Real Old School Programming (was: Re: Where to buy a Selectric?)

[Chuck Guzis]

On 12/30/2005 at 2:29 PM Kevin Handy wrote:

>If you used the forms enough, you could eventually print 10 point
>using blank paper.

One survival skill in programming was learning to block print legibly and
quickly.  Lines through zeroes and maybe a tick in the middle of a seven,
serifs on capital I to distinguish it from numeric 1...  

To this day, I can still block print much faster than I can write script.
And my script is illegible.

Another skill was developing a good working relationship with the ladies
(not sexist, just the way I remember it) in keypunch.   Little gifts on
birthdays and for Christmas, interest (feigned or not) in children, spouses
and pets, etc.  all went a long way toward making sure that your code was
punched accurately and promptly.   Get on the wrong side of these people
and your life could become hell.

Developing a good working relationship with the customer engineers (also
called field engineers) would also get you a long way if you were in OS
development.  When a PPU on a CDC Cyber would hang, you could always bribe
one into dragging his scope over to the system and reading the P counter
for you (rebooting did not preserve it).   If you kept a good relationshp,
a CE was less likely to resent your existence the next time the printer
pixies decided to grab a ribbon and tangle it up in the print train...

Cheers,
Chuck