28 Feb
1998
28 Feb
'98
2:39 p.m.
At 22:16 2/28/98 +0000, you wrote:
I pulled a much more trivial example at a place I was
working at over 10
years ago. I had to write a program, and for various reasons I wanted to
use Turbo Pascal. But it wasn't on the list of 'approved' languages, so I
couldn't order the 'Turbo Pascal Compiler'. What I could order was
'Borland part number XXXXXXX data logger program compilation system' (I
was writing a data logging system)....
Reminds me of a story Willy Ley used to tell about getting around military
procurement regs when he was developing antiaircraft rockets for the
Wehrmacht in the thirties. They had this asinine rule that you couldn't
use Army development grant money to buy office supplies, yet Ley's little
boffin shop urgently needed a typewriter. Now, a couple of times before
they had hit on the dodge of ordering unapproved items "as per sample" ( =
"on eval") on the (correct) theory that if the green-eyeshades had never
seen the sample, they'd shrug and let it through anyway. So, the
description they came up with for the typewriter was "Data logging device
with rotating roller and annotating capability, as per sample." Needless
to say, it worked....
__________________________________________
Kip Crosby engine(a)chac.org
http://www.chac.org/index.html
Computer History Association of California