I'm with you on this one. I started out with a slide rule. By default, I was nominated to keypunch the cards for my husband's programs when he was an Engineering student. Later, when I studied to become an Accountant, I had to learn Fortran and Cobal. All of these tasks were critical factors for my successful future at the time. I NEVER used any of them. Thank goodness!
Thanks Lois. Never forget the sound of that card punch machine! And I haven’t written a DO loop in the past 50 years (although I am currently learning Python)
As the "nominated keypunch operator," my then-engineering student husband tried to convince me that a keypunch machine was just like a typewriter. (PCs were obviously not on the scene yet.) I was a crackerjack with a keyboard, so I got the keypunch job, and I detested it because it was a completely different breed of cat. Unlike you, I forgot the sound of the card punch as soon as I possibly could until... horror of horrors... I HAD to study Fortran and Cobal and computer programming and DO loops and Don't loops and Won't loops and all that other stuff that I never used. I put in my obligatory hours and got it behind me as quickly as possible.
Go forward into learning Python with my blessings, John. In my eyes, you are a BRAVE man!
Ah! the beeps and signals of old machines. Today's generation will think its some digitized coffee machine making sounds.
I'm with you on this one. I started out with a slide rule. By default, I was nominated to keypunch the cards for my husband's programs when he was an Engineering student. Later, when I studied to become an Accountant, I had to learn Fortran and Cobal. All of these tasks were critical factors for my successful future at the time. I NEVER used any of them. Thank goodness!
I enjoyed reading your article.
Thanks Lois. Never forget the sound of that card punch machine! And I haven’t written a DO loop in the past 50 years (although I am currently learning Python)
As the "nominated keypunch operator," my then-engineering student husband tried to convince me that a keypunch machine was just like a typewriter. (PCs were obviously not on the scene yet.) I was a crackerjack with a keyboard, so I got the keypunch job, and I detested it because it was a completely different breed of cat. Unlike you, I forgot the sound of the card punch as soon as I possibly could until... horror of horrors... I HAD to study Fortran and Cobal and computer programming and DO loops and Don't loops and Won't loops and all that other stuff that I never used. I put in my obligatory hours and got it behind me as quickly as possible.
Go forward into learning Python with my blessings, John. In my eyes, you are a BRAVE man!
We used slide rules! Thanks for reading.
Fun read! Learned a lot. Thought you old timers used abacuses.
Also mine John. I was writing code in Autocoder for IBM in Endicott, NY in 1964, my second corporate job. Cool.