math problem

Ha. Her name was not "Germain" by any chance?

Jim

================================================== please reply to: JRR(zero) at yktvmv (dot) vnet (dot) ibm (dot) com ==================================================

Nope -- and she is no longer with us, unfortunately.

But it sounds as though you have a story behind that name.

Enjoy, DoN.

That was the one I've already related - where a sister of a co-worker called up her brother here and said 'type this in to VM' and he did so. And then "hey, the system just crashed."

"I know - it's a *bug*. We just found it!"

She was some kind of systems programmer.

Jim

================================================== please reply to: JRR(zero) at yktvmv (dot) vnet (dot) ibm (dot) com ==================================================

My first was hex in 1956. Yup. ALWAC 3E. Tube flip-flops, Ge diode logic, rotating drum memory, Flex-writer with paper tape reader. Key in bootstrap in binary with front panel switches, read code for high speed paper tape reader from the flex. No assembler. Code hand arranged for optimum reading (drum rotation, ya know).

First contact with APL was 1967 at U of Alberta. We were test site for APL\360.

That's the one. Special type ball for APL.

I'm surprised you had access to that. That was a privleged command.

M$ anyone?

One day I was teaching in the hardware lab (we used it for both class and lab) when there was a knock at the door. I answered it to find the Dean's secratary there with tears streaming down her face. She was holding a floppy disk and had a sad story. That afternoon was the big budget meeting and the Dean's presentation had a problem. (It was word, not M$Word, things hadn't deteriorated that much yet.) They could print about half a dozen lines then it would stop. Checked the backups - same story. Was there ANYTHING I could do? I stuck the disk in the PC Junior (a good computer for its day) and looked at the directory. The reported file length seemed reasonable for the document but a TYPE command showed only a few lines. I read the file into APL and looked at the file in hex then played a hunch. +/EOF=TEXT. Answer was 2. You see, this clever word processor let you insert control codes in your document by holding down the key and typing a letter. (The key is right beside the shift key.) So, TEXT{is}((TEXT{not-equal}EOF)/TEXT),EOF and write the file back to disk and voila. I was the local hero in the Dean's office for a while.

Ted

I remember stumbling into that also - but I want to say I saw it years after on a DG computer. Had several 'high' level editors to look and see the whoops. Martin

Ok - how about ICOSOHEX :-)

Mart> Ted Edwards wrote:

Somehow the attribution got off a little. My first programming occured before there was APL.

Dan

I don't remember when APL got started, but I think that I was programming before it existed, too. At least the HP 9200B programmable desktop (before that shrunk that into a pocket calculator), and perhaps even my early fumbling at 6800 machine language. :-)

Without bothering to trace the thread back, I would say that it looks as though it was Chuck who said that. He had apparently quoted something of yours. Note that the attribution line should be one level of quoting back from the actual quoted text, and here the two are at the same level.

Of course, some newsreaders just don't bother to put in an attribution header, and some others don't bother maintaining the quote marks, so none of the above may be true. :-)

Enjoy, DoN.