http://www.acm.org/ubiquity/reflections/v7i49_memoir.html
(((At the moment, there are a few aging geeks around who still understand what this gentleman means when he talks about
"revolving drums" and such. Pretty soon they'll be gone, and then even the memoirs of Sanskrit scholars will meet with more comprehension.)))
"Then we got a REALLY BIG 1401 to support our 7094. To accomplish this, I built a program in SPS, an assembler language, that permitted the 1401 to read cards and write tapes for input to the 7094, AND simultaneously read output tapes from the 7094 to print results and punch cards. We were able to keep every device on the 1401 working. I still have that code somewhere in a box."
(((It's sheer poetry! Good luck finding machinery that'll boot that code off the punch cards.)))
"Even though I left the world of programming completely, I occasionally had recalls. In 2000, I was fortunate to find some old PDP 11 manuals that helped a project that I was managing figure out the floating point representation of 1970 era Digital Equipment machines. And in 2001 I was a guinea pig in the IEEE effort to develop a 'software engineering' certification. I took the test and was among those who passed and therefore became a "Certified Software Development Professional". Though my employer paid for me to take the test, they took no interest in this accomplishment. I have since wondered about the success of this program. I never renewed my Certification as I couldn't find anyone who even knew that it existed. Sic transit gloria."
(((Sic transit gloria...)))
