The Dull Side of Computing
Julian Macassey
Warning: This is far too long.
This is a large and peevesome subject. It is something
that has baffled and peeved me for decades. There is much about
this subject that encompass lies, deceit, ignorance, contempt,
fraud and yes, even FUD (Fear Uncertainty and Doubt). In these
days of fear about Microsoft and what effect they may have on the
business climate and culture in general, there may be some
lessons here.
I recall, back in the sixties (When the Beatles were a
group of four lads), computing was coming into existence. Banks
and utilities were spending large sums and moving their books
onto computers. There were several firms in the business, GE,
Honeywell, ICT, Burroughs and the really big one, IBM.
IBM led the pack, the rest followed. Well, they led in
income, they led in influencing large corporations to adopt the
IBM way of computing.
There were several things notable about those big
mainframes - filled with pc boards full of discrete transistors.
They were always kept in locked rooms. What was in those locked
rooms? Big metal cabinets. Some of the big metal cabinets had
large tape drives on them, but just a room full of metal
cabinets. Oh and some funny machines called card readers.
Mechanical monstrosities, that made lots of noise and basically
fed bits of cardboard over microswitches.
Why was all that stuff in a locked room that only a few
were allowed in? Well, I asked, I always ask when I don't
understand. I am guaranteed to ask if I know I will hear a
bullshit answer. What was the answer? "Security".
"Eh?"
"Well, you see, they are very expensive and complex these
computers, so we have to be very, very careful about who gets near
them. Plus of course we deal with important matters like accounting
records so we have to be careful."
Am I being lied to? Well lets look at a few of these
"facts". What can I see of the accounting records? Nothing. All
there is to see is some tapes spinning, punch cards being flipped
through and some line printers in closed cabinets making lots of
noise. What are they processing? Oh yes accounting records. Let's
wander over to accounting. What do I see there? Real documents,
checks, bills, just lying about for me to pick up and read. Are
the doors locked? No.
Who is working in accounting with all this paper? Book
keepers, accountants, people with schooling and an aptitude for
arithmetic.
Now back to the "data center". Who is running things
behind those doors? People called "computer operators". What do
they do? When told to, they change tapes, load printers with
paper and distribute "reports". They do what the console messages
tell them to do. Is this a skilled job? Well, just for giggles, I
once applied for one of these positions. How much did they offer?
$5.25 per hour - part time, no bennies. At that time my local
McDonald's was offering jobs at $6.25 per hour, possible bennies
and free Happy Meals.
If the "data center", needs to be a locked room for
security reasons, why is it staffed with people earning close to
minimum wage who understand nothing about computers?
Are we being lied to?
But how traditionally has all that "data" got into the
mainframe? It used to be done by "keypunch operators". In the old
days, they took receipts etc. and punched numbers and arcane codes
into a machine that then spat out the famous "Do not bend,
spindle or mutilate" punch cards. Later on, the job remained the
same and the keypunch operators sat at dumb terminals. Their
output went onto a tape and at the assigned time that tape was
loaded into the mainframe for processing. This is called batch
processing and mainframes still do it today. That is the way the
world of COBOL and mainframes thinks.
Now, lest we forget about the air of mystery and
obsfucation around the data center, have a look at the keypunch
operators. Who are these people? Is this an area of skill? Well,
one place I worked, we got our keypunch operators from the local
home for wayward girls. Sitting outside our locked computer room,
we had a row of women that would make the patrons of a dockside
bar cower. A nasty, mean collection of semi-literate, badly
dentured bitches. You lock the doors for security and then hire
criminals to do the work?
Are we being lied to?
Where is the skill? Why all the smoke and mirrors? Why
call the computing dept the M.I.S. dept.? M.I.S.? Management
Information Systems? Ever tried to get information from that
dept.? That is when you will learn what "batch processing" means.
It is easier to get info from the Stasi than your own data
center.
It seems the reason for all the B.S. security is to
prevent civilians from learning that no one knows what they are
doing.
Now the real peeve - COBOL programmers. One would
imagine, if fortunate enough to have grown up around people that
programme in C, Fortran, Forth etc. that programmers are
introspective types with a passion for their field.
Not so alas COBOL programmers, and I am sure that fact
must have ol' Grace Hopper spinning in her grave. Universally I
have found that COBOL programmers not only have no interest in
computers, they are completely ignorant about them.
I recall when Personal Computers (CP/M even) reared their
ugly heads, the COBOL programmers explained that they worked with
real computers - or so they thought. A few years ago, I had a
girlfriend who had an account on my AT&T 3B1 System V box. She
was at a family reunion and met a distant cousin who was an "IBM
Programmer". She told him that she had a computer account. He
replied that he worked on mainframes and didn't know anything
about PCs (A comment I heard again just last week). She told him
that wasn't a PC but ran something called Unix. He told her that
he had been a programmer for fifteen years and had never heard of
Unix. Where you are going to ask yourself had he been? Had he
never read a trade mag? Or even the newspaper - the week this
event happened, the Wall Street Journal had a front page story
about Unix.
I have always considered COBOL programmers, like everyone
else involved in the mainframe biz to be dull and unimaginative.
Just a bunch of jumped up clerical workers pushing paper in their
own bovine fashion.
The more I work with them, the more I find it to be true.
Here are a bunch of dull, unimaginative time servers who lack the
personality to be clerks at City Hall and lack the smarts to do
anything fun.
Talking of City Hall, we just had a COBOL programmer
leave. She left to programme at a local city. She was really
looking forward to her new job. One of the reasons she looked
forward to it? It was a union position. If anything says COBOL
programmers are a bunch of "babu" that has to.
What amazes me about COBOL programmers, and I know I am
repeating myself, is how little they know about the hardware that
is essential to their job. If a COBOL programmer has a dumb
terminal freeze, he freezes too. Until a hand holder comes along
and plugs the coax back in or restarts the stat-mux (Controller
in IBM speak), all work comes to a halt. I wonder what cab
drivers would be like if they knew as much about their hardware
as COBOL programmers. A slew of cabs by the side of the road with
empty gas tanks?
Further peeves? Wanna hear what the mainframe folk have to
say about Unix, networks, Nah, I'll save it for later. This is a
rich mine of peeves. Not to mention the whole Year 2,000 cockup
and what is being done to avoid it.
--
Julian Macassey 920.208.8051
Ken Smith
In article <61pc59$3h5$1...@earth.execpc.com>,
Julian Macassey <jul...@bongo.tele.com> wrote:
> Warning: This is far too long.
[.....]
> Am I being lied to? Well lets look at a few of these
>"facts".
The real fact of the matter is that you were not being lied to by the
computer people. They all believed the line they where giving you. Their
experience did not extend beyond the domain of the mainframe priestdom.
They only knew that if they punched the right holes in the cards and did
the right rituals they would get the results from the machine that allowed
them to keep their jobs.
> If the "data center", needs to be a locked room for
>security reasons, why is it staffed with people earning close to
>minimum wage who understand nothing about computers?
>
> Are we being lied to?
People that know nothing about computers are much less of the threat to
them than someone that knows a little about them. If you know a little
about the computor you may figure out that all you have to do is punch up
a little card to increase your pay to $1,000,000 a week. They say
"garbage in garbage out", but that garbage, having passed though a
computer will not be questioned.
--
--
kens...@rahul.net forging knowledge
Christian R. Conrad
On 11 Oct 1997 21:20:25 -0500,
jul...@bongo.tele.com (Julian Macassey) said:
> It is easier to get info from the Stasi than your own data
> center.
That's almost certainly true, for a very simple reason: Good thorough
methodical Germans as they were, but poorer than their Western brethren,
they kept their files well organized, indexed, cross-referenced, etc...
And, above all -- on _paper_!
Yup. Miles and miles of shelves full of manila file folders.
Christian R. Conrad
--
My own opinions, yadda yadda...
======================================================================
Dumping bodies is like the real estate Carl Hiaasen,
business: location, location, location. _Stormy_Weather_
c-fit...@mail.dec.com
In article <61pc59$3h5$1...@earth.execpc.com>,
jul...@bongo.tele.com (Julian Macassey) wrote:
[snip: the social and/or technical inadequacies of COBOL "programmers"]
> Now the real peeve - COBOL programmers. One would
> imagine, if fortunate enough to have grown up around people that
> programme in C, Fortran, Forth etc. that programmers are
> introspective types with a passion for their field.
Which is probably why COBOL was one of the "languages" I learned in USAF
programming school. It's perfectly suited to the military environment.
> Not so alas COBOL programmers, and I am sure that fact
> must have ol' Grace Hopper spinning in her grave. Universally I
> have found that COBOL programmers not only have no interest in
> computers, they are completely ignorant about them.
Try using it, as I mentioned, in the military. You think sillyvilians are
bad... wrap a uniform around a COBOL mentality.
Peeve: One of my last projects was translating a shitload (heh) of COBOL
into Ada, bastard cousin of C++.
> He told her that
> he had been a programmer for fifteen years and had never heard of
> Unix.
*snort*
In the course of my day, I talk to people who profess knowledge of the
computer industry. Some of them ask how I feel about Windoze. I give them
my opinion, which shocks them: "Windows is the worst thing to happen to
computers and users. Ever." They then say, "Oh, you're a Mac guy, huh?"
"No. I prefer Unix."
"What's that?"
Where you are going to ask yourself had he been? Had he
> never read a trade mag? Or even the newspaper - the week this
> event happened, the Wall Street Journal had a front page story
> about Unix.
Had his head buried in his COBOL manuals, no doubt. To these people, the
real world doesn't exist, much less count for anything.
> I have always considered COBOL programmers, like everyone
> else involved in the mainframe biz to be dull and unimaginative.
> Just a bunch of jumped up clerical workers pushing paper in their
> own bovine fashion.
Well, considering that bean-counting was COBOL's original purpose, are you
surprised?
> Not to mention the whole Year 2,000 cockup
> and what is being done to avoid it.
!Peeve: opining to a banker-type that I expect a depression to hit in
December 1999, due to the inevitable Y2K last-minute panic. The look of
pasty-faced, abject terror on his face was priceless.
Peeve: The whole Y2K thing in general. 2000 years since... anyone? anyone?
CF
-------------------==== Posted via Deja News ====-----------------------
http://www.dejanews.com/ Search, Read, Post to Usenet
Julian Macassey
In article <61rt07$rqk$1...@samba.rahul.net>,
Ken Smith <kens...@rahul.net> wrote:
>In article <61pc59$3h5$1...@earth.execpc.com>,
>Julian Macassey <jul...@bongo.tele.com> wrote:
>
>>security reasons, why is it staffed with people earning close to
>>minimum wage who understand nothing about computers?
>>
>> Are we being lied to?
>
>them than someone that knows a little about them. If you know a little
>about the computor you may figure out that all you have to do is punch up
>a little card to increase your pay to $1,000,000 a week. They say
>"garbage in garbage out", but that garbage, having passed though a
>computer will not be questioned.
But, you have done a wonderful job of making my point.
which was in the original post. Who punched those cards?
Criminals. Where were they? Outside the locked computer room.
So the place where the damage could be done - keypunch
and the accounts dept is not locked. The place where little
damage could be done is locked down tighter than San Quentin
during a riot.
That is my point.
To repeat: Are we being lied to?
>
>--
>--
>kens...@rahul.net forging knowledge
>
--
Julian Macassey 920.208.8051
Bob O`Brien
In article <MPG.eacc55d5...@news.tip.nl>,
Frans Buijsen <frans....@tip.nl> wrote:
>
>A few years ago I programmed a VTAM exit[1].
>[1] If you don't know what this is, you don't wanna know. Trust me on
^^
>this.
You fool! You scheduled an invariant truth for conditional execution!
Bob "attempting to debug life itself" O`Bob
--
****Fee for reviewing unsolicited commercial mail: $500 minimum.****
Do not send email to this address. JUST DON'T DO IT.
Post a follow-up, or find another way to address me. Any email received
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mal...@mail1.i1.net
Julian Macassey (jul...@bongo.tele.com) wrote:
: Warning: This is far too long.
Ehn. Not too long.
Let me just add my own person ObMainFramePeeve du jour.
It is: The pervasive theme in large corporate data centers in businesses
where operations have traditionally centered around mainframes leads the
senior management(TM) to not have clue fuck one about UNIX or how midrange
systems differ from The Big Iron. The idea is, in short, that if it's not
water cooled, doesn't require special voltage converters, and doesn't require
a herd of tape operators, then it's not A Real Computer.
It is, I suppose, a pocket calculator then.
: Further peeves? Wanna hear what the mainframe folk have to
: say about Unix, networks, Nah, I'll save it for later. This is a
: rich mine of peeves. Not to mention the whole Year 2,000 cockup
: and what is being done to avoid it.
Actually, Julian, I'd enjoy your ranting about COBOL a bit more. It tends
to be cathartic in the above peevesome environment.
: Julian Macassey 920.208.8051
DarleneAin
In article <61uihb$rsn$1...@earth.execpc.com>, jul...@bongo.tele.com (Julian
Macassey) writes:
> So the place where the damage could be done - keypunch
>and the accounts dept is not locked. The place where little
>damage could be done is locked down tighter than San Quentin
>during a riot.
>
> That is my point.
>
> To repeat: Are we being lied to?
Sure. Just think for a moment about the mind of a "security" person. He
doesn't care if your account is incorrect, or even deleted. His concern is
the safety of the assets of the company. You would understand that the
major asset of the company might be accounts payable, but he will not. He
only sees that lots of expensive equipment must be protected.
Steve Daniels (Official JBT of a.p)
On 14 Oct 1997 17:08:03 GMT, boo...@well.com (E M Richards)
wrote:
>You know, being that I was born in 1956, I would think that in 2079,
>my problems will be a little greater than a mere spreadsheet glitch.
2079 won't be any problem for you at all.
Bob O`Brien
In article <tbwdYaAK...@devce.demon.co.uk>,
Man Friday <Man.F...@devce.JUNK.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>
>Another laugh? Look how many data centres were built with Halon
>extinguishers. When was the last time you heard of a mainframe catching
>fire? Fires start outside the data centre and burn in, by which time
>there is no point in spraying a little bit of Halon about, as the floor
>is about to give way. It makes more sense to fit good drains in the
>floor to let leaking water run away safely (which is rarely done, so
>data centres are more at risk from drowning than burning).
>
Do you always articulate anally like this?
True, data centers rarely catch fire, but I've seen
efforts to recover data from water-damaged media to the
tune of tens of millions of dollars per incident.
The purpose of the Halon systems was not to put out fires,
but to put out fires WITHOUT water.
Bob O`Bob
Man Friday
In article <61uqba$hks$3...@news3.tufts.edu>, quoth Kirk Is <kisrael@allegr
o.cs.tufts.edu>:
>
>The Birth of Jesus. Give or take. Maybe.
>Yeah, well, there'd be the same problem with computers if
>this was the year1900 thing as well.
To be followed by:
9 Sept 1999 thing (9999 used by COBOL programmers as end-of-file
marker).
29 Feb 2000 thing (leap year).
2079 thing (Excel stops recognising date. Pension calculations become a
problem).
Some other bloody date thing - when the number of seconds since 1980
becomes greater than can be stored in a 64 bit integer. Mainframes fail
to calculate dates.
The year 10k problem, when years go to 5 digits. And we'll still be
using COBOL...
----------------------------
Paul Friday
To reply remove the junk from the address.
Time's fun when you're having flies - Kermit.
Julian Macassey
In article <h71eAfAc...@devce.demon.co.uk>,
Man Friday <Man.F...@devce.JUNK.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>
>9 Sept 1999 thing (9999 used by COBOL programmers as end-of-file
>marker).
I have at least one credit card with the 09/99 expiration
date.
--
Julian Macassey 920.208.8051
Julian Macassey
In article <61uqjl$hks$4...@news3.tufts.edu>,
Kirk Is <kis...@allegro.cs.tufts.edu> wrote:
>Julian Macassey (jul...@bongo.tele.com) wrote:
>: But, you have done a wonderful job of making my point.
>: which was in the original post. Who punched those cards?
>: Criminals. Where were they? Outside the locked computer room.
>: So the place where the damage could be done - keypunch
>: and the accounts dept is not locked. The place where little
>: damage could be done is locked down tighter than San Quentin
>: during a riot.
>
>: That is my point.
>
>
>Depends on what you're thinking of by 'damage'-- tons of information to
>sift through to find that one vital nugget vs big metal things that you
>can attack with crowbars. What's the big mystery?
Last known damage to big metal things: The Pac Bell CO in
Riverside CA. Shot up by a disgruntled employee.
Damage to accounting records? Billions of $ yearly.
Trust me, the average large company with a locked
computer room loses more annualy to employee theft, fraud and
graft than they could lose if they had a "Bring a hammer to work
day" twice a year and left the door of the computer center open.
There is often more value in all the PCs on desks than one locked
computer room.
What would you rather take home? A whole PC, or a part of
an IBM 390?
What could you sabotage most easily? A PC, sitting
unattended and on in a cube, or a large metal cabinet in a room?
What could you sell to Fred the Fence? A PC, or a large
line printer in a metal cabinet?
Finally, if filled with malace, how would you mess with
the mainframe? By breaking into a room filled with cabinets, or
sitting at any the the dozens of logged in and unattended dumb
terminals?
Geezus people, is it that hard to figure out?
--
Julian Macassey 920.208.8051
E M Richards
In article <h71eAfAc...@devce.demon.co.uk>,
Man Friday <Man.F...@devce.JUNK.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>9 Sept 1999 thing (9999 used by COBOL programmers as end-of-file
>marker).
Oh lordy. I forgot all about COBOL years ago. Good thing I was
not drinking the cuppajoe when I read that.
>2079 thing (Excel stops recognising date. Pension calculations become a
>problem).
You know, being that I was born in 1956, I would think that in 2079,
Ayse Sercan
jul...@bongo.tele.com (Julian Macassey) wrote:
> Trust me, the average large company with a locked
>computer room loses more annualy to employee theft, fraud and
>graft than they could lose if they had a "Bring a hammer to work
>day" twice a year and left the door of the computer center open.
>There is often more value in all the PCs on desks than one locked
>computer room.
I always figured they kept the machine rooms locked for the traditional
reason: to keep the janitors from unplugging the servers in order to
vacuum.
If the janitor unplugs your desktop machine, you might lose a bit of
information -- but probably not anything that weas saved. If he unplugs
the file server during a backup, you're fucked. Even more so if you are
like most companies and don't do careful backups.
> What would you rather take home? A whole PC, or a part of
>an IBM 390?
Depends on which one pissed me off more recently.
> Finally, if filled with malace, how would you mess with
>the mainframe? By breaking into a room filled with cabinets, or
>sitting at any the the dozens of logged in and unattended dumb
>terminals?
If I wanted it to look like a mistake and didn't want it to point at
myself as the cause of the damage, I'd be more likely to fuck with the
power supply than either of the above.
--
ay...@netcom.com
"Corporate culture as well as burgeoning technolgy appears to demand
obfuscation, forked tongues, bullshit, and lies; unfortunately the
language is usually the first casualty." -- Jon Parry-McCulloch
Ayse Sercan
Man Friday <Man.F...@devce.JUNK.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>
>The year 10k problem, when years go to 5 digits. And we'll still be
>using COBOL...
A geek friend sent me some software I'd volunteered to beta test. I was
setting preferences when I noticed he'd left six spaces for the year field.
Yes, he'd managed to solve the year100000 problem.
!Peeve: Sheer, unadulterated hubris -- and geek in-jokes.
Bob O`Brien
Man Friday <Man.F...@devce.JUNK.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>
>Some other bloody date thing - when the number of seconds since 1980
>becomes greater than can be stored in a 64 bit integer. Mainframes fail
>to calculate dates.
>
>using COBOL...
And the year 100K problem, the year 1M problem ...
the year 1G problem ...
the day the sun explodes ...
You ought to do the math, and see which of those comes last,
and by how much.
Most of the COBOL I wrote in the 1970s would have no calendar
problems until the first of March, 2100, if anyone's
stupid enough to still be using it.
Man Friday
In article <61pc59$3h5$1...@earth.execpc.com>, quoth Julian Macassey
<jul...@bongo.tele.com>:
> Why was all that stuff in a locked room that only a few
>were allowed in? Well, I asked, I always ask when I don't
>understand. I am guaranteed to ask if I know I will hear a
>bullshit answer. What was the answer? "Security".
The security of the computer from the people. Those things cost big
bucks, need air conditioning and clean power (or did).
Another laugh? Look how many data centres were built with Halon
extinguishers. When was the last time you heard of a mainframe catching
fire? Fires start outside the data centre and burn in, by which time
there is no point in spraying a little bit of Halon about, as the floor
is about to give way. It makes more sense to fit good drains in the
floor to let leaking water run away safely (which is rarely done, so
data centres are more at risk from drowning than burning).
COBOL programmers? They are next against the wall, after thay have
carried the Microsoft bodies to the pit.
Paul Friday
Julian Macassey
In article <ayseEI2...@netcom.com>, Ayse Sercan <ay...@netcom.com> wrote:
>jul...@bongo.tele.com (Julian Macassey) wrote:
>> Trust me, the average large company with a locked
>>computer room loses more annualy to employee theft, fraud and
>>graft than they could lose if they had a "Bring a hammer to work
>>day" twice a year and left the door of the computer center open.
>>There is often more value in all the PCs on desks than one locked
>>computer room.
>
>
>I always figured they kept the machine rooms locked for the traditional
>reason: to keep the janitors from unplugging the servers in order to
>vacuum.
Nice try. Mainframes are hardwired. The big wires, in
conduit are under the floor.
>
>If the janitor unplugs your desktop machine, you might lose a bit of
>information -- but probably not anything that weas saved. If he unplugs
>the file server during a backup, you're fucked. Even more so if you are
>like most companies and don't do careful backups.
The janitor does come in and clean. The janitor can do
more damage in the accounting area, trashing invoices and jarring
hard drives with records on them.
>
>> What would you rather take home? A whole PC, or a part of
>>an IBM 390?
>
>Depends on which one pissed me off more recently.
What are you going to do with a part of a 390?
>
>> Finally, if filled with malace, how would you mess with
>>the mainframe? By breaking into a room filled with cabinets, or
>>sitting at any the the dozens of logged in and unattended dumb
>>terminals?
>
>If I wanted it to look like a mistake and didn't want it to point at
>myself as the cause of the damage, I'd be more likely to fuck with the
>power supply than either of the above.
How would you fuck with a mainframe power supply?
Hardwired in a closed cabinet?
--
Julian Macassey 920.208.8051
Ben White
Man Friday <Man.F...@devce.JUNK.demon.co.uk> writes:
> Some other bloody date thing - when the number of seconds since 1980
> becomes greater than can be stored in a 64 bit integer. Mainframes fail
> to calculate dates.
Peeve: that in the year 292,271,025,025 I (probably) won't be around
to see DP types with their ankles up around their ears again.
--
"It steam-engines when it comes steam-engines time" - Charles Fort
Ayse Sercan
jul...@bongo.tele.com (Julian Macassey) wrote:
>>I always figured they kept the machine rooms locked for the traditional
>>reason: to keep the janitors from unplugging the servers in order to
>>vacuum.
>
> Nice try. Mainframes are hardwired. The big wires, in
>conduit are under the floor.
Mea culpa. I figured in the years since I last saw the power
configuration for a mainframe setup, they would have modernized.
> The janitor does come in and clean. The janitor can do
>more damage in the accounting area, trashing invoices and jarring
>hard drives with records on them.
But that's all temporary storage. If the janitor jars a pile of printed
records or breaks a workstation hard drive, you can reproduce the data
from the system behind locked doors.
>>> What would you rather take home? A whole PC, or a part of
>>>an IBM 390?
>>
>>Depends on which one pissed me off more recently.
>
> What are you going to do with a part of a 390?
Burn it in effigy? Hang it up as a shooting target? Run it over with a
tank? Any of many possible things.
>>If I wanted it to look like a mistake and didn't want it to point at
>>myself as the cause of the damage, I'd be more likely to fuck with the
>>power supply than either of the above.
>
> How would you fuck with a mainframe power supply?
>Hardwired in a closed cabinet?
In your example, the person causing damage has access to the machine room.
With such access, you can do some pretty serious damage with a bit of wire
and a grudge.
--
ay...@netcom.com
"Ayse is way way too sexually repressed and uptight to be a slut."
-- Jeff Zurschmeide
Charlie Stross
E M Richards<boo...@well.com> wrote (in article
<6208tj$sf3$1...@was.hooked.net>):
>
>Oh lordy. I forgot all about COBOL years ago. Good thing I was
>not drinking the cuppajoe when I read that.
Urgh. Seen yesterday on comp.os.linux.apps; someone announcing that
the GNU COBOL project will be releasing their compiler publicly in
January '98.
Just in time for me to slap it on my Linux box and gen up in time for
the "any warm body for $2000 a day" months of September, October, November,
and December '99.
Eew.
-- Charlie
Chris Pando
Charlie Stross wrote:
... snip ...
> Urgh. Seen yesterday on comp.os.linux.apps; someone announcing that
> the GNU COBOL project will be releasing their compiler publicly in
> January '98.
>
How about "object-oriented" Cobol?
Chris "buzzword compliant" Pando
---
"Cosmic Love is absolutelely Ruthless and Highly Indifferent:
it teaches its lessons whether you like/dislike them or not."
Excerpt from "The Dyadic Cyclone" by John Lilly
Julian Macassey
In article <6228j4$4...@bgtnsc02.worldnet.att.net>,
Chris Pando <Sirk-...@worldnet.att.net> wrote:
>Charlie Stross wrote:
>
>... snip ...
>
>> Urgh. Seen yesterday on comp.os.linux.apps; someone announcing that
>> the GNU COBOL project will be releasing their compiler publicly in
>> January '98.
>>
>
>How about "object-oriented" Cobol?
Yes, I have seen "Visual COBOL".
Netscape, in their latest 4.0 Professional browser
have... 3270 Emulation available. So you can browse "The
Enterprise".
Peeve: Enterprise and Legacy. Two words used to make big, old,
mainframe technology sound up to the minute and useful.
Peeve/2: We're putting in a new $1,000,000.00 mainframe. The
literature is scattered with the term "Enterprise". Gotta love
IBM, better at warm words than even Microsoft.
I had to install a fern line to the disc drives (Yes,
people here think IBM invented RAID), so if the discs have
problems they will dial IBM. Geeze, Sun RAIDs just send you
e-mail. IBM still believe id "Islands of excellence". Their
slogan should be "Our computer doesn't need a network".
--
Julian Macassey 920.208.8051
H.Shrikumar
DarleneAin <darle...@aol.com> wrote,
in news:<19971014113...@ladder01.news.aol.com> :
>major asset of the company might be accounts payable,
That ought to be a liability, actually. Or so at least with
honest and straightforward accounting practices.
Peeve : That many companies do treat it as an asset.
ObIndia: Businessmen routinely treat "Terms 30 days nett" as
"Dont even bother to ask me to pay up till the 30 days are
up". In a hot-money, high-interest market as in India,
negotiating payment terms that are most amenable to your lending
out someone else's money at 28% interest for 30 days is found to
be the secret of success in business, not strengths in know-how
nor even a 20% mark-up on profits.
To anyone that wants to learn details of how this is done, I'd
be glad to show you if you'd advance me a couple of thousand
bucks for a month (till I find my next student).
-- //Shrikumar
sh...@cs.umass.edu
Man Friday
In article <620nsm$4vp$1...@shell3.ba.best.com>, quoth Bob O`Brien
<ob...@best.com>:
>Do you always articulate anally like this?
cheeks.... RTFP.
>
>True, data centers rarely catch fire, but I've seen
>efforts to recover data from water-damaged media to the
>tune of tens of millions of dollars per incident.
>The purpose of the Halon systems was not to put out fires,
>but to put out fires WITHOUT water.
Er, yep. The point was that fires usually start outside the computer
room. The point about drainage is that computer rooms suffer more often
from water entering than from burning. I've seen computer rooms flooded
from melting snow, pipe leaks, sprinkler bursts, etc. The only one I
have ever seen burn was in the big DEC fire, where a bit of Halon might
have delayed the destruction of the computer room by a few minutes.
And guess what the fire brigade use when they arrive? They sure don't
hose the building with Halon.
Taking up on Julian's point, computer centres are built to resist what,
the ravening hordes of data-hungry office staff? They are built to keep
people out, extinguish mainframes that burst into flame and survive a
loss of electrical power. The builders usually forget that the data
centre lives in a largely unprotected building.
I remember well the company that invested in a huge fire safe to keep
their backups in. When thay had a fire it worked perfectly, protecting
the tapes during hours of fierce burning. Problem was, it fell through
the weakened floors and ended up deep in a pile of smouldering rubble in
the basement. When it was eventually recovered, the backups were perfect
(and about two months too late).
Bod
In article <6230r1$g...@kernighan.cs.umass.edu>, "H.Shrikumar"
<sh...@cs.umass.edu> wrote:
>ObIndia: Businessmen routinely treat "Terms 30 days nett" as
>"Dont even bother to ask me to pay up till the 30 days are
>up".
So it's like the games industry, then?
--
Bod
b...@hogshead.demon.co.uk
"Pay, I say pay attention, son. This is for your own good." -- Foghorn Leghorn
H.Shrikumar
Man Friday <Man.F...@devce.JUNK.demon.co.uk> wrote,
in news:<h71eAfAc...@devce.demon.co.uk> :
>To be followed by:
:
>Some other bloody date thing - when the number of seconds since 1980
>becomes greater than can be stored in a 64 bit integer. Mainframes fail
>to calculate dates.
I suspect that some billion years before that day, we might have
switched to a more rational (decimal) notation for time. Not
being a trekkie[1] meself, I can't say what that date would be
in StarDate.
I am adamantly self-assured that the Gregorian Calendar would
most definitely not be in vogue at that time. But if by some
miracle it still were, the clock on the wall would read 6:43:12
Ante Meridiem, Saturday, 26 January[2], 584942419335 Anno
Domini.
It would be a bright sunny morning, and a very large and very
warm red globe of a sun would fill out your bedroom window,
splash out on the table in the patio, scattering a glow over the
front yard and most of the street outside.
In fact the whole organic earth will be a warm happy place with
nary a trace of poverty, ill-will, infamy, racism and hegemony
-- for good and evil, yin and yang, ahura mazda and ahirman
would all have been simultaneously wiped out, reduced to a
pristine plasma by the expanding surface flares from a dying
sun.
Coming to think of it, this bloated red sun might have something
to do with even the "they made them to last" mainframes failing
to calculate anything at all; I dont think the ancient freon
cooling system can deal with the heat emanating from the core of
a star in the red-giant stage [3].
-- //Shrikumar
sh...@cs.umass.edu
[1] How does one calculate StarDate, can someone give me a
pointer ? TIA.
[2] ObIndia: And the Republic Day parade opposite the ramparts
of the Red Fort, New Delhi, would show-case the all Indian
design LCA (Light Combat Aircraft). Finally. At long last.
Whew. My beloved mother-land is finally safe from foreign
aggression.
[3] Linkname: Astro 1, Week 8 -- Feigelson
URL: http://www.astro.psu.edu/users/edf/astro1/week8_a.html
To the astro-pedant: Yes, I am off by two orders of magnitude
when I talk of the Sun being in the red-giant stage, but hey
this still is at least better science-fiction than the "Fifth
Element".
And besides, when you have a 64 bit integer for time, you will
count ticks in millisecs, so I still have a cop-out of a chance
to futz the numbers in the post above, and make it come out
looking right.
Bod
In article <6234u0$951$1...@vixen.cso.uiuc.edu>, James Lloyd Hill <j-
hi...@ews.uiuc.edu> wrote:
>Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings' "The Yearling" is better science fiction
>than "Da Fiff Emment.[1]"
(...)
>[2] ObPeeve: I paid $4 hard-earned dollars to see that movie.[3]
Your mistake was expecting something coherent in a scientifiction sort
of way from a Luc Besson movie. Did you not see the endless articles
stating that it was based on a story he'd written when he was fourteen?
Did you not hear the second line of the future section, which referred
to something being "minus a thousand degrees"? That was the "disengage
brain here" sign, and I'll bet it was put there deliberately. You were
not supposed to take anything that followed seriously, and if you did
then you were a complete fool.
Fuck science. Fuck coherence. Fuck symbolism and themes. It looked
gorgeous, sounded gorgeous, had fabulous aliens and big guns, and
everyone involved was clearly in total awe of "Brazil". And they blew up
an opera house. Quality entertainment.
Shame about the Moonraker ending, though.
--
Bod (b...@hogshead.demon.co.uk)
"One man can change the world with a bullet in the right place" ("If...")
Man Friday
In article <622hgl$54m$1...@earth.execpc.com>, quoth Julian Macassey
<jul...@bongo.tele.com>:
>Their
>slogan should be "Our computer doesn't need a network".
"Our computer is all the network you will ever need"
Bob O`Brien
H.Shrikumar <sh...@cs.umass.edu> wrote:
>And besides, when you have a 64 bit integer for time, you will
>count ticks in millisecs, so I still have a cop-out of a chance
>to futz the numbers in the post above, and make it come out
>looking right.
It may be just computing folklore, but I was told that IBM manframes,
starting earlier than the 360, included a non-resettable 64 bit
integer for counting milliseconds of power-on time. Damned
optimistic, but easily understood if it was just one of some
quantity of telltales, all 64 bit.
Bob O`Brien
Julian Macassey <jul...@bongo.tele.com> wrote:
>Chris Pando <Sirk-...@worldnet.att.net> wrote:
>>
>>How about "object-oriented" Cobol?
>
> Yes, I have seen "Visual COBOL".
>
I was invited to write a review of what is apparently
the latest version of that product ...
"Visual Object CoBOL"
I declined, by ignoring the email.
Bob O`Bob
Yes, I capitalize it that way on purpose, but I have no idea
if the relevant company does.
Man Friday
In article <6210rh$a90$1...@earth.execpc.com>, quoth Julian Macassey
<jul...@bongo.tele.com>:
>
> I have at least one credit card with the 09/99 expiration
>date.
Obviously not a load of COBOLers, then.
Not many VISA cards around with a year 2000 expiry date, are there?
Seems the first batch to hit the tills were rejected as having expired
in 1900.
Ayse Sercan
Man Friday <Man.F...@devce.JUNK.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>Not many VISA cards around with a year 2000 expiry date, are there?
>Seems the first batch to hit the tills were rejected as having expired
>in 1900.
That's funny -- I got one that expires in 02/00 about a year ago.
ObQuery: Used to be, they sent you a new card every year. This was nifty
for me, as I worried less about the card (and necessary expiry date)
being stolen. Now they send them out every three to four years. What's
up with that?
Brian Saunders
Ayse Sercan wrote:
> ObQuery: Used to be, they sent you a new card every year. This was nifty
> for me, as I worried less about the card (and necessary expiry date)
> being stolen. Now they send them out every three to four years. What's
> up with that?
It seems to me that back when they send out cards every year, the
expiration dates weren't every year (they were something like 2 years).
So, you could be sent a card, it could get stolen, and you wouldn't
notice it. They probably also save some cost by making few cards, too.
Bob O`Brien
In article <ayseEIp...@netcom.com>,
Ayse Sercan <ay...@netcom.com> wrote:
> What's
>up with that?
>
*BLAM*
Bob O`Bob
--
The Jetsons was the prime-time cartoon series for the Jet Age.
Terry Austin
ay...@netcom.com (Ayse Sercan) wrote:
>Man Friday <Man.F...@devce.JUNK.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>>Not many VISA cards around with a year 2000 expiry date, are there?
>>Seems the first batch to hit the tills were rejected as having expired
>>in 1900.
>
>That's funny -- I got one that expires in 02/00 about a year ago.
They just started that a few months ago (on a big scale, anyway).
Credit card companies had to make sure their software was updated.
Now, the merchants who use those little gray machines are fine, but
anybody using any kind of computer software could have a *real*
interesting New Year in two more years or so.
---------------------------------
-- Terry Austin, Grand Inquisitor, Loyal Order of Chivalry & Sorcery
Hyperbooks Online http://www.hyperbooks.com/ Order by toll free phone call!
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