In the early 70s, I thought I was a hotshot programmer with 5 years of experience, I could do Assembly and Cobol. I did an optimization that impressed my supervisor, got permission to examine the computer. It was an IBM 370/148, not the small one fit in a large room partitioned into 4 but a big one, took up the entire floor at the bank. partitioned into 8. This was my first time on a big machine. I examine F0, F1, F2, F4, F5, F6, then paused. power was always on the last part F3, but this big machine power must be on F7. You never look at power, the machine would have scan every log file since it was built to fill the screen. So I go to F3, this big machine was actually a small machine that had been upgraded. First all the line printers quit, then all the tape drives quit, then nothing but the rattle of the giant HDD platters, then the phone rang, then every phone at the bank was ringing. 165 seconds after I pressed the wrong button, the screen filled up and everything went back to normal. I got to meet the bank president, the entire board, every manager, and the Federal Reserve guy. I said I was trying to speed up the computer. Seems every terminal in every branch also went down for 165 seconds. Federal Reserve banned me from any bank computer room, they took away my keyboard and terminal. I had to program with a plastic template and graph paper, get someone to keypunch it for me and then bring the stack of cards to the computer operated to be run after hours. making a change in the program and compiling it and seeing the results was about 60 hours. I would sweet talk the computer operated into fixing my code. I ended married to her, for years she kept fixing my code.
Full stack web dev.
Studying FP web development approaches, while helping Mission Bit create paths to programming for underserved public school kids.
Previously @ Gradescope.
Husband, father of 👧 👧, and software developer living in the Metro Detroit area. Interested in continuous learning, tinkering, and exploring new technology.
LEARN.always
In the early 70s, I thought I was a hotshot programmer with 5 years of experience, I could do Assembly and Cobol. I did an optimization that impressed my supervisor, got permission to examine the computer. It was an IBM 370/148, not the small one fit in a large room partitioned into 4 but a big one, took up the entire floor at the bank. partitioned into 8. This was my first time on a big machine. I examine F0, F1, F2, F4, F5, F6, then paused. power was always on the last part F3, but this big machine power must be on F7. You never look at power, the machine would have scan every log file since it was built to fill the screen. So I go to F3, this big machine was actually a small machine that had been upgraded. First all the line printers quit, then all the tape drives quit, then nothing but the rattle of the giant HDD platters, then the phone rang, then every phone at the bank was ringing. 165 seconds after I pressed the wrong button, the screen filled up and everything went back to normal. I got to meet the bank president, the entire board, every manager, and the Federal Reserve guy. I said I was trying to speed up the computer. Seems every terminal in every branch also went down for 165 seconds. Federal Reserve banned me from any bank computer room, they took away my keyboard and terminal. I had to program with a plastic template and graph paper, get someone to keypunch it for me and then bring the stack of cards to the computer operated to be run after hours. making a change in the program and compiling it and seeing the results was about 60 hours. I would sweet talk the computer operated into fixing my code. I ended married to her, for years she kept fixing my code.
Ha, sounds worth it!
This is fantastic! I was not expecting a ❤ story. Thanks for sharing.