Old Geezers Club

tullio
tullio
Joined: 22 Jan 05
Posts: 2118
Credit: 61407735
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While building and testing a

While building and testing a bubble chamber to detect neutrons at the Institute of Experimental Physics in Trieste, next room a blonde girl was punching cards reporting data from bubble chambers pictures taken in Geneva CERN Laboratory. When she finished a deck of cards I was invited to accompany her to downtown where a public utility company hosted the only computer in Trieste in 1959. On the way down we took a gelato and the deck of cards fell to the ground and was reassembled. Somebody probably lost a Nobel prize in physics because of a gelato.
Tullio

[B@H] Ray
[B@H] Ray
Joined: 4 Jun 05
Posts: 621
Credit: 49583
RAC: 0

RE: Ray, Ahhhhh the big

Message 41382 in response to message 41378

Quote:

Ray,

Ahhhhh the big "swoop" from Lejeune!! A few fond memories (mostly those weekends are blank) My favorite was to Baltimore. They had a club there that had a ratio of about 60 girls to each guy. All girl colleges and the secrataries from D.C. The 360/65 I worked on was at 2d FASC on Lejuene. while I was there we went from having 512k to 768k of RAM. They brought the 1/4 meg of mem in on a low-boy flatbed semi. All wires then none of this chip foolishness, LOL. Years later I was at McDonnell Douglas and was told that they were bringing in 9 meg apeice for the three 370's we were running. Here I am waiting for a convoy when a guy with a briefcase shows up and installs all 27 meg in chip form.


Ah someone who knows what swooping is, not many of us around. Close with Camp Lejeune, I was just North at Cherry Point. Never made that stop in Baltimore as I was married already, wife had a good job in CT so she did not move down to NC. I was only there 4 and a half Mo. after the Westpac tour (Okinawa). Was at Cherry Point less than a week when I found someone who lived in the same town as me looking for a ride on the swoop so there were at least 2 in the car all the way. Always had 2 others from NYC also, so I made money on the swoop.
The time in the Marines was not bad for being drafted, the first 3 of us in Alpha order went there, we all got better jobs than the ones we know drafted for the Army the same day and none of us went to Vietnam.
I did not look at that as luck when I learned whare I was going though.


Try the Pizza@Home project, good crunching.

Terry
Terry
Joined: 6 Aug 06
Posts: 11
Credit: 25893
RAC: 0

RE: RE: Ray, Ahhhhh the

Message 41383 in response to message 41382

Quote:
Quote:

Ray,

Ahhhhh the big "swoop" from Lejeune!! A few fond memories (mostly those weekends are blank) My favorite was to Baltimore. They had a club there that had a ratio of about 60 girls to each guy. All girl colleges and the secrataries from D.C. The 360/65 I worked on was at 2d FASC on Lejuene. while I was there we went from having 512k to 768k of RAM. They brought the 1/4 meg of mem in on a low-boy flatbed semi. All wires then none of this chip foolishness, LOL. Years later I was at McDonnell Douglas and was told that they were bringing in 9 meg apeice for the three 370's we were running. Here I am waiting for a convoy when a guy with a briefcase shows up and installs all 27 meg in chip form.


Ah someone who knows what swooping is, not many of us around. Close with Camp Lejeune, I was just North at Cherry Point. Never made that stop in Baltimore as I was married already, wife had a good job in CT so she did not move down to NC. I was only there 4 and a half Mo. after the Westpac tour (Okinawa). Was at Cherry Point less than a week when I found someone who lived in the same town as me looking for a ride on the swoop so there were at least 2 in the car all the way. Always had 2 others from NYC also, so I made money on the swoop.
The time in the Marines was not bad for being drafted, the first 3 of us in Alpha order went there, we all got better jobs than the ones we know drafted for the Army the same day and none of us went to Vietnam.
I did not look at that as luck when I learned whare I was going though.

Even rarer than knowing what the swoop was is that I was a draftee also. I had no idea that you could be drafted into any branch other than the Army. I still remember the very second a VERY pissed off female 1st Lt., who was giving us the test a AFEES, told me and 2 other troublemakers to "You three go with that gunny in the back wearing the blue trousers!" We were only half way through the test but she said we passed with "flying colors". I spent that very night in MCRD Deigo. True to her word she gave me a very high GCT which qualified me for a slot in Forced Recon in Nam. Gee thanks alot! lol I to this day think everything that I am about to say to a woman over BEFORE I say it.

Bruce Allen
Bruce Allen
Moderator
Joined: 15 Oct 04
Posts: 1119
Credit: 172127663
RAC: 0

RE: My first programming

Message 41384 in response to message 41375

Quote:
My first programming class was in Quantico VA it was for COBOL and taught by a lady named Grace Hopper. The only thing I got was the understanding of a nanosecond, she used a piece of wire a little less than a foot long to represent the nanosecond and explained that a piece representing a second could strech nearly to the moon. I don't think anyone in the class understood more than 3 things that lady had to say in 6 weeks. She was a LtCmdr in the Navy and a prof at MIT. Her mind just worked on a different level than us poor dunb Marines. We were all asked to stay and retake the class in the next cycle from a guy with IBM.

Wow!! Admiral Hopper was one of the pioneers of computing. She invented the compiler, for example.

Director, Einstein@Home

tullio
tullio
Joined: 22 Jan 05
Posts: 2118
Credit: 61407735
RAC: 0

RE: Wow!! Admiral Hopper

Message 41385 in response to message 41384

Quote:

Wow!! Admiral Hopper was one of the pioneers of computing. She invented the compiler, for example.


Thanks for introducing me to that site. If you read the biographies, most of those scientist women did research without any recognition, academic status and even salary! I think all jokes about women's brains are totally silly (I have a daughter with a degree in theoretical biophysics).
Tullio

Hev
Hev
Joined: 12 Nov 05
Posts: 160
Credit: 576346
RAC: 0

RE: RE: Wow!! Admiral

Message 41386 in response to message 41385

Quote:
Quote:

Wow!! Admiral Hopper was one of the pioneers of computing. She invented the compiler, for example.


Thanks for introducing me to that site. If you read the biographies, most of those scientist women did research without any recognition, academic status and even salary! I think all jokes about women's brains are totally silly (I have a daughter with a degree in theoretical biophysics).
Tullio


Yes, I found the joke about women's brains irritating. I hadn't heard of Admiral Hopper before, my daughter Es99 probably has, as her degree is in astrophysics (hope I got it right Es).

Mike Hewson
Mike Hewson
Moderator
Joined: 1 Dec 05
Posts: 6590
Credit: 318951618
RAC: 412675

RE: Yes, I found the joke

Message 41387 in response to message 41386

Quote:
Yes, I found the joke about women's brains irritating.


I can understand that - it reveals more about the drawer of the diagram than the subject!

Quote:
I hadn't heard of Admiral Hopper before, my daughter Es99 probably has, as her degree is in astrophysics (hope I got it right Es).


Cool! Way to go Es!
Ah, so has Es been keeping that light under a bushel huh?
[ of course, I'm still smarting ( or is it dumbing? ) - as I should be - for not having picked up that Es99 refers to Einsteinium ( atomic number 99 ). Doh! ]
Cheers, Mike.

I have made this letter longer than usual because I lack the time to make it shorter ...

... and my other CPU is a Ryzen 5950X :-) Blaise Pascal

Mike Hewson
Mike Hewson
Moderator
Joined: 1 Dec 05
Posts: 6590
Credit: 318951618
RAC: 412675

RE: Wow!! Admiral Hopper

Message 41388 in response to message 41384

Quote:
Wow!! Admiral Hopper was one of the pioneers of computing. She invented the compiler, for example.


Well, I reckon I've read about 150+ scientific text books, cover to cover, in my life and about 30 of those are dedicated to computing. Not one of them has mentioned that:
a) The compiler had an inventor.
b) It was a woman.
c) Stated her name.
Maybe Ada Lovelace gets a mention, or Melinda because she's married to Bill Gates and that's it......
Cheers, Mike.

I have made this letter longer than usual because I lack the time to make it shorter ...

... and my other CPU is a Ryzen 5950X :-) Blaise Pascal

tullio
tullio
Joined: 22 Jan 05
Posts: 2118
Credit: 61407735
RAC: 0

RE: RE: Wow!! Admiral

Message 41389 in response to message 41388

Quote:
Quote:
Wow!! Admiral Hopper was one of the pioneers of computing. She invented the compiler, for example.

Well, I reckon I've read about 150+ scientific text books, cover to cover, in my life and about 30 of those are dedicated to computing. Not one of them has mentioned that:
a) The compiler had an inventor.
b) It was a woman.
c) Stated her name.
Maybe Ada Lovelace gets a mention, or Melinda because she's married to Bill Gates and that's it......
Cheers, Mike.


Maybe you should read also "The computer from Pascal to von Neumann" by Hermann H. Goldstine, one of the ENIAC builders, who in the last chapter details the birth of programming languages, including the contributions of Grace Hopper.
Tullio

Mike Hewson
Mike Hewson
Moderator
Joined: 1 Dec 05
Posts: 6590
Credit: 318951618
RAC: 412675

RE: Maybe you should read

Message 41390 in response to message 41389

Quote:
Maybe you should read also "The computer from Pascal to von Neumann" by Hermann H. Goldstine, one of the ENIAC builders, who in the last chapter details the birth of programming languages, including the contributions of Grace Hopper.
Tullio


Thanks Tullio! I'll whip over to Amazon right now... :-)
Cheers, Mike.

I have made this letter longer than usual because I lack the time to make it shorter ...

... and my other CPU is a Ryzen 5950X :-) Blaise Pascal

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