TIL

[john ashby]

that in Germany the Greengrocers' Apostrophe is the East German Snack
Bar's Apostrophe.

john

[J. P. Gilliver]

In message <uq9vnk$t3kk$1...@dont-email.me> at Sun, 11 Feb 2024 08:15:48,
john ashby <johna...@yahoo.com> writes

>that in Germany the Greengrocers' Apostrophe is the East German Snack
>Bar's Apostrophe.
>
>john

Interesting - like different countries/regions around the world have
their own version of the (non-PC nowadays of course) Irish joke - I
think some of North America uses Newfies (Newfoundlanders), and Germany
one of their islands; it's often a somewhat isolated community.

I'd always thought of it as the greengrocer's apostrophe, but I suppose
many of them use it!

Oh - TIL?
--
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/<1985 MB++G()AL-IS-Ch++(p)Ar@T+H+Sh0!:`)DNAf

"...told me to connect with the electorate, and I did!" John Prescott on
having punched the man who threw an egg at him (Top Gear, 2011-2-28)

[Jim Easterbrook]

On Sun, 11 Feb 2024 08:15:48 +0000, john ashby wrote:

> that in Germany the Greengrocers' Apostrophe is the East German Snack
> Bar's Apostrophe.

Yes, but what's the German long word for it?

--
Jim <http://www.jim-easterbrook.me.uk/>
1959/1985? M B+ G+ A L- I- S- P-- CH0(p) Ar++ T+ H0 Q--- Sh0

[Mike McMillan]

Jim Easterbrook <ne...@jim-easterbrook.me.uk> wrote:
> On Sun, 11 Feb 2024 08:15:48 +0000, john ashby wrote:
>
>> that in Germany the Greengrocers' Apostrophe is the East German Snack
>> Bar's Apostrophe.
>
> Yes, but what's the German long word for it?
>

Summat like Rindfleischetikettierungsüberwachungsaufgabenübertragungsgesetz
perhaps?

--
Toodle Pip, Mike McMillan

[Jenny M Benson]

That's easy for you to say.

--
Jenny M Benson
Wrexham, UK

[Mike McMillan]

Or: Gesetz zur Übertragung der Aufgaben für die Überwachung der
Rinderkennzeichnung und Rindfleischetikettierung
HAND

[Mike McMillan]

You might think that, but I couldn’t possibly gozurnenplatz. (Oh! Hello
Bob, I didn’t see you there for monkeys. )

[john ashby]

On 11/02/2024 12:11, Jim Easterbrook wrote:
> On Sun, 11 Feb 2024 08:15:48 +0000, john ashby wrote:
>
>> that in Germany the Greengrocers' Apostrophe is the East German Snack
>> Bar's Apostrophe.
>
> Yes, but what's the German long word for it?
>

I didn't quite make a complet note of it but it was something like
Ostdeutcherschnellimbissbesitzergenitiv.

It was in a discussion of Taylor Swift's new album in Die Welt.
Apparently there is much fury on the Interweb about a lack of apostrophe.

john

[john ashby]

On 11/02/2024 09:33, J. P. Gilliver wrote:
> In message <uq9vnk$t3kk$1...@dont-email.me> at Sun, 11 Feb 2024 08:15:48,
> john ashby <johna...@yahoo.com> writes
>> that in Germany the Greengrocers' Apostrophe is the East German Snack
>> Bar's Apostrophe.
>>
>> john
>
> Interesting - like different countries/regions around the world have
> their own version of the (non-PC nowadays of course) Irish joke - I
> think some of North America uses Newfies (Newfoundlanders), and Germany
> one of their islands; it's often a somewhat isolated community.
>
> I'd always thought of it as the greengrocer's apostrophe, but I suppose
> many of them use it!
>
> Oh - TIL?

Today I learnt,

john

[BrritSki]

Today I learned - Be Understanding Regarding Yesterday

My new psw ! (with a few characters changed to num8ers 0bvs).

[Wenlock]

The lack of apostrophe in Die or in Welt? EMNTK.

[Sam Plusnet]

On 11-Feb-24 9:33, J. P. Gilliver wrote:
> In message <uq9vnk$t3kk$1...@dont-email.me> at Sun, 11 Feb 2024 08:15:48,
> john ashby <johna...@yahoo.com> writes
>> that in Germany the Greengrocers' Apostrophe is the East German Snack
>> Bar's Apostrophe.
>>
>> john
>
> Interesting - like different countries/regions around the world have
> their own version of the (non-PC nowadays of course) Irish joke - I
> think some of North America uses Newfies (Newfoundlanders), and Germany
> one of their islands; it's often a somewhat isolated community.
>

It used to be the East Friesians - but things could have changed in the
last <does a rough calculation> 45 or 50 years.

--
Sam Plusnet

[Mike Headon]

Program status word?
April 8th wil be the 60th anniversary of the IBM 360 announcement. It
was going to be on the 1st until somebody realised that it might not be
appropriate!
--
Mike Headon
R69S R850R
IIIc IIIg FT FTn FT2 EOS450D
e-mail: mike dot headon at enn tee ell world dot com

[Iain Archer]

On Mon, 12 Feb 2024 10:41:20 +0000, Mike Headon wrote:

> On 11/02/2024 20:15, BrritSki wrote:
>> On 11/02/2024 18:55, john ashby wrote:
>>> On 11/02/2024 09:33, J. P. Gilliver wrote:

[snip]

>>>>
>>>> Oh - TIL?
>>>
>>> Today I learnt,
>>>
>> Today I learned - Be Understanding Regarding Yesterday
>>
>> My new psw !  (with a few characters changed to num8ers 0bvs).
>>
> Program status word?

Psychiatric social worker?

[BrritSki]

On 12/02/2024 10:41, Mike Headon wrote:
> On 11/02/2024 20:15, BrritSki wrote:
>> On 11/02/2024 18:55, john ashby wrote:
>>> On 11/02/2024 09:33, J. P. Gilliver wrote:
>>>> In message <uq9vnk$t3kk$1...@dont-email.me> at Sun, 11 Feb 2024
>>>> 08:15:48, john ashby <johna...@yahoo.com> writes
>>>>> that in Germany the Greengrocers' Apostrophe is the East German
>>>>> Snack Bar's Apostrophe.
>>>>>
>>>>> john
>>>>
>>>> Interesting - like different countries/regions around the world have
>>>> their own version of the (non-PC nowadays of course) Irish joke - I
>>>> think some of North America uses Newfies (Newfoundlanders), and
>>>> Germany one of their islands; it's often a somewhat isolated community.
>>>>
>>>> I'd always thought of it as the greengrocer's apostrophe, but I
>>>> suppose many of them use it!
>>>>
>>>> Oh - TIL?
>>>
>>> Today I learnt,
>>>
>> Today I learned - Be Understanding Regarding Yesterday
>>
>> My new psw !  (with a few characters changed to num8ers 0bvs).
>>
>>
> Program status word?

Password as I'm sure you know.

> April 8th wil be the 60th anniversary of the IBM 360 announcement.

An IBM 360/30 with 32K memory was the first computer I programmed in 1967...

[Jenny M Benson]

On 12/02/2024 11:06, BrritSki wrote:
>
> An IBM 360/30 with 32K memory was the first computer I programmed in
> 1967...

I first encountered a computer when I was at Teacher Training College in
the early 70s. Maths being my specialist subject I was required to do a
Computing module the first year. I was *hooked*. The second year I was
the only student who opted for Computing. I bet that a few years down
the line there were quite a few teachers who wished they'd opted in.

[Vicky]

I did a 3 months post grad secretarial course and they included 2 days
on computers. Capt Ex (2nd mate then) was home on leave and I skipped
the 2 days. I was sorry later.We got our first Vic 20 when the
children were small, in 1977 I think. And got Prestel when we had
upgraded to an Amstrad 6128 in 1986, to be able to send telexes to
Chief Officer Ex . And then the children found chat lines and heard
about meets.And I found multi user games. And my phone bill increased
massively. We had a Demon Internet a/c before there was www. You had
to use KA9Q (I think that was it)

[Mike Headon]

On 12/02/2024 11:06, BrritSki wrote:

Me too, at the Legal & General in Surrey.

[Rosie Mitchell]

On 12/02/2024 10:41, Mike Headon wrote:

All characters coded in EBCDIC. Are you sure it wasn't appropriate?

Rosie

[Rosie Mitchell]

1972, PDP-8 in the undergrad physics lab for me. Input by paper tape,
which you could then use to decorate your room!

It took me a few years bur eventually I went down that path
professionally. But I do wish I'd learned to touch-type, it would have
been so useful. As it was, society dictated that I had to put up with
two years of woodwork instead.

My mum wasn't keen on the idea of me learning to type either, but that
was because, as the youngest in a working-class family, and a late child
to boot, she was packed off to the council school to learn to type then
at 14 sent to earn her keep in the shipyard typing pool. She was a
bright lady who I'm sure in different life circumstances could have gone
to university, and I believe she knew and resented that for the rest of
her life.

Rosie

[Chris J Dixon]

Jenny M Benson wrote:

>I first encountered a computer when I was at Teacher Training College in
>the early 70s. Maths being my specialist subject I was required to do a
>Computing module the first year. I was *hooked*. The second year I was
>the only student who opted for Computing. I bet that a few years down
>the line there were quite a few teachers who wished they'd opted in.

In my final year at college (Electrical Engineering 1967-71) I
had selected Computer Science, as a final year option, but this
was over subscribed, and I had to think again.

I remember my disappointment, having chosen instead a
"Machines" option, to be presented with a large matrix and
being told that, for the purposes of this analysis, the design
details were pretty irrelevant, all large machines reduced to
this grid of numbers.

I never realised was how much of a university engineering course
is actually maths. There is just so much that I never understood,
and even the bits I did grasp are lost in the mists of time.

Chris
--
Chris J Dixon Nottingham UK
ch...@cdixon.me.uk

Plant amazing Acers.
--
Chris J Dixon Nottingham
'48/33 M B+ G++ A L(-) I S-- CH0(--)(p) Ar- T+ H0 ?Q
ch...@cdixon.me.uk @ChrisJDixon1
Plant amazing Acers.

[Chris J Dixon]

Mike Headon wrote:

>Program status word?
>April 8th wil be the 60th anniversary of the IBM 360 announcement. It
>was going to be on the 1st until somebody realised that it might not be
>appropriate!

I recall loading some calculations(1) onto a 360 in Stafford, via
card input at GEC in Trafford Park, in the early 70s.

Rather than wait a day for the results to come back, we then
drove to Preston, where we could see them printed out on a
teletype, at roughly the speed of the football results. Don't
ask why this was.

The next time, a couple of years later, I had to do a similar
calculation, we used a Compucorp programmable calculator(2).

At the same time we had a technical document for each project
which was about 50 sheets of data, with items listed in a
particular sequence, which had to be frequently updated, with
pencil and eraser, and you could always guarantee that wherever
you had left spaces would not be where stuff needed inserting.

Our tame office nerd managed to write code that enabled us to
produce the document using the company 360, the data input for
each project being two full boxes of punch cards. The cards (a
pair for each item) had to be kept in the right order, so
dropping them wasn't ideal. We wrote the data and edits on coding
sheets, apart from bank holidays, when the punch staff were away,
and we could have a go ourselves.

At another company, which (following the move of an Engineering
Manager) used the same listing system, PCs had begun to appear,
and the Chief Engineer liked working in Fortran, which was
persuaded (a bit like dogs walking on two legs) to perform the
task.

In due course, I got it working, and much more user-friendly in
dBase. My biggest success was to produce the hierarchy trees
(mounted on/ contains) from the component data.

(1) Start resistor calculations for the Class 313 EMU. I still
have some hand plots of the resultant curves in the loft.

(2) I think this was it:
http://www.rskey.org/detail.asp?manufacturer=Compucorp&model=326+Scientist

Chris
--
Chris J Dixon Nottingham

[Vicky]

On Mon, 12 Feb 2024 12:25:38 +0000, Rosie Mitchell
<walne...@gmail.com> wrote:

>ut I do wish I'd learned to touch-type, it would have
>been so useful. As it was, society dictated that I had to put up with
>two years of woodwork instead.

Typing was later, we had needlework at school and then cookery while
the boys had woodrork, which I really wanted to do. I was rubbish at
needlework. Electric sewing machines came unthreaded. Years later I
got a turn the handle sewing machine and made clothes for daughters,
but almost didn't get to do cookery as you had to make the nuggering
cookery apron first.

[Vicky]

On Mon, 12 Feb 2024 13:33:39 +0000, Vicky <vicky...@gmail.com>
wrote:

And I'm probably the only person in history to fail cookery O
level.But again was fine cooking for family later.

[J. P. Gilliver]

In message <kv0ksi9h14fs4ps8u...@4ax.com> at Mon, 12 Feb
2024 11:48:45, Vicky <vicky...@gmail.com> writes

>On Mon, 12 Feb 2024 11:38:10 +0000, Jenny M Benson
><Nemo...@hotmail.co.uk> wrote:
>
>>On 12/02/2024 11:06, BrritSki wrote:
>>>
>>> An IBM 360/30 with 32K memory was the first computer I programmed in
>>> 1967...
>>
>>I first encountered a computer when I was at Teacher Training College in
>>the early 70s. Maths being my specialist subject I was required to do a

Same decade for me, though younger: started on a machine with 16 memory
locations (no, not 16K: 16), then sending off FORTRAN coding forms and
getting back a stack of cards and printout.

>>Computing module the first year. I was *hooked*. The second year I was
>>the only student who opted for Computing. I bet that a few years down
>>the line there were quite a few teachers who wished they'd opted in.
>
>I did a 3 months post grad secretarial course and they included 2 days
>on computers. Capt Ex (2nd mate then) was home on leave and I skipped
>the 2 days. I was sorry later.We got our first Vic 20 when the
>children were small, in 1977 I think. And got Prestel when we had
>upgraded to an Amstrad 6128 in 1986, to be able to send telexes to
>Chief Officer Ex . And then the children found chat lines and heard
>about meets.And I found multi user games. And my phone bill increased
>massively. We had a Demon Internet a/c before there was www. You had
>to use KA9Q (I think that was it)

Yes, it was: I too was a Demonite, and remember using the KA9Q suite as
tweaked by Demon - DOS-based, that was; I had a machine that had
Windows, but remember only firing up Windows when I wanted to use the
web. (And not always then: there was a DOS browser - Lynx, I think it
was called.) I think I used the purple ROMP ... (-:

--
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/<1985 MB++G()AL-IS-Ch++(p)Ar@T+H+Sh0!:`)DNAf

"quidquid latine dictum sit, altum viditur". ("Anything is more impressive if
you say it in Latin")

[J. P. Gilliver]

In message <d04ksilvl02o58kqv...@4ax.com> at Mon, 12 Feb
2024 12:44:55, Chris J Dixon <ch...@cdixon.me.uk> writes
[]

>I never realised was how much of a university engineering course
>is actually maths. There is just so much that I never understood,
>and even the bits I did grasp are lost in the mists of time.

[]
Yes, and it was quite a shock, having mostly found maths fairly easy
through school; uni-level maths was a different ball-game!

The above reminds me of my "Flowers for Algernon" moment: I distinctly
remember finally understanding "s parameters" (a concept in electronics,
to do with input and output impedances) for about half an hour.

--
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/<1985 MB++G()AL-IS-Ch++(p)Ar@T+H+Sh0!:`)DNAf

[J. P. Gilliver]

In message <uqd2o3$1g58o$1...@dont-email.me> at Mon, 12 Feb 2024 12:25:38,
Rosie Mitchell <walne...@gmail.com> writes
[]

>My mum wasn't keen on the idea of me learning to type either, but that
>was because, as the youngest in a working-class family, and a late
>child to boot, she was packed off to the council school to learn to
>type then at 14 sent to earn her keep in the shipyard typing pool. She
>was a bright lady who I'm sure in different life circumstances could
>have gone to university, and I believe she knew and resented that for
>the rest of her life.

[]
My great-aunt was a marvellous cook/household manager - which my mum
always said was because she was very bright, but going into service was
the only opportunity available, to a young girl in a mining family in
those days, and she always resented having to have done so. Presumably
far from an unusual situation.

--
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/<1985 MB++G()AL-IS-Ch++(p)Ar@T+H+Sh0!:`)DNAf

[john ashby]

On 12/02/2024 13:59, J. P. Gilliver wrote:
> In message <d04ksilvl02o58kqv...@4ax.com> at Mon, 12 Feb
> 2024 12:44:55, Chris J Dixon <ch...@cdixon.me.uk> writes
> []
>> I never realised was how much of a university engineering course
>> is actually maths. There is just so much that I never understood,
>> and even the bits I did grasp are lost in the mists of time.
> []
> Yes, and it was quite a shock, having mostly found maths fairly easy
> through school; uni-level maths was a different ball-game!
>
> The above reminds me of my "Flowers for Algernon" moment: I distinctly
> remember finally understanding "s parameters" (a concept in electronics,
> to do with input and output impedances) for about half an hour.

I am convinced I only passed the Electronics paper in my Physics degree
by pretending the course was called "Functions of Several Variables".

john

[Sam Plusnet]

On 12-Feb-24 13:54, J. P. Gilliver wrote:

> My great-aunt was a marvellous cook/household manager - which my mum
> always said was because she was very bright, but going into service was
> the only opportunity available, to a young girl in a mining family in
> those days, and she always resented having to have done so. Presumably
> far from an unusual situation.

Not at all unusual.
In fact going into service was often preferred to (for the oldest
daughter) being kept at home as an unpaid servant who did the cooking,
cleaning, and looking after her younger siblings (and later her parents
as they aged).

--
Sam Plusnet

[Nick Odell]

On Mon, 12 Feb 2024 12:44:55 +0000, Chris J Dixon <ch...@cdixon.me.uk>
wrote:

>Jenny M Benson wrote:
>
>>I first encountered a computer when I was at Teacher Training College in
>>the early 70s. Maths being my specialist subject I was required to do a
>>Computing module the first year. I was *hooked*. The second year I was
>>the only student who opted for Computing. I bet that a few years down
>>the line there were quite a few teachers who wished they'd opted in.
>
>In my final year at college (Electrical Engineering 1967-71) I
>had selected Computer Science, as a final year option, but this
>was over subscribed, and I had to think again.
>
>I remember my disappointment, having chosen instead a
>"Machines" option, to be presented with a large matrix and
>being told that, for the purposes of this analysis, the design
>details were pretty irrelevant, all large machines reduced to
>this grid of numbers.
>
>I never realised was how much of a university engineering course
>is actually maths. There is just so much that I never understood,
>and even the bits I did grasp are lost in the mists of time.
>

If you haven't seen it before, you might enjoy this...

https://www.theregister.com/2024/02/02/16_bit_cpu_excel/

It's the operation of a 16-bit cpu emulated in Excel.

Nick