DoN. Nichols wrote:

Chuck wrote:
Dan Caster wrote:
Boy does this take me back. My first programming language was APL.

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.

We had 3 IBM2741

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

I also remember that we learned that if we sent and 5 ibeam 3e9 command
it would crash the whole ibm mainframe.

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

Some of them still are not.

M$ anyone?

About ten years ago, before my wife
retired, she (and the agency for which she worked) were doing testing on
a rather complex database system which a contractor was trying to
provide them.

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
wordsomething, 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 Ctrl key and typing a letter.
(The Ctrl 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