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DeeAnn Here...

DeeAnn

Experienced Member
Joined
Apr 16, 2021
Messages
63
Location
Cathedral City, California
I'm a retired mechanical engineer and my contact with computing goes 'way back. In college we had an IBM System 360 and later a 370. I learned Fortran programming and programs were submitted as Hollerith card decks. Geez, those were the days particularly for someone who didn't really type! However, I guess I came by it honestly as my mother was taught to be a COBOL programmer in the late 50's. She continued doing that along with system administrator and department manager duties for the rest of her life. She thought Rear Admiral Grace Hopper walked on water, and from I can tell, she damned near did.

Over the course of my 43 career, I did a number of things, including machine and automation design, plant layout, project management, tooling design, creating a quality assurance program, supervision and leading machinery installation teams in Taiwan. However, the most relevant part to this forum is that I did Fortran, Basic, DATAtrieve and discrete event simulation programming for 6 years.

Since retiring at the beginning of 2016 I hold offices in various non-profits, but I still maintain a lifelong interest in motorsports and architecture. I've also built 2 Hackintoshes, the second one of which I am using at this moment...
 
Welcome to our forum. Opposite Coast here. Seems you have some good experience in older tech. looking forward to your inputs!
Mick
 
Welcome. Grace Hopper was amazing! A role model for everyone.
 
USN, first programming language. Funny thing, they never mentioned her when I was in A or C School. I had to find out about her when I got out of The service and thats a damn shame.
 
All:

Thanks for the welcome here! It’s funny how things have changed. We carry around more computing power in our back pockets than my mother ever had. I guess it is just the way of the world. In the mid-80’s we thought we were hot s++t because we had the means of of seeing a video output of the results of our simulation models!?!? Shoot, they’re probably doing it as holograms now...

Going from memory, we had a FORTRAN compiler running on a PDP-11/34. It ran under RSX-11M. The process control guys also used it for their program development for in plant control operations. Almost all of their stuff was in assembler and I managed to steer clear of that! They also had an LSI-11/23 as I remember. Eventually we got a VAX-750 and later it was replaced by a 780. We migrated to a FORTRAN compiler on the VAX and also did some database applications. We also had the GPSS/H simulation language.

Reams of paper output gave detailed simulation results, but it was hard to explain that to the people for whom we were building the models. We then bought the Silicon Graphics Iris workstation and ran the AutoMOD simulation language on it. That produced graphical output, in addition to the statistical output, which we were able to record on a VHS VCR...
 
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Welcome, DeeAnn!

Started computers in high school ( 1978 ). Gone from 110 baud dial-up to Princeton (we had connections) to >1G to the home (>400G Ethernet at work). From C and Asm (embedded systems) to all sorts of languages. From computers in a room, to computers on our desktop, to computers in our pockets, to the world is now our computer.

What a long strange trip it's been ... and will be.

PS: oh not yet retired, not sure I want to be. I'm not good as sitting still.
 
My first job at Control Data was working on a COBOL dialect translator (long, long story there). I was assigned to work with an ex-IBM guy who had worked on the original IBM COMTRAN. At some point, he resigned from Big Blue (probably when he was faced with working with the original PL/I group) went out west to California and spent half the year doing contract work and the other half living with a band of gypsies in the Santa Cruz mountains. A very interesting fellow.
 
Welcome, DeeAnn!

Started computers in high school ( 1978 ). Gone from 110 baud dial-up to Princeton (we had connections) to >1G to the home (>400G Ethernet at work). From C and Asm (embedded systems) to all sorts of languages. From computers in a room, to computers on our desktop, to computers in our pockets, to the world is now our computer.

What a long strange trip it's been ... and will be.

PS: oh not yet retired, not sure I want to be. I'm not good as sitting still.

Although I am retired, I hold offices in 4 non-profits and a city commission. The major difference between this and working is that I can do what I want and when I want to do it...
 
My first job at Control Data was working on a COBOL dialect translator (long, long story there). I was assigned to work with an ex-IBM guy who had worked on the original IBM COMTRAN. At some point, he resigned from Big Blue (probably when he was faced with working with the original PL/I group) went out west to California and spent half the year doing contract work and the other half living with a band of gypsies in the Santa Cruz mountains. A very interesting fellow.

Through out my career it has always been clear to me that computer people are “different”. Not sure exactly why that is, but we are. Note that I say this in the most benign way possible...
 
Although I am retired, I hold offices in 4 non-profits and a city commission. The major difference between this and working is that I can do what I want and when I want to do it...

I'm very impressed by that, I have no business sense and I barely understood people. I am learning (only tool 30 years).
 
Hi:

How do you add the text at the bottom of your post? It appears to be something like a signature, but I cannot see where to do it...

I just found it. It's well hidden...

Go to your profile
Click "Edit Settings" in the upper left part of the page below your avatar
Click the "Account" tab
Scroll down to "Conversation Detail Options"
You should see a link for "Edit Post Signature" just below the "Show Avatar" checkbox.

And you also need to remember to check the "Show Signatures"checkbox which is just above the "Show Avatar" checkbox. :)
 
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I just found it. It's well hidden...

Go to your profile
Click "Edit Settings" in the upper left part of the page below your avatar
Click the "Account" tab
Scroll down to "Conversation Detail Options"
You should see a link for "Edit Post Signature" just below the "Show Avatar" checkbox.

And you also need to remember to check the "Show Signatures"checkbox which is just above the "Show Avatar" checkbox. :)


Thanks!!

Hidden is an Understatement!?!?
 
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