12 Oct
2008
12 Oct
'08
7:17 p.m.
On Sun, Oct 12, 2008 at 07:38:37PM -0600, Richard wrote:
In article <48F29422.5090702 at gmail.com>,
Sridhar Ayengar <ploopster at gmail.com> writes:
The one assignment I ever turned in late for my one FORTRAN class in
college was because of the batch environment and job priority scheduling.
I had a typo in a line-spacing specification, so my output wasn't identical
to the format required by the assignment, and I had to resubmit my batch
job. Normally, this is no problem - we were running on an Amdahl (OSU in
the mid-1980s), and we were using WATIV or WATV (WAT-four or WAT-five),
IIRC, and *most* assignments for my 200-level class were passed through
the "quick-job compiler" - the highest priority with some miniscule CPU
limit. The one late assignment was in FORTRAN-77 at six priority levels
lower. I started writing the assignment the day before it was due (again,
normally not a problem), but because I had to compile it 3 times to get
the bugs out, it took 6 hours each time to bump up one priority level per
hour to finally get submitted.
It was my one experience being locked into a batch environment and it
was quite unpleasant. Interesting, but aggravating. At least I knew
where the 3270 terminals were so I didn't have to use the WYLBUR line
editing terminals. By the time I took FORTRAN in school, I'd already
been using FORTRAN on VAXen and PDP-11s and PDP-8s, with screen editors
(TECO w/VTEDIT macro or EDT), so stepping back to a line editor wasn't
my idea of fun. They had recently (within 5 years) eliminated punch
cards as a primary submission method, so I've done it, but wasn't
_forced_ into it. Again, interesing, but occasionally aggravating.
I never wanted to run any programs on my own that needed the resources
of the Amdahl, so I was perfectly happy to have a PDP-11 to myself
or to share a VAX with 50 co-workers, even if the VAX did swap and
slow down when more than about a dozen folks were sitting in MAIL.EXE.
-ethan
--
Ethan Dicks, A-333-S Current South Pole Weather at 13-Oct-2008 at 02:00 Z
South Pole Station
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Ethan.Dicks at usap.gov http://penguincentral.com/penguincentral.html
I find programming under batch-mode OS to be more
pleasurable.
...and I find batch mode to be highly frustrating. I learned
computing in an interactive environment on terminals and I never want
to go to a batch environment, I always prefer the immediate feedback
of interaction. Sometimes even waiting for a compiled language pisses
me off :-).