Shopsmith Forums

JPG40504 wrote:Impressive task!

Were you able to retrieve the comments also!:D

Real programmers do not need comments, they take extra time away from the coding. I made sub routines for the new Cobol code and only added comments to the sub headers as to what I want to do. My memory was about a thousand times better at that time. No long mean fully names for variables. Using debug, I was able to use canned input values and manually associate them with the self generated variable names (I believe I used A01 - Z99). Since most of the Cobol programs were from the 60s, I was able to restructure many of them for quicker and more efficient processing along with adding tons of comments over time. It was a king of the hill time.

Bragging time: 2,000 lines of high level code (LOC) a year was the accepted output per programmer in the 80s and 90s. I could program and test 2,000 LOC many time within 1 week. So I have a lot of free time to play with other programs and the operating system for both the IBM and Siemens computers than Munich maintained and owned. When I retired at Siemens, I had submitted the code for about 20% of their 20 million LOC telephone switch program and had instructed programmers for a lot of the remaining code. In the late 90s, Siemens decided to start charging programmers and departments for their run time on the main IBM370. When checking the past years use, it was found that my operating and batch and simulation testing programs was averaging 98% of the IBM time over a 24 hr period. I made sure everyone else still got their time allotment. I would be operating dozens of programs at the same time and would analyze the results each morning. So I was given a very small time box to operate my programs. I only took me a few week to generate some phantom programmers and get them in the system and access to the IBM and charge another dept. for the time. I had hacked into all the Siemens management programs and could change any field that need changing without getting caught. I had spy programs on all the Siemens computers to let me know if anyone was looking at anything I was doing. I kept around 10 phantom programmers busy submitting batch and simulator testing jobs to the IBM. I was only caught weeks before I retired.

I wrote a lot of procedures with self healing code, similar to AI coding. When the code detected a error, It would bypass the procedure while the procedure was being tested with min and max values. Depending on the results, Parts of the code was parched around and a call to several real time debugging modules I owned to further determine why the procedure was not working. I could even patch in another procedure call to replace the procedure with the error. This is without telling anyone other than my collection files. Siemens only found this code the last month or so that I had left. Some programmers in Munich headquarters found a lot of the unique code I was using along with many hard patches I made to the operating system code that Munich owned and maintained. They had said that line programmers could not get to or touch their secure operating system without them knowing. This occurred over a later 15 year period too.

Everything changed when the world was made flat by the internet. Suddenly geniuses like Bill from all over the world were connected with a wire. Companies loved it, they had lots of options to comfortably compensated American programmers. No gripes here. That's how the world turns. Everything changes, all the time.

Bill have you heard of the Hercules project? Some very bright people have emulated the System 370 mainframe computer in software that runs on Windows and Linux. You can install MVS on it. Add tape and disk drives, assemble and compile programs. I guess it's quite involved. A lot of retired systems programmers must keep it going. Wish I had time to play with it. Here's a link:

http://www.hercules-390.org/

What a wonderful world it was to wake up after days of programming in COBOL and realize you had coded a 0 instead of a o or worse an i for a 1. I still can feel the hair on the back of my neck when I dropped my first box of cards. Spent all night trying to get them back in order before the boss came in the next morning. Sleep deprived and having been up 30 + hours later it was a miracle the cards worked at all. I know own a watch that has more memory then the main frame computer we were using at the time. Oh the days of wash tub systems and changing out disc's was such an improvement. Glad I survived those early computer days. Bill you are such a delight to talk with on the phone. I always have a big smile on my face for hours after speaking with you. My wife knows instantly who is on the phone when we talk. You have forgotten more than most of us will ever know about this equipment. Keep plotting you are making good progress and thanks for making this a better world Bill !

JPG40504 wrote:Indeed!!!!

Did he not have a card sorter???????

A card sorter only would work if the punch cards has a sequence number punched in the first 6 positions or so. I can't remember why some of the original cards didn't have a sequence number but it happened.

fredsheldon wrote:A card sorter only would work if the punch cards has a sequence number punched in the first 6 positions or so. I can't remember why some of the original cards didn't have a sequence number but it happened.

Those first columns were the program step/instruction label.

The last 8(?) columns were the deck sequence field.(with Fortran that is) One quickly learned to set the sequence increment to bigger than 1!:D

Mucho extra effort, but if one was dependent upon a key punch operator to create the deck, those last 8 columns likely went begging.

Do not touch the key punch? Was that a union shop???? We used to run(debug) our student programs on a 1620 that had trays of cards for the compiler(trays for each 'phase'). Punch card output from each phase fed as input to the following phase. IIRC there were fortunately only two phases.

Burning the wee hours oil back then had benefits(no competition fer the hardware etc.). But that was decades ago!

My minimal exposure to Cobol was that it was terribly verbose(like many pointy haired management types. i.e. Many jargon filled sentences of excess words with minimal substance).

Have we deviated far enough from the thread subject?


Not really, BM was (by his own admission) an early pioneer in the fine art of hacking! Serves those smug types in Munich right to be so self confident!


I recall a programmer who would regularly run a program that mounted a 'scratch' tape and calmly mined the tapes for whatever data he could find.

Pay dirt when he 'discovered' payroll data!!!!

'Smart' as he was, he neglected to specify write ring in his JCL!!!! That led to his 'discovery!!!

This is a GREAT thread. I too was a COBOL / Assembler / RPG programmer in the 70's & 80's. Is it me or are there a lot of us in the Shopsmith family? HMMMM.. May be related to us being very analitical.

How about the 029 keypunch, the 082 sorter, 058 interperter, 048 accounting machine and "programming" them with the wires on inserted boards?

My first mainframe was a Honeywell 32k machine with 6 tape drives, and 3 disks. Use to love the old tape sort watching them spin for hours.

How many of you would keep a pencil and paper on your nightstand because you would wake up in the middle of the night with the "solution" to a rotuine that you have been beating yourself up trying to figure out?

I LOVED that part of my life, and if you look on monster.com there are still companies / positions for us. hmmmmm maybe a second career.

Great thread..... Thanks. .... Steve

cooch366 wrote:This is a GREAT thread. I too was a COBOL / Assembler / RPG programmer in the 70's & 80's. Is it me or are there a lot of us in the Shopsmith family? HMMMM.. May be related to us being very analitical.

How about the 029 keypunch, the 082 sorter, 058 interperter, 048 accounting machine and "programming" them with the wires on inserted boards?

My first mainframe was a Honeywell 32k machine with 6 tape drives, and 3 disks. Use to love the old tape sort watching them spin for hours.

How many of you would keep a pencil and paper on your nightstand because you would wake up in the middle of the night with the "solution" to a rotuine that you have been beating yourself up trying to figure out?

I LOVED that part of my life, and if you look on monster.com there are still companies / positions for us. hmmmmm maybe a second career.

Great thread..... Thanks. .... Steve

Yup, that can be quite a ride down memory lane.

My digital days began in AF technical school in the late 50s. I worked on an airborne early warning system. The equipment that I trained on had the task of converting raw radar data (search and height finder) into digital data that could be transmitted via the phone lines to the command posts and then ultimately to NORAD. These were exciting times. Remember the Cuban Missile Crisis (1962). DEFCON2 for days on end.

Dusty, are you an old RADAR man?

One of the first things I did after getting out of USAF technical school was to remove a AN/FST-2 and replace it with the AN/FYQ-47. In twenty years I many modifications and several generations of this system come into being until it was all solid state and contained one card that was just part of the radar system.

I spent 20 years in air defense systems in NORAD with an occasional trip to Thailand or Korea.

dusty wrote:Yup, that can be quite a ride down memory lane.

My digital days began in AF technical school in the late 50s. I worked on an airborne early warning system. The equipment that I trained on had the task of converting raw radar data (search and height finder) into digital data that could be transmitted via the phone lines to the command posts and then ultimately to NORAD. These were exciting times. Remember the Cuban Missile Crisis (1962). DEFCON2 for days on end.

At least Y'all went to three on my birthday!:D