5 May
2021
5 May
'21
10:14 p.m.
On 5/5/21 6:40 PM, Jay Jaeger via cctalk wrote:
While I was in grad school at U.W. (the one in Wisconsin) we had
obtained via surplus an IBM 7094 II from military surplus - I seem to
recall WSMR (White Sands Missle Range).? Of course, it had an MG.? We
got it put together and with a replaced transistor here and there (one
of which was modern silicon) we got it running.? We had NO peripherals,
but my friend Paul came up with the idea to use a sense switch to talk
RS-232 at 9600bps, and using that he got the Purdue University Fast
FORTRAN Translator (PUFFT)loaded and up and running, and I wrote some
support code on a Datacraft 6024 to send it card images and receive...
I remember PUFFT--wasn't that Saul Rosen's baby? Purdue, IIRC, had a
couple of 7094s and a CDC 6500 and a 1401 operated as SPOOL in the
basement of the Math building. Other departments had their own
systems--Industrial Management, for example, had an 1130 that nobody
seemed to be interested in and was available to anyone who wanted to use
it. I think Administration had an S/360 installation. I believe that
there was the odd 1620 scattered here and there.
I recall Rosen's numerical methods course--on the first day, he came in
lugging one of those Monroe or Friden mechanical calculating machines to
demonstrate significance and loss thereof.
PUFFT was one of those language translators that was so permissive (it
would even suggest correct spellings of misspelled keywords, correct
syntax, etc.) Basically a student compiler that would guarantee that
just about any garbage could be turned into a program.
--Chuck