27 Sep
2015
27 Sep
'15
11:05 a.m.
On Sat, 26 Sep 2015, Steve Algernon wrote:
Not sure if it's relevant:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/WordMARC
My brother was one of the few engineers on this product, in Palo Alto.
The software ran on dozens of different machines and architectures,
using the most portable language of the day: Fortran 77. I believe MARC
was the umbrella name/company for a number of different products.
OCLC and Library Of Congress are sure going to be surprised that their
MAchine-Readable-Cataloging system is the umbrella name/company for a
number of unrelated products! Was Z39.50 similarly commercialized?
MARC can be very efficient or very bloated. For example, if you allocate
arrays for all fields, then a record can be up to 250K (think 8" SSSD).
But, with even half-assed dynamic allocation to use the space needed,
rather than the maximum that it could be, a very crude MARC record editor
can be done on an Atari Portfolio.