My claim to fame, with a bit of nostalgia and history

[Alan Burns]

The recent nomination for the Jodrell Bank telescope to receive world heritage status brought back some fond memories.

Back in 1968 I was a young 17 year old apprentice draughtsman working for a structural steelwork company called Teesside Bridge & Engineering.  We had just been awarded the contract to provide the supporting structure for an enhanced surface to the Jodrell Bank radio telescope.  The work involved supplying triangular bracing supports between the existing dome and the new dome.

The latest acquisition in the design office was an Olivetti Programma 101 - probably the world's first programmable calculator, which cost £1500 back in 1968 (£30000 in today's money!).  Some of the senior designers were sent on a course to learn how to program it.  And I read the instruction book and discovered the art of programming, soon becoming known as the expert on the new machine. During this time, a senior draughtsman came up to me and asked if this new box could help him with some calculations.  He was calculating the lengths of the diagonal bracing between the two parabolic surfaces using Smoley's book of seven figure log tables and trigonometric values (a 400 page volume!).   Each bracing length was taking him over 45 minutes to calculate.  So I set to work using the 120 step programming machine with 12 numerical registers and built in functions for add, subtract, multiply, divide and square root. (no built in trig functions - these needed to be calculated using an iterative loop to process a series formula.)  The 120 steps could be increased to 240 steps by sacrificing some of the numerical registers.  When the time came to test it against the draughtsman's hand calculation, there was an audience comprising chief draughtsman, chief designer and several senior draughtsmen.  After entering the data we all waited while the green light blinked on and off to indicate it was working.  I was saying my prayers that the red light would not come on to indicate an error - (divide by zero or root of a negative number).  After about a minute the machine finally chugged into life and printed an answer, which was deemed to be correct. 

So I can now look upon this future world heritage site and take pride in the knowledge that at the tender age of 17 I helped calculate the exact lengths of all the diagonal braces between the two parabolic dishes!  And it helped set me off on a new career in computer aided design and development.

[floo]

Good for you. 

[torridon]

That's nice.

I cut my teeth as a programmer in astronomy too; as a research student I operated the Isaac Newton Telescope (then in Sussex) and used Fortran to calculate variation and drift in the Earth's rate of rotation derived from observations of lunar occultations

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isaac_Newton_Telescope#/media/File:Isaac_Newton_Telescope,_La_Palma,_Spain.jpg

[floo]

One of my grandsons is doing GCSE astronomy.

[Sebastian Toe]

Well done.

My first outing in programming was formatting the annuity notification letter for new pensioners for a pensions company.
I believe that program is still running on a daily basis today, 33 years later!

[Alan Burns]

That's nice.

I cut my teeth as a programmer in astronomy too; as a research student I operated the Isaac Newton Telescope (then in Sussex) and used Fortran to calculate variation and drift in the Earth's rate of rotation derived from observations of lunar occultations

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isaac_Newton_Telescope#/media/File:Isaac_Newton_Telescope,_La_Palma,_Spain.jpg

I still use Fortran as first choice for my main development tool in my current business. 
After having to squeeze my optimisation programs into a 16K slot on the ICL George 3 operating system during my PhD, the current virtually unlimited memory still seems a wonderful luxury.

[jeremyp]

I still use Fortran as first choice for my main development tool in my current business. 
After having to squeeze my optimisation programs into a 16K slot on the ICL George 3 operating system during my PhD, the current virtually unlimited memory still seems a wonderful luxury.

You should try out some languages other than Fortran, which is basically crap by modern standards.

[Alan Burns]

You should try out some languages other than Fortran, which is basically crap by modern standards.

But the compiled executables still run faster than the rest.  I need lots of speed to process my data and after using it for the past 40+ years I am fluent at writing and debugging.

Also my aim is to minimise human interface input - make everything automated to run in batch mode, so I do not need fancy human interfaces, and Fortran is great in batch mode.

[torridon]

I still use Fortran as first choice for my main development tool in my current business. 
After having to squeeze my optimisation programs into a 16K slot on the ICL George 3 operating system during my PhD, the current virtually unlimited memory still seems a wonderful luxury.

Takes me back 

I remember we were running George 3 on a ICL 1903T, thinking it was pretty impressive at the time.  IBM were building superior machines at the time, but I guess is was policy then that we had to use British machines.  I guess my wristwatch is probably smarter than that old 1903T now.

[jeremyp]

But the compiled executables still run faster than the rest.  I need lots of speed to process my data and after using it for the past 40+ years I am fluent at writing and debugging.

I think you'd be surprised at how compiler technology has moved on in the last twenty years. In any case, if you spend two days writing and debugging your code in Fortran and I only spend one day writing and debugging my code in Swift, I have a whole extra day of time to run my program compared to you.

Also my aim is to minimise human interface input - make everything automated to run in batch mode, so I do not need fancy human interfaces, and Fortran is great in batch mode.

Fortran is no better in batch mode than any other computer language.

I think you should broaden your programming mind a bit. You might be surprised.

[jeremyp]

Takes me back 

I remember we were running George 3 on a ICL 1903T, thinking it was pretty impressive at the time.  IBM were building superior machines at the time, but I guess is was policy then that we had to use British machines.  I guess my wristwatch is probably smarter than that old 1903T now.

Having read the article in Wikipedia on the 1900, it strikes me that it had some interesting features that made it in some ways superior to the 360. However, it also has this quote

The initial 1900 range did not suffer from the many years of careful planning behind the IBM 360.

which can be taken in two ways.

[Harrowby Hall]

My earliest experiences in programming were using Fortran for experimental data analysis. All was abandoned, however, when I obtained my first computer, a BBC B and I embraced BBC BASIC and found a statistics textbook containing BASIC programmes for just about every statistical analysis I could think of.

As to brushes with fame? Well, I did attend the same school as Isaac Newton. We were not there at the same time but I'm convinced we shared some teachers ...   

[Walter]

 What an interesting thread giving an insight into the real people behind the posters on this board
Thanks all 👍

[Enki]

I started with the old ZX80, then the ZX81. I learnt basic then went onto machine code for the Z80 chip. I did manage to make a crude word processor in machine code, but much later decided to use MS Access  for a birding database as PCs became widespread. Using Access and Vis. Basic, I eventually produced a relationship database which satisfied all my needs. I still use it. The main problem wasn't the programming but putting in all the damn data, which took an age. It's a useful check on all the birding visits to every country that I've been to, and instantly gives me a readout of every instance of every species(and sub species) that I've ever seen, plus info on numbers, locations etc.

I doubt if I could actually program it now as it would take to much trouble to relearn the vis. basic commands. I'm afraid it's simply a case of age catching up with me.

[Sebastian Toe]

a birding database as PCs became widespread. Using Access and Vis. Basic, I eventually produced a relationship database which satisfied all my needs. I still use it.

...pity you didn't call it Twitter!

[Alan Burns]

Takes me back 

I remember we were running George 3 on a ICL 1903T, thinking it was pretty impressive at the time.  IBM were building superior machines at the time, but I guess is was policy then that we had to use British machines.  I guess my wristwatch is probably smarter than that old 1903T now.

I did my research on the ICL 1905E.  The main input was still using punched cards, but I managed to obtain special privilege to use "Forcon" - ICL's version of conversational Fortran which I could use interactively on a printer terminal.  It was a great asset to debugging my software, but it incurred the wrath of the computer staff who complained that it slowed everything down.

[Sebastian Toe]

  It was a great asset to debugging my software, but it incurred the wrath of the computer staff who complained that it slowed everything down.

That brings back memories!
I'm younger than yourself and just missed punched cards by weeks when my training started in favour of coding sheets. Still took days to get the results back from the key_input girls and then the compiler output( and they were all girls so I think I am allowed to use that term!).
We had shared terminal use (4 terminals between 30 ish programmers) to access a line editor so one eye was always on those precious seats.

There was a full screen option which you could use but it sometimes caused all of the system to freeze and there was no way of telling when that would happen. A drink on Friday for those affected if outage was more than ten minutes was the forfeit.

Our friendly neighbourhood Sysprog would come storming into the room when she saw that the CPU monitor was at capacity, ( when I say CPU monitor, I mean a flashing red light on the mainframe control panel, which turned solid red as did her face!)

Both her and the potential cost certainly made us think carefully about using it!

Happy days.

[torridon]

That brings back memories!
I'm younger than yourself and just missed punched cards by weeks when my training started in favour of coding sheets. Still took days to get the results back from the key_input girls and then the compiler output( and they were all girls so I think I am allowed to use that term!).
We had shared terminal use (4 terminals between 30 ish programmers) to access a line editor so one eye was always on those precious seats.

There was a full screen option which you could use but it sometimes caused all of the system to freeze and there was no way of telling when that would happen. A drink on Friday for those affected if outage was more than ten minutes was the forfeit.

Our friendly neighbourhood Sysprog would come storming into the room when she saw that the CPU monitor was at capacity, ( when I say CPU monitor, I mean a flashing red light on the mainframe control panel, which turned solid red as did her face!)

Both her and the potential cost certainly made us think carefully about using it!

Happy days.

Punched cards and coding sheets ?  Ee you were lucky, we had to make do wi' cogs and pulleys, and every mornin ' boss would mek us lick floor clean wi' tongue.   Eee but we were 'appy.

[Gordon]

Punched cards and coding sheets ?  Ee you were lucky, we had to make do wi' cogs and pulleys, and every mornin ' boss would mek us lick floor clean wi' tongue.   Eee but we were 'appy.

Just try telling that to young people today!

[Sebastian Toe]

Punched cards and coding sheets ?  Ee you were lucky, we had to make do wi' cogs and pulleys, and every mornin ' boss would mek us lick floor clean wi' tongue.   Eee but we were 'appy.

You had a floor?
We had to balance on some old rope strung over an open sewer!

[torridon]

You had a floor?
We had to balance on some old rope strung over an open sewer!

You had a sewer ?

Lucky bastard   

We used to dream of havin' an open sewer

[Owlswing]

My only 'claims to fame', if such they be, are not as glamourous as those above.

My only, possible, claims to fame are that, one, I went to school with Reg Dwight and, two, came close to hitting a Royal Navy destroyer at anchor with a 120mm HESH tank cannon shell. 

[Enki]

Anyone remember mechanical calculators, full of the most beautiful cogs and gears and driven by what I would lovingly describe as a starting handle? We were given a batch of them at a school I was teaching at. I remember I taught the pupils to do division by repeated subtraction and multiplication by repeated addition, counting the number of times you turned the handle! Happy days indeed!

[Alan Burns]

Anyone remember mechanical calculators, full of the most beautiful cogs and gears and driven by what I would lovingly describe as a starting handle? We were given a batch of them at a school I was teaching at. I remember I taught the pupils to do division by repeated subtraction and multiplication by repeated addition, counting the number of times you turned the handle! Happy days indeed!

These mechanical machines were used to produce the tables in the Dorman Long handbook of structural steel properties, which was the red bible for all structural draughtsmen and designers during my apprenticeship years.  I got to use one and was fascinated by the complexity of the internal workings. 

[Alan Burns]

My other claim to fame was beating Paul Rogers in a school chess tournament.  He turned out to be a much better singer than chess player and went on to be frontman to Free, Bad Company and other bands.