Re: Market pressures for more reliable software

[R. Vowels <robin_v@bigpond.nospam.com>]

"Gary Labowitz" <garyl@enter.net> writes: 
> This is getting ridiculous. You are SO hoping that computing and programming
> were not centralized that you skip an entrie generation.
> When most people talk about early days, they mean when computers actually
> came into the marketplace and were large centralized systems. Certainly
> programmers could be stationed anywhere. But terminal systems (starting with
> the various 1050-type systems) weren't available in the "early days."
> Actually, I remember the introduction of the 1050 as a big deal (about 1963
> or so, maybe a little later). To get programming into the machine it first
> had to be keypunched, and that was almost always "centralized."

We did almost ALL of our own keypunching until 1970 and even then
quite some after that.

> You sent
> your coding sheets to the center to be keypunched. Some of us would go there
> ourselves and do our own keypunching (those that typed).

I finished up buying a keypunch in about 1977 so that I could do some
at home..

> On the Univac-I we
> went to the computer and used the console keypunch.
> Anyway, the later systems developed the RJE-type systems, which
> decentralized the point at which program streams could be entered and
> printed. They still connected to centralized processing, however. Since all
> the terminals were dumb, there was only decentralized job entry and
> printing.
> The real point is: so what? So you said "in the early days we had
> decentralized computing" and were wrong.
> Live with it.
> Let's get on with today's problems.
> Gary
> "Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz" <nospam@acm.org> wrote in message
> news:3B432AD8.3828FB9@acm.org...
> >
> >
> > Lao Xiao Hai wrote:
> >
> > > I must be missing the point.    What was not centralized?
> >
> > As I said multiple times, programming.
> >
> >
> > > Programming was pretty
> > > much centralized and under the control of a data processing manager.
> Computers
> > > were pretty much centralized, and there weren't that many that could
> drive remote
> > > terminals really well.
> >
> > Well enough. Can you say RAX? QUICKTRAN? CRBE? CRJE? RJE? SGJP? ATS? HASP
> Multileaving? And
> > that's just IBM supplied. There were also ALPHA, ROSCOE (nee WRAP) and
> Wylbur on S/360, and
> > others on non-IBM hardware. There was enough time sharing and remote batch
> to drive a market
> > in plug-compatible terminals and modems.
> >
> > > Most of the data processing was in batch mode.
> >
> > Which doesn't make it centralized.
> >
> >
> > > That is not how I remember it.
> >
> > Clearly. Either your experience was limited or your memory is faulty.
> >
> >
> >
> > > Most of the programs I recall were written by the
> > > programmers
> > > at the service bureau.  Some were packages purchased from elsewhere.
> It was the rare
> > > customer who had programming resources on which they could rely for
> their own software.
> >
> > By the 70s most service bureaus were offering remote access. Ever wonder
> why?
> >
> >
> > > Not that common.
> >
> > Common enough to drive a market in brand X clones of terminals and modems,
> e.g., Cope 45 for
> > remote batch, Vadic modems.
> >
> >
> > > And it was expensive.
> >
> > TI 700s were dirt cheap in the 70s and 80s, as were acoustic couplers.
> >
> >
> > > I have done both.   Certainly a lot of scientific computing was done
> using remote
> > > computers.   However, I recall quite vividly those sites that had their
> own IBM 1130
> > > and did their own Fortran programming.   I spent many late night hours
> writing Fortran II
> > > and debugging on the 1130.
> >
> > And how many of those 1130s cost $150,000? To say nothing of the fact that
> a lot of them were
> > submitting jobs to larger machines.
> >
> >
> > > The IBM 1401 was the workhorse of industry for a long time.
> >
> > And cost nowhere near $150,000.
> >
> >
> > > Oh, and you forgot one of my personal favorites, the CDC
> > > 160 series.
> >
> > I didn't forget it, any more than I forgot LGP or RCA; I omitted it
> because I was
> > concentrating on the IBM marketplace.
> >
> > > The IBM System 360 series came along in 1964 and, along with its
> lots of
> >