) had internally a great poster for one of
> our mainframes with a bikini-clad babe draped across the
> top. I wish I had a copy now....

In recalling old Datamation articles, while they had pretty girls as models, I don't recall them getting too 'cheesecaky'. The model still was in business attire.

Journals for heavy industrial equipment, such as earth movers, would have much more graphic ads, with a buxom girl in a skimpy outfit sprawled over the the equipment.

But in the 1960s and 1970s, it was common for industry to use pretty girls in company publications. Young seretaries were happy to be chosen for such assignments; professional women staff found it objectionable.

The Penn Central railroad had an employee newsletter that featured a pretty secretary, in business clothes, posed next to some new piece of recently acquired equipment.

I have a telephone catalog from circa 1970. The models are generally in business attire. But there is one photo of a pay phone at the beach, being used by an attractive young lady in a bikini.

[hanc...@bbs.cpcn.com]

On Thursday, July 30, 2015 at 3:14:06 PM UTC-4, Stephen Sprunk wrote:

> How does their attire compare to typical office attire for women of the
> era? Aside from a few blatant exceptions, most do not look any more
> revealing (and many less) than what I see in offices today.

Most young women on the job in that era dressed more conservatively than those shown in ads. Some offices had dress codes discouraging extreme attire.

A young woman might wear a hot outfit on occasion, but usually not every day.

Also note that in an office in that era, there were women of many different ages. Women of age 30 and older did not dress like that. Also, women who didn't have a perfect figure usually didn't dress like that.

> I've read that company policies required women to wear skirts or
> dresses, so I'm not surprised to see none in pants, but I'm unsure
> whether the hem lines in particular were "appropriate".

In the mid 1970s, dress codes in offices were evolving. By 1975, many offices did allow pants to be worn. Very short skirts or tight tops were often discouraged.

Some lines of business were more consevative than others. IBM, of course, was quite conservative. An engineering or law firm was usually conservative. A markerting or media business might be more liberal.

Also, while many young woman wanted to look hot at work, plenty of young women back then did not share that sentiment.

The two older teen girls of the Brady Bunch, aired at that time, reported that they quietly tried to push the envelope wearing super short skirts and no bra, but their producers would limit that.

> OTOH, the neck lines seem much higher than today, but I assume that's
> due to the fall of neckties and the resulting rise of open collars--for
> both sexes.

I have heard modern managers complain that young woman today come to work "dressed for the beach" showing too much skin. Indeed, back then, an attractive perky young lady (with some brains) would be sought as a receptionist to a business. Today, a business would rather hire an older person, many or woman, and get some maturity. The managers complain that the 20-somethings are still acting like teenagers and haven't grown up yet.




> The idea is not that readers will stare at the women and ignore the
> product; that's not very useful to the advertiser. It's that readers
> (both men and women, interestingly) are more likely to notice the ad if
> there is a scantily-clad woman in it and have a more positive impression
> of the product as a result.

Men want to be with the woman in the picture, and the women readers want to be that woman.

> One might consider this sexist, but if it didn't work, the marketing
> industry wouldn't keep doing it.

I haven't seen it done today in what's left of the technical trade press, but most ads on TV are still as sexist as ever, regardless of the product. Use the product, and you'll be sexy!

Heck, at the conclusion of the medical ads on the evening news--targeted toward senior citizens--the end of the ad shows a loving handsome older couple walking hand-in-hand in the sunset on the beach.


As an aside, there is a plumbing company advertising like crazy on TV and in the newspaper. Their technicians are portrayed as mature with gray hair; I presume to present the image of confidence and competence.

[hanc...@bbs.cpcn.com]

On Friday, July 31, 2015 at 1:15:23 PM UTC-4, Stephen Sprunk wrote:

> Okay; I figured from the "miniskirts" in the title that the attire
> itself was part of the complaint, but I guess not.

In the early 2970s, it was common for a mini-computer maker to run a humorous ad talking about their "mini" vs a mini-skirt, with a model wearing a mini skirt.

Indeed, lots of tech ads back then took a numerous approach, say comparing a mainframe to a bulldozer in functionality. "No, our computer can't build a 50 story office tower. But, it can facilitate the progerss of one!"

(Sometimes these can be found in 1970s issues of C&A, on bitsavers).

[hanc...@bbs.cpcn.com]

On Saturday, August 1, 2015 at 3:03:05 AM UTC-4, Stan Barr wrote:

> We had a girl in our office who, in the summer, used to come to work
> in an almost see-through dress, off the shoulder and slit up the sides.
> Most distracting! Short skirts and dresses were the norm. You stop
> noticing after a while.

That would not have been allowed at any of the places I worked during the 1970s. Maybe at a small business or a marketing or advertising firm, but large organizations or techie places frowned on that.

I recall a young woman came in on her last day wearing, for the era, a risque outfit. The manager objected, but didn't send her home because it was her last day.

[hanc...@bbs.cpcn.com]

On Saturday, August 1, 2015 at 9:46:17 PM UTC-4, Quadibloc wrote:
> Could one have an RPG about mainframe computing in the late sixties and early seventies?

If you're talking about the Report Generator Language, it was available on S/360 and used as a shorthand language. I don't know if it was compatible with 1401 RPG.

If you're talking about Role Playing Games, it was common for kids back then to develop math games and simulators, as they worked out well on the Teletype terminals available back then.

Typical nerd games included a Star Trek game where the user was queried as to various numeric amounts for speed, phaser settings, etc.

Other nerd software included self-writen assembler interpreters.

[hanc...@bbs.cpcn.com]

On Sunday, August 2, 2015 at 8:54:46 PM UTC-4, Michael Black wrote:

> I am reminded of 1993 or 94, when one local university women's group
> discovered the internet. And they'd found porn on it! Their reaction was
> "there should be a law". So it was for many the first time they'd heard
> of this internet thing (I knew about it, but from reading computer
> magazines), and the message was "this is bad, we need to put limits on
> it". The group hadnt' considered that if porn spreads so easily, maybe
> it's a good place to be, spread your own message. I tbink that too often
> was the reaction of groups that followed, a whole new thing that they
> couldn't control, so instead of jumping in and using the power of the
> internet, they stuck their heads in the sand and hoped things would remain
> as they had.

That's a little surprising, because by 1993, social attitudes changed so dramatically by then and sex was far, far more open everywhere. While TV shows didn't have outright nudity, they had ever more sexual situations, profanity, and off color humor that wouldn't have been dreamed off even a few years earlier. Once taboo-topics were discussed in mainstream newspapers, on TV, and at the water cooler. Porn was everywhere, so why would it be suprising to find it on the new Internet?

For instance, by 1993, the Sports Illustrated bathing suit edition was basically a Playboy issue.

(Ironically, I today think sex has reached its media saturation point, and now is pulling back somewhat. For instance, I think there is less nudity in movies now, and more films are PG insead of R).

[hanc...@bbs.cpcn.com]

On Monday, August 3, 2015 at 3:58:17 PM UTC-4, Charles Richmond wrote:

> I thought RPG was mostly for IBM minicomputers. Why would anyone code in
> RPG on a *mainframe*???

If you had moved from a 1401 to a S/360, you might already know RPG. It was useful as a shorthand language for quick simple jobs, like a formatted file dump.

I was never fond of RPG.

On an old job, I was a COBOL programmer, and I didn't appreciate to find myself assigned to RPG work instead. Fortunately, the RPG assignment was temporary.

[hanc...@bbs.cpcn.com]

On Monday, August 3, 2015 at 5:07:42 PM UTC-4, John Levine wrote:

> RPG started as a software version of accounting machine plugboards. ...

Yes. It was developed by IBM to facilitate the migration of tab machine users to the new 1401. Users of tab machines, comfortable with the plugboard, would supposedly find the column-setting logic of RPG very similar and an easy transition to make. That is, programming in RPG was supposed to be similar to wiring a plugboard on a tabulating machine, per the IBM history.

How real life tab operators found programming in RPG I don't know. The IBM history kind of glosses over failed offerings.

I do know that people in the AS/400 world absolutely loved their version of RPG and felt it far superior to mainframe COBOL.

[Charlie Gibbs]

On 2015-08-03, Quadibloc <jsa...@ecn.ab.ca> wrote:

> On Monday, August 3, 2015 at 1:58:17 PM UTC-6, Charles Richmond wrote:
>
>> I thought RPG was mostly for IBM minicomputers. Why would anyone code in
>> RPG on a *mainframe*???
>
> RPG existed long before IBM *made* minicomputers. (i.e. the Series/1)

With the exception of Series/1, "IBM minicomputer" is an oxymoron.

> It was a much less powerful language than COBOL, but it could be used by
> people who weren't real programmers - something like the role spreadsheets
> play on micros today.

A big advantage of RPG is that it was very frugal with memory, which came
in handy when you had to fit programs into 16K. And if you used it for
the purpose for which it was designed (generating report programs), it
actually worked rather well. Our rule of thumb was to use RPG where you
could, and assembly language elsewhere.

The problems began when people (especially at IBM) forgot what RPG stood
for, which was when it "jumped the shark" (as someone astutely if somewhat
anachronistically put it elsewhere in this thread).

[Mike Spencer]

hanc...@bbs.cpcn.com writes:

> In recalling old Datamation articles, while they had pretty girls as
> models, I don't recall them getting too 'cheesecaky'. The model
> still was in business attire.

I still have a SciAm here somewhere, circa 1982, with a full-page ad
for the Osborne I -- woman in power suit lugging an O1 as if it
weighed only 5 or so pounds, looking smug and, IIRC, being gawked by
male biz persons.

> I have a telephone catalog from circa 1970. The models are
> generally in business attire. But there is one photo of a pay phone
> at the beach, being used by an attractive young lady in a bikini.

And I recall a Sears Roebuck catalog from circa 1970 in which the
models in (what, for Sears, were) revealing swim suits had their navels
air brushed out. Huh.

--
Mike Spencer Nova Scotia, Canada

[Quadibloc]

On Tuesday, August 4, 2015 at 11:15:26 AM UTC-6, hanc...@bbs.cpcn.com wrote:

> In the early 2970s, it was common for a mini-computer maker to run a humorous > ad talking about their "mini" vs a mini-skirt, with a model wearing a mini
> skirt.

Insert John Titor joke here.

> Indeed, lots of tech ads back then took a numerous approach, say comparing a
> mainframe to a bulldozer in functionality. "No, our computer can't build a
> 50 story office tower. But, it can facilitate the progerss of one!"

> (Sometimes these can be found in 1970s issues of C&A, on bitsavers).

Of course, there is that infamous example of how an ad for Nanodata - or was it
Microdata - noted that the handbook for their microprogrammable computers,
since it explained how to program them, was... revealing... since other
microprogrammed computers, like IBM mainframes, were not intended to be
microprogrammed by the user.

John Savard

[John Levine]

>With the exception of Series/1, "IBM minicomputer" is an oxymoron.

Ahem. The System/7 was by any normal definition a minicomputer. It
had 16 bit words, fit in one smallish rack, realatively simple I/O
(e.g. nothing like a channel) and was mostly used for realtime stuff.

The IBM 1130 and 1800 were arguably minis, again 16 bits, physically
not very large, and simple I/O. The 1130 was marketed quite
successfully as a small business system, the mostly program compatible
1800 less successfully as a realtime system.

>A big advantage of RPG is that it was very frugal with memory, which came
>in handy when you had to fit programs into 16K. And if you used it for
>the purpose for which it was designed (generating report programs), it
>actually worked rather well. Our rule of thumb was to use RPG where you
>could, and assembly language elsewhere.

16K? BOS RPG ran in 8K, 360/20 and I think BPS ran in 4K.

[Quadibloc]

On Tuesday, August 4, 2015 at 1:48:07 PM UTC-6, Quadibloc wrote:

> Of course, there is that infamous example of how an ad for Nanodata - or was it
> Microdata - noted that the handbook for their microprogrammable computers,
> since it explained how to program them, was... revealing... since other
> microprogrammed computers, like IBM mainframes, were not intended to be
> microprogrammed by the user.

It was an ad for sending in for your free copy of the Nanodata Microprogramming Handbook.

John Savard

[hanc...@bbs.cpcn.com]

On Tuesday, August 4, 2015 at 2:13:31 PM UTC-4, Charlie Gibbs wrote:

> With the exception of Series/1, "IBM minicomputer" is an oxymoron.

The IBM System/3, certainly was a "mini-computer", when compared to S/360.

While a computer, the entire S/3x line required a different operating philosophy than its big brother S/360-370-390 mainframe. This continued even when AS/400's were far bigger and more powerful than early S/360's.

> The problems began when people (especially at IBM) forgot what RPG stood
> for, which was when it "jumped the shark" (as someone astutely if somewhat
> anachronistically put it elsewhere in this thread).

I personally never liked RPG. But I know S/3x and AS/400 users who thought it was far superior to COBOL. For the right applications, S/3x users got a lot of bang for the buck.

I presume whatever succeeded the AS/400 is still going strong today with whatever version RPG is at today.

[hanc...@bbs.cpcn.com]

On Tuesday, August 4, 2015 at 3:48:47 PM UTC-4, John Levine wrote:


> Ahem. The System/7 was by any normal definition a minicomputer. It
> had 16 bit words, fit in one smallish rack, realatively simple I/O
> (e.g. nothing like a channel) and was mostly used for realtime stuff.

I think the IBM history said that while the S/7 was a good machine and served its users well, it was too expensive for its purpose and thus not a big success.

Developing a real-time process computer was a challenge because:
1) the physical aspect had to be tough to work in a hostile environment instead of a nice a/c computer room;
2) the computer had to be highly reliable since a screw up could be extremely costly in wasted product, damage to equipment, or even danger to human life.

(I would not want to be the programmer of such an application in an oil refinery, where a bug could result in a nasty explosion.)

The Bell Labs history noted that S/7's wsere utilized to help process long distance calls. However, Bell found much wider use of PDP computers in both helping to process calls and in administering and maintaining the network.

Somewhere on bitsavers is an article about a real-time computer used as a process controller in an oil refinery component, and how the computer can react faster than a person to guage and save money in producing product. Interesting reading.

> The IBM 1130 and 1800 were arguably minis, again 16 bits, physically
> not very large, and simple I/O. The 1130 was marketed quite
> successfully as a small business system, the mostly program compatible
> 1800 less successfully as a realtime system.

The IBM 1130 was a success because it was economical. But it was marketed and mostly used as a small engineering and science system. Its CPU was ok, but it's I/O was pretty slow.

When the 1130 was introduced, I'm not sure if the S/3 was out yet. It may have been better for a small business to keep using a tab process than an 1130. One could get faster I/O devices, but that drove up the cost. The 1130 used Fortran-II, and doing character data in that is cumbersome (as needed a lot for business applications).

[Charles Richmond]

"Osmium" <r124c...@comcast.net> wrote in message
news:d2a0rn...@mid.individual.net...

Shakespeare wrote in an older form of English... and he made up some of the
words as he went along!!! :-)

[Charles Richmond]

"John Levine" <jo...@iecc.com> wrote in message
news:mpol7d$15vp$1...@miucha.iecc.com...

>>> I thought RPG was mostly for IBM minicomputers. Why would anyone code
>>> in
>>> RPG on a *mainframe*???
>
> That was later. RPG was quite popular on the smaller IBM 360 series,
> including card-only versions.
>
> RPG started as a software version of accounting machine plugboards.
> If you already had the data on boxes of cards and needed to produce
> inovoices and checks and the like, it was a perfectly adequate
> langauge. Yeah, it needed fixed columns, but that was easy enough to
> handle on keypunches with drum cards, and you could run useful
> programs on a 360/20 with a card reader/punch, a printer, 4K of memory
> (not a typo) and no disk or tape.
>

I'm sure the fixed columns of RPG were easy to deal with on cards...
especially if you had the right collection of "drum cards". :-) Although I
have *never* seen one... I understand that there were plastic overlays one
could place on the dumb terminal screen, to indicate the exact columns for
the RPG fields.

[Charles Richmond]

<hanc...@bbs.cpcn.com> wrote in message
news:8af7f7d3-e99d-4d34...@googlegroups.com...

On Monday, August 3, 2015 at 5:07:42 PM UTC-4, John Levine wrote:
>

> [snip...] [snip...]
> [snip...]

>
>I do know that people in the AS/400 world absolutely loved their version of
>RPG and felt it far superior to >mainframe COBOL.

"Here's a nickel, son. Buy yourself a real computer."

ISTM that people tend to use what they know, and people *like* using what
they know instead of learning something that might be better.

"I walked ten miles to school and back in the snow! It was uphill both
ways!!! And I *liked* it!!!"

[Charles Richmond]

"Huge" <Hu...@nowhere.much.invalid> wrote in message

news:d2a14q...@mid.individual.net...
>
> [snip...] [snip...]
> [snip...]
>
> "Why would anyone code on a *mainframe*???"
>
> There, that's better.
>

I know it's psychological, but coding on a mainframe makes one feel
important! Bending that huge hunk of iron to do your will... makes you
feel masterful! Writing code for a tiny chip of silicon no bigger than your
fingernail... makes you feel like an unimportant slave to some trivial
device. IMHPO. (In my humble psychological opinion.)

[Charles Richmond]

"John Levine" <jo...@iecc.com> wrote in message

news:mpr4vf$134g$1...@miucha.iecc.com...

> >With the exception of Series/1, "IBM minicomputer" is an oxymoron.
>
> Ahem. The System/7 was by any normal definition a minicomputer. It
> had 16 bit words, fit in one smallish rack, realatively simple I/O
> (e.g. nothing like a channel) and was mostly used for realtime stuff.
>
> The IBM 1130 and 1800 were arguably minis, again 16 bits, physically
> not very large, and simple I/O. The 1130 was marketed quite
> successfully as a small business system, the mostly program compatible
> 1800 less successfully as a realtime system.
>

What about the IBM System/3, the IBM System/32, and the IBM System/36???

[Stephen Sprunk]

On 04-Aug-15 12:09, hanc...@bbs.cpcn.com wrote:
> Stephen Sprunk wrote:
>> How does their attire compare to typical office attire for women of
>> the era? Aside from a few blatant exceptions, most do not look any
>> more revealing (and many less) than what I see in offices today.
>
> Most young women on the job in that era dressed more conservatively
> than those shown in ads. Some offices had dress codes discouraging
> extreme attire.

Okay, that's what I was curious about.

>> OTOH, the neck lines seem much higher than today, but I assume
>> that's due to the fall of neckties and the resulting rise of open
>> collars--for both sexes.
>
> I have heard modern managers complain that young woman today come to
> work "dressed for the beach" showing too much skin.

There is also rampant hypocrisy, e.g. JCPenney selling clothing in their
"career" department that violates their own dress code:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/jcpenney-sylva-stoel-shorts_55b7f582e4b0a13f9d1ab2b2

> Indeed, back then, an attractive perky young lady (with some brains)
> would be sought as a receptionist to a business. Today, a business
> would rather hire an older person, many or woman, and get some
> maturity.

That completely depends on the person doing the hiring; also, the EEOC
has ruled it to be discrimination to hire a receptionist based on sex or
appearance--unless that is a formal part of the job description (for a
"model", which are exempt from discrimination laws), and few businesses
are willing to put such policies in writing.

> The managers complain that the 20-somethings are still acting like
> teenagers and haven't grown up yet.

Well, that's what happens when helicopter parents refuse to let their
kids grow up, and most of them go from HS to college, which they treat
as another four years of HS, just with more sex and alcohol. We have
entire generations of "adults" who've never been prepared, either by
their parents or their schools, for what adulthood means.

S

--
Stephen Sprunk "God does not play dice." --Albert Einstein
CCIE #3723 "God is an inveterate gambler, and He throws the
K5SSS dice at every possible opportunity." --Stephen Hawking

[Peter Flass]

<hanc...@bbs.cpcn.com> wrote:

> The IBM 1130 was a success because it was economical. But it was
> marketed and mostly used as a small engineering and science system. Its
> CPU was ok, but it's I/O was pretty slow.

The I/O was slow because the system used unintelligent peripherals - think
"win-printer." For example the 1132 printer interrupted the CPU once for
each character on the print drum, so it could print any of that character
that might occur on the current line.

>
> When the 1130 was introduced, I'm not sure if the S/3 was out yet. It
> may have been better for a small business to keep using a tab process
> than an 1130. One could get faster I/O devices, but that drove up the
> cost. The 1130 used Fortran-II, and doing character data in that is
> cumbersome (as needed a lot for business applications).

My first job was writing 1130 applications for small-business on the 1130.
The FORTRAN was called "FORTRAN IV"; it was kind of a hybrid II/IV. The
1130 came out in (IIRC) 1964, roughly the same timeframe as the 360. The
System/3 came later.

--
Pete

[Peter Flass]

Charlie Gibbs <cgi...@kltpzyxm.invalid> wrote:
> On 2015-08-03, Quadibloc <jsa...@ecn.ab.ca> wrote:
>
>> On Monday, August 3, 2015 at 1:58:17 PM UTC-6, Charles Richmond wrote:
>>
>>> I thought RPG was mostly for IBM minicomputers. Why would anyone code in
>>> RPG on a *mainframe*???
>>
>> RPG existed long before IBM *made* minicomputers. (i.e. the Series/1)
>
> With the exception of Series/1, "IBM minicomputer" is an oxymoron.

1130, System/7, plus the System/3 line.

--
Pete

[Joe Pfeiffer]

Stephen Sprunk <ste...@sprunk.org> writes:
>
> There is also rampant hypocrisy, e.g. JCPenney selling clothing in their
> "career" department that violates their own dress code:
>
> http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/jcpenney-sylva-stoel-shorts_55b7f582e4b0a13f9d1ab2b2

While I've got to wonder what shorts like that are doing in a "career"
department, it doesn't strike me as hypocritical. You sell what people
buy; you set standards for what your employees can wear. I don't see
that they have anything to do with each other.

[JimP]

On Tue, 4 Aug 2015 16:31:49 -0500, Stephen Sprunk <ste...@sprunk.org>
wrote:

>On 04-Aug-15 12:09, hanc...@bbs.cpcn.com wrote:
>> Stephen Sprunk wrote:
>>> How does their attire compare to typical office attire for women of
>>> the era? Aside from a few blatant exceptions, most do not look any
>>> more revealing (and many less) than what I see in offices today.
>>
>> Most young women on the job in that era dressed more conservatively
>> than those shown in ads. Some offices had dress codes discouraging
>> extreme attire.
>
>Okay, that's what I was curious about.
>
>>> OTOH, the neck lines seem much higher than today, but I assume
>>> that's due to the fall of neckties and the resulting rise of open
>>> collars--for both sexes.
>>
>> I have heard modern managers complain that young woman today come to
>> work "dressed for the beach" showing too much skin.
>
>There is also rampant hypocrisy, e.g. JCPenney selling clothing in their
>"career" department that violates their own dress code:
>
>http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/jcpenney-sylva-stoel-shorts_55b7f582e4b0a13f9d1ab2b2

JCPenny should indeed refund money to everyone who bought those shorts
in the career section. They are indeed hypocrits for not allowing
career clothes they sell. Three lashes with a cat-o-nine tails for the
manager.
--
JimP.

[Charlie Gibbs]

On 2015-08-04, Charles Richmond <nume...@aquaporin4.com> wrote:

> I'm sure the fixed columns of RPG were easy to deal with on cards...
> especially if you had the right collection of "drum cards". :-) Although I
> have *never* seen one... I understand that there were plastic overlays one
> could place on the dumb terminal screen, to indicate the exact columns for
> the RPG fields.

Screens? Who had screens? You put the overlays on the program listings.

[Charlie Gibbs]

On 2015-08-04, John Levine <jo...@iecc.com> wrote:

>> With the exception of Series/1, "IBM minicomputer" is an oxymoron.
>
> Ahem. The System/7 was by any normal definition a minicomputer. It
> had 16 bit words, fit in one smallish rack, realatively simple I/O
> (e.g. nothing like a channel) and was mostly used for realtime stuff.
>
> The IBM 1130 and 1800 were arguably minis, again 16 bits, physically
> not very large, and simple I/O. The 1130 was marketed quite
> successfully as a small business system, the mostly program compatible
> 1800 less successfully as a realtime system.

That could well be. I never saw an 1800, and only once saw an 1130.

>> A big advantage of RPG is that it was very frugal with memory, which came
>> in handy when you had to fit programs into 16K. And if you used it for
>> the purpose for which it was designed (generating report programs), it
>> actually worked rather well. Our rule of thumb was to use RPG where you
>> could, and assembly language elsewhere.
>
> 16K? BOS RPG ran in 8K, 360/20 and I think BPS ran in 4K.

I once did some work on an 8K Univac 9300; I had blissfully
forgotten that. :-) Yes, RPG ran there too.

[Charlie Gibbs]

On 2015-08-04, hanc...@bbs.cpcn.com <hanc...@bbs.cpcn.com> wrote:

> On Tuesday, August 4, 2015 at 2:13:31 PM UTC-4, Charlie Gibbs wrote:
>
>> With the exception of Series/1, "IBM minicomputer" is an oxymoron.
>
> The IBM System/3, certainly was a "mini-computer", when compared to S/360.

Perhaps in terms of size. But it certainly didn't feel like a
minicomputer as exemplified by, for instance, a PDP-8. I think
of mainframe vs. mini as an architectural thing, rather than size:
minis do character-at-a-time I/O and like variable-length records
terminated by a control character like LF, while mainframes do I/O
a record at a time and like fixed-length records. Mainframes have
prodiguious I/O capability but are awkward for interactive applications.

[Charlie Gibbs]

On 2015-08-04, Charles Richmond <nume...@aquaporin4.com> wrote:

Sort of like marketroids of today. :-)

[Quadibloc]

On Tuesday, August 4, 2015 at 5:58:49 PM UTC-6, Charlie Gibbs wrote:
> I think
> of mainframe vs. mini as an architectural thing, rather than size:
> minis do character-at-a-time I/O and like variable-length records
> terminated by a control character like LF, while mainframes do I/O
> a record at a time and like fixed-length records.

If they made the micros like the mainframes instead of like the minis, we would
be having a lot less trouble with buffer overflow attacks.

John Savard

[John Levine]

>The IBM 1130 was a success because it was economical. But it was marketed and mostly used as a small engineering and
>science system. Its CPU was ok, but it's I/O was pretty slow.

The CPU was extremely slow as were most of the peripherals unless you
got the expensive 1403 printer and 2311 disk.

>When the 1130 was introduced, I'm not sure if the S/3 was out yet.

The 1130 was in 1965, the S/3 in 1969. The 1130 used the same logic
as the S/360.

[hanc...@bbs.cpcn.com]

On Tuesday, August 4, 2015 at 7:58:49 PM UTC-4, Charlie Gibbs wrote:

> > The IBM System/3, certainly was a "mini-computer", when compared to S/360.
>
> Perhaps in terms of size. But it certainly didn't feel like a
> minicomputer as exemplified by, for instance, a PDP-8. I think
> of mainframe vs. mini as an architectural thing, rather than size:
> minis do character-at-a-time I/O and like variable-length records
> terminated by a control character like LF, while mainframes do I/O
> a record at a time and like fixed-length records. Mainframes have
> prodiguious I/O capability but are awkward for interactive applications.

The logical architecture of the S/3 was definitely far simpler than S/360; a much smaller instruction set, for instance.

[terry+go...@tmk.com]

On Tuesday, August 4, 2015 at 1:15:26 PM UTC-4, hanc...@bbs.cpcn.com wrote:
> In the early 2970s, it was common for a mini-computer maker to run a humorous ad talking about their "mini" vs a mini-skirt, with a model wearing a mini skirt.

Time for the obligatory mention of the Computer Automation Naked Mini. It was a 16-bit system which was just the cards and a backplane (or just the cards, if you wanted to make your own backplane). No power supply, no front panel. I had to hack a bunch of these for the Linotron 202 phototypesetter, installing a minimal front panel in a display box on top of the typesetter. Otherwise, when it hit an error, the customer had to open the front door of the unit and read out the error code (in binary!) from the LEDs.

[terry+go...@tmk.com]

On Tuesday, August 4, 2015 at 4:48:18 PM UTC-4, hanc...@bbs.cpcn.com wrote:
> The IBM 1130 was a success because it was economical. But it was marketed and mostly used as a small engineering and science system. Its CPU was ok, but it's I/O was pretty slow.

A lot of 1130's were repurposed as NJE front-ends for 360 (and even 370 systems). The selling point was that small jobs could be run locally, while larger jobs and overnight batch processing could be transmitted to the centeral 360 complex.

Most of the systems used that way ended up being *only* used that way, since it was a single address space system with unprotected memory, IIRC. It was possible to "escape" (intentionally or otherwise) and scramble the disk contents. Even the FORTRAN compiler used self-modifying code (and then clobbered itself, retaining only pieces to be used as the runtime library of the compiled program).

Anybody else remember "An IBM 1130 Fortran Primer"?

[jmfbahciv]

Charlie Gibbs wrote:
> On 2015-08-04, hanc...@bbs.cpcn.com <hanc...@bbs.cpcn.com> wrote:
>
>> On Tuesday, August 4, 2015 at 2:13:31 PM UTC-4, Charlie Gibbs wrote:
>>
>>> With the exception of Series/1, "IBM minicomputer" is an oxymoron.
>>
>> The IBM System/3, certainly was a "mini-computer", when compared to S/360.
>
> Perhaps in terms of size. But it certainly didn't feel like a
> minicomputer as exemplified by, for instance, a PDP-8. I think
> of mainframe vs. mini as an architectural thing, rather than size:
> minis do character-at-a-time I/O and like variable-length records
> terminated by a control character like LF, while mainframes do I/O
> a record at a time and like fixed-length records. Mainframes have
> prodiguious I/O capability but are awkward for interactive applications.
>

That's an IBM mindset. DEC's mainframe did the former I/O but was
capable of doing the latter if someone really needed to.

/BAH

[jmfbahciv]

hanc...@bbs.cpcn.com wrote:

> On Thursday, July 30, 2015 at 3:14:06 PM UTC-4, Stephen Sprunk wrote:
>
>> How does their attire compare to typical office attire for women of the
>> era? Aside from a few blatant exceptions, most do not look any more
>> revealing (and many less) than what I see in offices today.
>
> Most young women on the job in that era dressed more conservatively than
those shown in ads. Some offices had dress codes discouraging extreme attire.

The females wearing mini skirts in DEC ads actually dressed that way when
they worked. One of the gals in my office was very photogenic and she
would take an hour or two off her regular work to be photographed
in front of the Marketing maching.

<snip>

/BAH

[Stephen Sprunk]

It's fine that they sell the shorts.

It's fine that they have a dress code.

The hypocrisy is putting those shorts in the "career" section of the
store when they don't comply with the store's own dress code.

Worse was sending an employee home for the natural result of that
hypocrisy rather than, for example, refunding the money she paid for
those shorts and letting her pick out something else to wear.

[hanc...@bbs.cpcn.com]

On Wednesday, August 5, 2015 at 10:55:25 AM UTC-4, Stephen Sprunk wrote:

> The hypocrisy is putting those shorts in the "career" section of the
> store when they don't comply with the store's own dress code.

Technically, you are correct. But the labels department stores put on their sections have always been meaningless. So, a person definitely would not expect to always find suitable "career" clothes in the "career section".

Also, dress codes vary from employer to employer; it runs the gamut in a given field. For offices, some employers allow fairly sexy clothing, but others demand fairly consevative garb. Also, some office wear codes vary by one's job assignment--an employee dealing with the public may be expected to dress more conservatively than an employee buried at a desk in a back room. Indeed, most retail businesses have pretty definite ideas on what is expected on their sales clerks.

(A funky hip boutqiue type of clothing store would probably encourage sexy dress and discourage dowdy wear, the opposite of an old line department store. Indeed, some chains targeting teens like A&F, Hollister got criticized in the press for their sales people, boys and girls, dressed too sexy, and hiring only people who were 'hot'.)

The example you mentioned for JCP is nothing new, it's happened before.

> Worse was sending an employee home for the natural result of that
> hypocrisy rather than, for example, refunding the money she paid for
> those shorts and letting her pick out something else to wear.

American business has become very hard nosed to their workforce. IMHO, it's bad business, and will eventually encourage the return of unions and other problems.

Geez, years ago large companies really tried to encourage long-term loyalty. Today, workers are seen as an enemy--an unnecessary cost burden and nuisance to be eliminated somehow.

I wonder when mega-corporations will realize that pauperizing the workforce only will eliminate demand for their products and services.

[Dave Garland]

On 8/5/2015 1:21 PM, hanc...@bbs.cpcn.com wrote:

> American business has become very hard nosed to their workforce. IMHO, it's bad business, and will eventually encourage the return of unions and other problems.
>
> Geez, years ago large companies really tried to encourage long-term loyalty. Today, workers are seen as an enemy--an unnecessary cost burden and nuisance to be eliminated somehow.
>
> I wonder when mega-corporations will realize that pauperizing the workforce only will eliminate demand for their products and services.

Well, corporations aren't people (unless you're a Supreme Court
justice), so they don't care.

And the people there who might have an interest or responsibility to
care, it will be long past the end of the financial quarter, they'll
have their fat bonus in the bank, and they will have moved on to
inflict their skills on some other corporation. So they don't care,
either.

[Peter Flass]

Stephen Sprunk <ste...@sprunk.org> wrote:
> On 04-Aug-15 17:15, Joe Pfeiffer wrote:
>> Stephen Sprunk <ste...@sprunk.org> writes:
>>> There is also rampant hypocrisy, e.g. JCPenney selling clothing in
>>> their "career" department that violates their own dress code:
>>>
>>> http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/jcpenney-sylva-stoel-shorts_55b7f582e4b0a13f9d1ab2b2
>>
>> While I've got to wonder what shorts like that are doing in a
>> "career" department, it doesn't strike me as hypocritical. You sell
>> what people buy; you set standards for what your employees can wear.
>> I don't see that they have anything to do with each other.
>
> It's fine that they sell the shorts.
>
> It's fine that they have a dress code.
>
> The hypocrisy is putting those shorts in the "career" section of the
> store when they don't comply with the store's own dress code.
>
> Worse was sending an employee home for the natural result of that
> hypocrisy rather than, for example, refunding the money she paid for
> those shorts and letting her pick out something else to wear.
>
> S

Every business may have a different dress code.

--
Pete

[JHY]

<hanc...@bbs.cpcn.com> wrote in message
news:8d2ab38a-640f-45fe...@googlegroups.com...

Not a chance, the world's moved on.

> and other problems.

Certainly discourages loyalty to the employer,
but there isn't much of that anymore now.

> Geez, years ago large companies really tried to encourage long-term
> loyalty. Today, workers are seen as an enemy--an unnecessary cost
> burden and nuisance to be eliminated somehow.

Not always.

> I wonder when mega-corporations will realize that pauperizing the
> workforce only will eliminate demand for their products and services.

No one is pauperizing the workforce.

[John Levine]

>> a record at a time and like fixed-length records. Mainframes have
>> prodiguious I/O capability but are awkward for interactive applications.
>>
>That's an IBM mindset. DEC's mainframe did the former I/O but was
>capable of doing the latter if someone really needed to.

The PDP-6 and PDP-10 were great computers, but they really didn't have
anything like mainframe I/O.

DEC called DMA "data break", and the 12 and 18 bit machines had a
clever hack called three-cycle data break to enable medium speed DMA
with cheap interfaces. Single-cycle data break required word count
and address registers in the device's interface which was expensive.
So for the three cycle version, the interface had a single hard wired
address of core locations that contained the negated word count and
address for the transfer. It was three cycle because first it
incremented the word count, then incremented the address (or maybe the
other order, I forget) and then did the data transfer if the word
count was nonzero. If the count was zero, a status line told the
device it was done, which most devices turned back into an interrupt.

The PDP-6/10 unlike the smaller machines had priority interrupts so
each fast device could have its own interrupt. It also had
instructions BLKI and BLKO which pointed to a word in memory with a
negative count in the left half and an address in the right half,
incremented both halves, and did an input or output transfer of the
count was non-zero. If the BLKI/BLKO was executed as the target of an
interrupt, and the count was nonzero, the interrupt was immediately
dismissed, which provided the effect of three cycle data break.

Later PDP-10s added extra hackery so the transfer could be a single
byte, and also added interfaces to the Massbus, a simple but fast
DMA system used for disks and tapes on late PDP-11, -20/20 and most
Vaxen.

The PDP-6 that I used did its TTY I/O via a stupendous hack, a PDP-8
based 680 terminal system running out of shared PDP-6 memory. The
PDP-10s had hardware terminal controllers.

[Stephen Sprunk]

On 05-Aug-15 14:48, Peter Flass wrote:
> Stephen Sprunk <ste...@sprunk.org> wrote:
>> On 04-Aug-15 17:15, Joe Pfeiffer wrote:
>>> Stephen Sprunk <ste...@sprunk.org> writes:
>>>> There is also rampant hypocrisy, e.g. JCPenney selling clothing
>>>> in their "career" department that violates their own dress
>>>> code:
>>>

>>> While I've got to wonder what shorts like that are doing in a
>>> "career" department, it doesn't strike me as hypocritical.
>>

>> The hypocrisy is putting those shorts in the "career" section of
>> the store when they don't comply with the store's own dress code.
>

> Every business may have a different dress code.

If _that store_ doesn't consider something appropriate work attire, then
_that store_ shouldn't put it in their "career" department.

They aren't responsible for other employers' policies, just their own.

[Christian Brunschen]

In article <mpts39$6pm$1...@dont-email.me>,

Stephen Sprunk <ste...@sprunk.org> wrote:
>On 05-Aug-15 14:48, Peter Flass wrote:
>> Stephen Sprunk <ste...@sprunk.org> wrote:
>>> On 04-Aug-15 17:15, Joe Pfeiffer wrote:
>>>> Stephen Sprunk <ste...@sprunk.org> writes:
>>>>> There is also rampant hypocrisy, e.g. JCPenney selling clothing
>>>>> in their "career" department that violates their own dress
>>>>> code:
>>>>
>>>> While I've got to wonder what shorts like that are doing in a
>>>> "career" department, it doesn't strike me as hypocritical.
>>>
>>> The hypocrisy is putting those shorts in the "career" section of
>>> the store when they don't comply with the store's own dress code.
>>
>> Every business may have a different dress code.
>
>If _that store_ doesn't consider something appropriate work attire, then
>_that store_ shouldn't put it in their "career" department.

It's not marked as a "career _at this company_" department, but covers
"career"s in a wide range.

A clothing retailer might sell uniforms or articles of clothing
associated with those, in a "Uniforms" department, even though none of
those uniforms might be appropriate for an employee at the store, and
even though the store might indeed have its own employee uniform - which
in turn might be the one uniform that the company did _not_ sell to ts
customers.

>They aren't responsible for other employers' policies, just their own.

What they enforce as their own policies can differ significantly from
the policies of their customers, or the companies at which the shoppers
work - which seems to have been the case here.

No particular amoung of hypocrisy required.

>S

// Christian

[hanc...@bbs.cpcn.com]

On Wednesday, August 5, 2015 at 4:37:30 PM UTC-4, Stephen Sprunk wrote:

> If _that store_ doesn't consider something appropriate work attire, then
> _that store_ shouldn't put it in their "career" department.

> They aren't responsible for other employers' policies, just their own.

A store's internal policies are irrelevant to its shoppers.

As mentioned, just because a store calls a section "Careers" does not mean everything for sale there would be appropriate for a career-wear. Indeed, I dare say they'll purposely thrown in some leisurewear to attract an impulse buyer.

My supermarket had magnifying glasses on sale in the nuts and crackers aisle. It was to target impulse buyers (I must say it worked on me, because I bought one).

Likewise, I'm sure a department store buyer stocks things he/she would personally never allow his kids to wear (e.g. sexy teen wear). He is not being an hypocrite, just serving the market.

[Quadibloc]

On Wednesday, August 5, 2015 at 12:21:03 PM UTC-6, hanc...@bbs.cpcn.com wrote:

> I wonder when mega-corporations will realize that pauperizing the workforce
> only will eliminate demand for their products and services.

I know that Henry Ford managed to succeed by starting a trend. But if his
employees were the only working-class people able to afford a Model T, he could
hardly have made a profit.

I don't think that any one company has the power to "pauperize the workforce";
instead, they take the economy as they find it, and a company that paid its
workers more than it had to would find itself priced out of a competitive
economy.

So the cure is not to ask for more generous employers. The cure is to pass laws
like Taft-Hartley so that no employer has the choice of paying an inadequate
wage. Of course, that doesn't work if the market is flooded with cheap imports;
*that's* what happened between the earlier 'sixties, when the economy worked
well, and now.

John Savard

[Quadibloc]

On Wednesday, August 5, 2015 at 2:37:30 PM UTC-6, Stephen Sprunk wrote:

> If _that store_ doesn't consider something appropriate work attire, then
> _that store_ shouldn't put it in their "career" department.
>
> They aren't responsible for other employers' policies, just their own.

No, it's only unreasonable to put clothes in the career department of a
department store if those clothes are unlikely to be considered appropriate
work attire - in an office setting - by most other employers either. (But in
the specific case, that likely *was* true.)

If they put blue jeans or overalls in their "career" department, that would be
a different kind of mistake.

John Savard

[Joe Pfeiffer]

Stephen Sprunk <ste...@sprunk.org> writes:

> On 04-Aug-15 17:15, Joe Pfeiffer wrote:
>> Stephen Sprunk <ste...@sprunk.org> writes:
>>> There is also rampant hypocrisy, e.g. JCPenney selling clothing in
>>> their "career" department that violates their own dress code:
>>>
>>> http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/jcpenney-sylva-stoel-shorts_55b7f582e4b0a13f9d1ab2b2
>>
>> While I've got to wonder what shorts like that are doing in a
>> "career" department, it doesn't strike me as hypocritical. You sell
>> what people buy; you set standards for what your employees can wear.
>> I don't see that they have anything to do with each other.
>
> It's fine that they sell the shorts.
>
> It's fine that they have a dress code.
>
> The hypocrisy is putting those shorts in the "career" section of the
> store when they don't comply with the store's own dress code.

Holding yourself to a higher standard isn't hypocrisy. Hypocrisy would
be objecting to another employer having a dress code that permitted the
shorts, while selling them as "career".

[JHY]

"Stephen Sprunk" <ste...@sprunk.org> wrote in message
news:mpts39$6pm$1...@dont-email.me...

> On 05-Aug-15 14:48, Peter Flass wrote:
>> Stephen Sprunk <ste...@sprunk.org> wrote:
>>> On 04-Aug-15 17:15, Joe Pfeiffer wrote:
>>>> Stephen Sprunk <ste...@sprunk.org> writes:
>>>>> There is also rampant hypocrisy, e.g. JCPenney selling clothing
>>>>> in their "career" department that violates their own dress
>>>>> code:
>>>>
>>>> While I've got to wonder what shorts like that are doing in a
>>>> "career" department, it doesn't strike me as hypocritical.
>>>
>>> The hypocrisy is putting those shorts in the "career" section of
>>> the store when they don't comply with the store's own dress code.
>>
>> Every business may have a different dress code.
>
> If _that store_ doesn't consider something appropriate work attire, then
> _that store_ shouldn't put it in their "career" department.
>
> They aren't responsible for other employers' policies, just their own.

They aren't selling the clothes to just their own employees, stupid.

[JimP]

On Wed, 5 Aug 2015 15:37:29 -0500, Stephen Sprunk <ste...@sprunk.org>

wrote:
>On 05-Aug-15 14:48, Peter Flass wrote:
>> Stephen Sprunk <ste...@sprunk.org> wrote:
>>> On 04-Aug-15 17:15, Joe Pfeiffer wrote:
>>>> Stephen Sprunk <ste...@sprunk.org> writes:
>>>>> There is also rampant hypocrisy, e.g. JCPenney selling clothing
>>>>> in their "career" department that violates their own dress
>>>>> code:
>>>>
>>>> While I've got to wonder what shorts like that are doing in a
>>>> "career" department, it doesn't strike me as hypocritical.
>>>
>>> The hypocrisy is putting those shorts in the "career" section of
>>> the store when they don't comply with the store's own dress code.
>>
>> Every business may have a different dress code.
>
>If _that store_ doesn't consider something appropriate work attire, then
>_that store_ shouldn't put it in their "career" department.
>
>They aren't responsible for other employers' policies, just their own.
>
>S

I agree with you on this one.
--
JimP.

[Bernd Felsche]

Charlie Gibbs <cgi...@kltpzyxm.invalid> wrote:
>On 2015-07-30, Michael Black <et...@ncf.ca> wrote:

>> It was only as small computers got more mainstream that the women started
>> appearing in the ads, draped over the computers. But then I guess that
>> wider market wasn't as interested in the hardware. I remember one letter
>> pointing out that the model had her finger over the open space on a floppy
>> drive.

>I don't think "floppy" is what they were going for.

8 inches floppy?
--
/"\ Bernd Felsche - Somewhere in Western Australia
\ / ASCII ribbon campaign | For every complex problem there is an
X against HTML mail | answer that is clear, simple, and wrong.
/ \ and postings | --HL Mencken

[Stephen Sprunk]

On 05-Aug-15 16:16, Quadibloc wrote:
> Stephen Sprunk wrote:
>> If _that store_ doesn't consider something appropriate work attire,
>> then _that store_ shouldn't put it in their "career" department.
>>
>> They aren't responsible for other employers' policies, just their
>> own.
>
> No, it's only unreasonable to put clothes in the career department of
> a department store if those clothes are unlikely to be considered
> appropriate work attire - in an office setting - by most other
> employers either. (But in the specific case, that likely *was*
> true.)

That's the point, though. JCP's dress code _is_ on the liberal end, yet
even they don't consider everything in their "career" department to be
appropriate for work. So why is it there?

Should they put slinky lingerie in the "career" department just because
it's appropriate work attire for hookers and strippers? No.

> If they put blue jeans or overalls in their "career" department, that
> would be a different kind of mistake.

I don't see the distinction you're trying to make here.

At least those _are_ appropriate attire for many jobs, including many
offices, unlike the short-shorts in question.