IBM 1620; was: 1602

My first language was FORTRAN, on punched cards; the teacher of my high school programming class would send the decks to the school district's main office, where they'd be run on the S/360. We'd get our printouts three business days later. You learned to be careful about punctuation and spelling, with a three-day turnaround! But always being the daredevil, I soon eschewed the coding forms and would compose at the keypunch (an IBM 129). It drove my teacher nuts - especially because my programs usually worked. It was years later that I learned the coding forms were usually the programmer's only tool, and unskilled keypunch operators would actually create the decks. So I was really coding on the edge! -- Ian -----Original Message----- From: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Chuck Guzis Sent: Wednesday, November 12, 2008 4:36 PM To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts Subject: Re: IBM 1620; was: 1602 On 12 Nov 2008 at 17:22, bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca wrote: Nah, just hit "LOAD" and code away at the console typewriter. We don't need no stinking coding forms! Cheers, Chuck