Perhaps it would be more accurate to say "I'm actually /attempting/ to 
find work again". Because for quite a while, I simply gave up. It's too 
intractably difficult.

It's the weirdest thing though... First one of the girls in the office 
emailed me with a job. Usually that means something involving computers, 
but otherwise laughably unsuitable. ("You do something about computers, 
right?") But this one was actually a Windows system administrator, just 
a few miles from my front door. That's pretty much exactly what I'm after.

And then my sister emailed me three further jobs, which are all in my 
home town and all involve computer programming of one sort or another.

So without performing a single search operation, I've already got 4 jobs 
to apply for. Really /ideal/ jobs. I updated my CV a bit and sent those out.

That was this weekend. On Monday I logged back into Linked-In for the 
first time in several years. It still insists that my profile is "65% 
complete" and that I should "finish" it by adding the rest of my 
achievements. "No no, I don't /have/ any more achievements!" Still, what 
does a machine know?

I tweaked a little bit of the data, but basically all of it is still 
correct. It's not like I've /done/ anything in 3 years. And then I 
logged out.

Now suddenly I'm getting phone calls every few hours from agents asking 
me if I'm interested in this job or that job. Mostly hard-core 
programming jobs, almost all in my city. So I /still/ haven't done any 
searching, and yet I've applied for several jobs at this point.

(Actually, that's not true. I did a job search on Linked-In. The result 
was garbage. The /only/ parameters I put in where that it be an IT job 
and somewhere near to where I live. Apparently the site does not 
understand what "near to where I like" means. This seems to be a 
pervasive problem with job search engines...)

I always knew there must /be/ IT jobs in my city. And yet, I've never 
been able to find any. It's as if they're all invisible or something. 
And now, suddenly I seem to be being showered with suitable jobs. (Well, 
maybe not "showered". More like "lightly drizzled on".)

And the baffling thing is... I have absolutely no idea how all these 
agents have suddenly got hold of my telephone number and email address. 
I can't figure out whether it's Linked-In, or one of the sites I applied 
for a job through, or what. All the agents seem to have "seen my CV on 
the Internet", but I haven't figured out how yet...

Post a reply to this message

To adept a phrase: 'in Milton Keynes jobs hunt you'.

Post a reply to this message

Invisible <voi### [at] devnull> wrote:
> And the baffling thing is... I have absolutely no idea how all these
> agents have suddenly got hold of my telephone number and email address.
> I can't figure out whether it's Linked-In, or one of the sites I applied
> for a job through, or what. All the agents seem to have "seen my CV on
> the Internet", but I haven't figured out how yet...

Just count your blessings.  Due to medical issues, it's unlikely I'll ever find
another job in IT.  (Who wants an IT employee part-time with a huge gap in his
CV?)

(P.o-t doesn't show up in search engines, so I can say this, right?)

Post a reply to this message

On 04/07/2012 04:41 PM, andrel wrote:
> To adept a phrase: 'in Milton Keynes jobs hunt you'.

It has a flavour...

Post a reply to this message

On 04/07/2012 04:44 PM, Cousin Ricky wrote:

> (P.o-t doesn't show up in search engines, so I can say this, right?)

1. No, this shows up in search engines just fine.

2. No, that never stopped me before either. ;-)

Post a reply to this message

The bad news: The phone calls have now petered out.

The good news: I have a telephone interview in about half an hour.

(Now, if only my battery wasn't so low...)

Post a reply to this message

Le 2012-07-06 07:47, Invisible a écrit :
> The bad news: The phone calls have now petered out.
>

It's the calm beofre the storm.

> The good news: I have a telephone interview in about half an hour.
>

Great.  Break a leg.

> (Now, if only my battery wasn't so low...)

Can't you use the phone while it's charging?

-- 
/*Francois Labreque*/#local a=x+y;#local b=x+a;#local c=a+b;#macro P(F//
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>> The bad news: The phone calls have now petered out.
>
> It's the calm beofre the storm.

Heh, I wish...

>> The good news: I have a telephone interview in about half an hour.
>
> Great. Break a leg.

Well, I didn't think I'd get the job. Now I've had the interview, I'm 
not even sure if I /want/ the job. But hey, we'll see if they call back...

>> (Now, if only my battery wasn't so low...)
>
> Can't you use the phone while it's charging?

I'd need to have the charger in order to do that. It's 50 miles away.

Post a reply to this message

Le 2012-07-06 10:12, Invisible a écrit :
>>> (Now, if only my battery wasn't so low...)
>>
>> Can't you use the phone while it's charging?
>
> I'd need to have the charger in order to do that. It's 50 miles away.

And what have we learned from this?

-- 
/*Francois Labreque*/#local a=x+y;#local b=x+a;#local c=a+b;#macro P(F//
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/*   gmail.com     */}camera{orthographic location<6,1.25,-6>look_at a }

Post a reply to this message

>>>> (Now, if only my battery wasn't so low...)
>>>
>>> Can't you use the phone while it's charging?
>>
>> I'd need to have the charger in order to do that. It's 50 miles away.
>
> And what have we learned from this?

Well, I suppose I could spend £40 on a second charger. :-P

Post a reply to this message

On 7/4/2012 3:55 AM, Invisible wrote:

> Now suddenly I'm getting phone calls every few hours from agents asking
> me if I'm interested in this job or that job. Mostly hard-core
> programming jobs, almost all in my city. So I /still/ haven't done any
> searching, and yet I've applied for several jobs at this point.

A lot of it has to do with IT picking up again.  Evidently the dot-com 
bust has finally bottomed out.  I looked for work in software for 
several years before being hired just a few months ago.

Regards,
John

Post a reply to this message

Le 2012-07-11 22:59, John VanSickle a écrit :
> On 7/4/2012 3:55 AM, Invisible wrote:
>
>> Now suddenly I'm getting phone calls every few hours from agents asking
>> me if I'm interested in this job or that job. Mostly hard-core
>> programming jobs, almost all in my city. So I /still/ haven't done any
>> searching, and yet I've applied for several jobs at this point.
>
> A lot of it has to do with IT picking up again. Evidently the dot-com
> bust has finally bottomed out. I looked for work in software for several
> years before being hired just a few months ago.
>

Well everyone made massive upgrades in the late 90s to get over Y2K, and 
now, those systems are slowly becoming obsolete again, so there's 
another wave of upgrades coming...



-- 
/*Francois Labreque*/#local a=x+y;#local b=x+a;#local c=a+b;#macro P(F//
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/*   gmail.com     */}camera{orthographic location<6,1.25,-6>look_at a }

Post a reply to this message

>> A lot of it has to do with IT picking up again. Evidently the dot-com
>> bust has finally bottomed out. I looked for work in software for several
>> years before being hired just a few months ago.
>
> Well everyone made massive upgrades in the late 90s to get over Y2K, and
> now, those systems are slowly becoming obsolete again, so there's
> another wave of upgrades coming...

I don't know about IT, more like "the entire jobs market went to hell 
for a few years"...

Post a reply to this message

Le 12/07/2012 16:04, Invisible a écrit :
>>> A lot of it has to do with IT picking up again. Evidently the dot-com
>>> bust has finally bottomed out. I looked for work in software for several
>>> years before being hired just a few months ago.
>>
>> Well everyone made massive upgrades in the late 90s to get over Y2K, and
>> now, those systems are slowly becoming obsolete again, so there's
>> another wave of upgrades coming...
> 
> I don't know about IT, more like "the entire jobs market went to hell
> for a few years"...

In the very late 90s, due the urgency of Y2K, anyone would get hired (I
mean, even without a computer degree... we got chemistry degree on the
job, just to name a few)
Then Y2K failed to happen (as a catastroph) and the Web bubble enjoys a
growth: people stayed on the computer...
(and some European countries had a bonus deadline: Euro get introduced
as real for the 2002-1-1, so after the Y2K race, a lot of work for the
money-change)

2002 & al: bubble has exploded, but a lot of people get the computer
item in their CV. Less "fancy" works, lot of internal candidats (from
low to high level of qualification), no need to recruit actively outside.

Post a reply to this message

On 7/6/2012 7:59, Invisible wrote:
>>>>> (Now, if only my battery wasn't so low...)
>>>>
>>>> Can't you use the phone while it's charging?
>>>
>>> I'd need to have the charger in order to do that. It's 50 miles away.

>>
>> And what have we learned from this?
>
> Well, I suppose I could spend £40 on a second charger. :-P

Or get a phone that charges from USB.

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   "Oh no! We're out of code juice!"
   "Don't panic. There's beans and filters
    in the cabinet."

Post a reply to this message

On 7/12/2012 7:25, Le_Forgeron wrote:
> Then Y2K failed to happen (as a catastroph)

I've never been able to figure out whether this should be "Then Y2K failed 
to happen" or "Thus Y2K failed to happen".

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   "Oh no! We're out of code juice!"
   "Don't panic. There's beans and filters
    in the cabinet."

Post a reply to this message

>>> And what have we learned from this?
>>
>> Well, I suppose I could spend £40 on a second charger. :-P
>
> Or get a phone that charges from USB.

Oh, my phone *does* charge from USB. But guess what? The connector at 
the phone end is non-standard. What a surprise...

(The same goes for my MP3 player, BTW. It uses a /different/ 
non-standard charger. As does my mum's camera. I could go on.)

Required XKCD quote: http://xkcd.com/927/

Post a reply to this message

On Thu, 19 Jul 2012 16:11:39 -0700, Darren New wrote:

> On 7/12/2012 7:25, Le_Forgeron wrote:
>> Then Y2K failed to happen (as a catastroph)
> 
> I've never been able to figure out whether this should be "Then Y2K
> failed to happen" or "Thus Y2K failed to happen".

Clearly Y2K happened, since it's 2012.

The predicted Y2K computing technology disaster is what failed to 
happen.  Planes failed to fall from the sky, the power grid failed to 
fail, the phones kept working.

Society failed to fall into a dark age due to technology failures.

Jim

Post a reply to this message

Le 2012-07-20 17:38, Jim Henderson a écrit :
> On Thu, 19 Jul 2012 16:11:39 -0700, Darren New wrote:
>
>> On 7/12/2012 7:25, Le_Forgeron wrote:
>>> Then Y2K failed to happen (as a catastroph)
>>
>> I've never been able to figure out whether this should be "Then Y2K
>> failed to happen" or "Thus Y2K failed to happen".
>
> Clearly Y2K happened, since it's 2012.
>
> The predicted Y2K computing technology disaster is what failed to
> happen.  Planes failed to fall from the sky, the power grid failed to
> fail, the phones kept working.
>

Mostly because most companies took it seriously enough that they fixed 
the problems that could have happened.

some small businesses did have problems, for example:

My cousin's restaurant's staff realized at 1am on Jan 1st that Visa and 
Mastercard were rejecting all his sales since they were dated 1/1/1900. 
  He had 200 people who had paid $250 apiece, not counting drinks (and 
they were drinking Dom Perignon) for the Y2K bash.  He would have lost 
close to $100,000 that night if it wasn't for the fact that the adjacent 
hotel's manager (whose computers were Y2k-ready) offered to lend him a 
cash register on the fly.

I was working that night baby sitting devices that couldn't care less 
about the date, but had to be at work nonetheless, so I had rented a few 
DVDs to help pass the time.  I ended up working all night on an 
unrelated outage, and slept through most of Jan 1st. As a result, I 
returned my DVDs to the store late, but their computer said that I owed 
them -$18,500 in late fees because I had returned my DVD 99 years and 
364 days before renting them.  Until I closed my account at that video 
store 5 years later, I had a negative balance in their system.

Some larger businesses too had issues:

Planes did not fall from the skies, but some planes didn't leave the 
ground either as all the airlines that were part of Star Alliance and 
were using a LuftHansa-owned system from tracking aircraft maintenance 
had to get special waivers from their countries' respective aviation 
authority because of signed/unsigned integer goofs in the system saying 
that the aircrafts hadn't been inspected in 2147447122 days.

The Japanese nuclear plants were "out of control" for a few hours as 
some of their monitoring systems crashed and had to be rebooted.

NASA also temporarily lost control of a few satellites for the same reasons.

Not counting all the outages, planned and unplanned, during the previous 
year as systems were being upgraded to be Y2K-ready.

> Society failed to fall into a dark age due to technology failures.
>

I don't think anyone seriously expected society to fall into a dark age.



-- 
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/*   gmail.com     */}camera{orthographic location<6,1.25,-6>look_at a }

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On Sat, 21 Jul 2012 00:14:04 -0400, Francois Labreque wrote:

>> The predicted Y2K computing technology disaster is what failed to
>> happen.  Planes failed to fall from the sky, the power grid failed to
>> fail, the phones kept working.
>>
>>
> Mostly because most companies took it seriously enough that they fixed
> the problems that could have happened.
> 
> some small businesses did have problems, for example:

Sure, there were some relatively minor issues.

There were predictions (whether or not they were /serious/ predictions is 
certainly debatable) of massive outages and a return to the dark ages or 
the stone ages.

But I never took those very seriously myself.  But people who were less 
well-informed (and not working in the tech industry) certainly did think 
things would be much worse than they were.

My coauthor and I joked about getting into the long-haul trucking 
business if everything croaked.  Of course, we knew it was highly 
unlikely (and if it happened the way the doomsayers were, long-haul 
trucking would've have been a particularly good business because there 
are a lot of computers involved in that business - not just to keep the 
trucks running, either, but for the whole supply chain management side of 
things.)

Jim

Post a reply to this message

Jim Henderson <nos### [at] nospamcom> wrote:
> On Sat, 21 Jul 2012 00:14:04 -0400, Francois Labreque wrote:
>

> Sure, there were some relatively minor issues.
>
The VCR I had at the time lost, I think, a day or it might have been an hour
that could not be fixed.

Post a reply to this message

On Sat, 21 Jul 2012 05:17:45 -0400, Stephen wrote:

> Jim Henderson <nos### [at] nospamcom> wrote:
>> On Sat, 21 Jul 2012 00:14:04 -0400, Francois Labreque wrote:
>>
>>
>> Sure, there were some relatively minor issues.
>>
> The VCR I had at the time lost, I think, a day or it might have been an
> hour that could not be fixed.

Yeah, I probably had an item or two that had issues as well.

Jim

Post a reply to this message

On 21/07/2012 8:33 PM, Jim Henderson wrote:
> On Sat, 21 Jul 2012 05:17:45 -0400, Stephen wrote:
>
>> >The VCR I had at the time lost, I think, a day or it might have been an
>> >hour that could not be fixed.
> Yeah, I probably had an item or two that had issues as well.

On the whole it was a non event after all the hype.
The next one will be 2049 and my life support will start playing up. ;-)

-- 
Regards
     Stephen

Post a reply to this message

On 7/20/2012 14:38, Jim Henderson wrote:
> On Thu, 19 Jul 2012 16:11:39 -0700, Darren New wrote:
>
>> On 7/12/2012 7:25, Le_Forgeron wrote:
>>> Then Y2K failed to happen (as a catastroph)
>>
>> I've never been able to figure out whether this should be "Then Y2K
>> failed to happen" or "Thus Y2K failed to happen".
>
> Clearly Y2K happened, since it's 2012.
>
> The predicted Y2K computing technology disaster is what failed to
> happen.  Planes failed to fall from the sky, the power grid failed to
> fail, the phones kept working.

I understand.

> Society failed to fall into a dark age due to technology failures.

Sure. But was it because everyone worried about it so much they were willing 
to pay COBOL programmers $200K/year to fix it? Or was it just never really a 
problem to start with?

Given the broadcast of the cheering from the FAA when the clocks rolled over 
GMT and planes didn't fall out of the sky, I'm not totally inclined to 
dismiss the first possibility.

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   "Oh no! We're out of code juice!"
   "Don't panic. There's beans and filters
    in the cabinet."

Post a reply to this message

On 7/20/2012 22:01, Jim Henderson wrote:
> There were predictions (whether or not they were /serious/ predictions is
> certainly debatable) of massive outages and a return to the dark ages or
> the stone ages.

Apparently, one of the most vocal was a (somewhat) closet fundamentalist who 
was hoping to actually bring about the apocalypse by telling everyone that 
the end of the world was nigh. Kind of weird.

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   "Oh no! We're out of code juice!"
   "Don't panic. There's beans and filters
    in the cabinet."

Post a reply to this message

On 7/21/2012 13:46, Stephen wrote:
> The next one will be 2049 and my life support will start playing up. ;-)

2038, I expect. Then 2059.

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   "Oh no! We're out of code juice!"
   "Don't panic. There's beans and filters
    in the cabinet."

Post a reply to this message

On Sat, 21 Jul 2012 15:54:07 -0700, Darren New wrote:

> On 7/20/2012 14:38, Jim Henderson wrote:
>> On Thu, 19 Jul 2012 16:11:39 -0700, Darren New wrote:
>>
>>> On 7/12/2012 7:25, Le_Forgeron wrote:
>>>> Then Y2K failed to happen (as a catastroph)
>>>
>>> I've never been able to figure out whether this should be "Then Y2K
>>> failed to happen" or "Thus Y2K failed to happen".
>>
>> Clearly Y2K happened, since it's 2012.
>>
>> The predicted Y2K computing technology disaster is what failed to
>> happen.  Planes failed to fall from the sky, the power grid failed to
>> fail, the phones kept working.
> 
> I understand.

Well, yeah, I figured you understood it.  I was at that stage attempting 
to be funny (Y2K didn't fail to happen - it's 2012, and Y2K came before 
2012).

>> Society failed to fall into a dark age due to technology failures.
> 
> Sure. But was it because everyone worried about it so much they were
> willing to pay COBOL programmers $200K/year to fix it? Or was it just
> never really a problem to start with?
> 
> Given the broadcast of the cheering from the FAA when the clocks rolled
> over GMT and planes didn't fall out of the sky, I'm not totally inclined
> to dismiss the first possibility.

I'm not really inclined that way either.  I had systems that needed to be 
updated to deal with potential issues, but I don't know that anyone knows 
for sure that if we'd done nothing if there would've been the chaos that 
was predicted.

Jim

Post a reply to this message

On 21/07/2012 11:56 PM, Darren New wrote:
> On 7/21/2012 13:46, Stephen wrote:
>> The next one will be 2049 and my life support will start playing up. ;-)
>
> 2038, I expect. Then 2059.
>
You will have to explain that. :-(

-- 
Regards
     Stephen

Post a reply to this message

Le 22/07/2012 08:34, Stephen nous fit lire :
> On 21/07/2012 11:56 PM, Darren New wrote:
>> On 7/21/2012 13:46, Stephen wrote:
>>> The next one will be 2049 and my life support will start playing up. ;-)
>>
>> 2038, I expect. Then 2059.
>>
> You will have to explain that. :-(
> 

2038 is the year the 32th bit of the integer counting the number of
second since the Epoch (1 Jan 1970 00:00 UTC) will change to 1.
Implied issue: time stored as 32 bits integer would get negative (as
opposed to unsigned integer). Comparing date code ( is A before B <=> A
< B ) would fails.

It will not happen the 1 Jan 2038 at 0:00 ... but on the 19 Jan 2039,
3:14:08 UTC.

No clue about 2059.

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On 22/07/2012 10:10 AM, Le_Forgeron wrote:
> 2038 is the year the 32th bit of the integer counting

Thanks. :-)

-- 
Regards
     Stephen

Post a reply to this message

Le 22/07/2012 11:10, Le_Forgeron nous fit lire :
> but on the 19 Jan 2039,
> 3:14:08 UTC

19 Jan 2038. Thta's 9 is a typo!

Post a reply to this message

On 21/07/2012 11:56 PM, Darren New wrote:
> On 7/20/2012 22:01, Jim Henderson wrote:
>> There were predictions (whether or not they were /serious/ predictions is
>> certainly debatable) of massive outages and a return to the dark ages or
>> the stone ages.
>
> Apparently, one of the most vocal was a (somewhat) closet fundamentalist
> who was hoping to actually bring about the apocalypse by telling
> everyone that the end of the world was nigh. Kind of weird.

Sounds crazy, but it's not implausible it might have actually worked...

Post a reply to this message

>>>> The next one will be 2049 and my life support will start playing up. ;-)
>>> 2038, I expect. Then 2059.
> No clue about 2059.

That was a typo. I just meant 2049 but hit the wrong key. Sorry.

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   "Oh no! We're out of code juice!"
   "Don't panic. There's beans and filters
    in the cabinet."

Post a reply to this message

On 7/21/2012 9:27 PM, Jim Henderson wrote:
>> Given the broadcast of the cheering from the FAA when the clocks rolled
>> over GMT and planes didn't fall out of the sky, I'm not totally inclined
>> to dismiss the first possibility.
>
> I'm not really inclined that way either.  I had systems that needed to be
> updated to deal with potential issues, but I don't know that anyone knows
> for sure that if we'd done nothing if there would've been the chaos that
> was predicted.
>
> Jim
>
I think the issue would have hit a lot of financial companies, and a lot 
of DOS/Windows machines, but not all of them. Mostly financial though. A 
"Huge" issue with most banks was that many still ran mainframes, with 
old COBOL in them. To save space, the whole systems used a two digit 
number to track dates. And, no, I don't mean an integer, I mean a "human 
readable" two digit number, which could only contain 0-9, in two characters.

Due to the way they where coded, you would have had to either rewrite 
the entire systems, or you had to convert the existing DBs to something 
that did work, or you had to add code to "work around" the problem. The 
first one was mad, the second one not possible (since many of them 
couldn't afford to just boat anchor their mainframe, or install a real 
OS and language on them), and the last one.. while more viable, was just 
a total pain in the ass. We could have ended up with today's recession, 
12 years ago, as whole banks "lost track" of when, who, how much, and 
maybe even, in some cases, to what, money was owed.

Post a reply to this message

On 7/22/2012 21:33, Patrick Elliott wrote:
> dates. And, no, I don't mean an integer, I mean a "human readable" two digit
> number, which could only contain 0-9, in two characters.

Most likely packed BCD, with two digits in one byte, actually.

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   "Oh no! We're out of code juice!"
   "Don't panic. There's beans and filters
    in the cabinet."

Post a reply to this message

On Sun, 22 Jul 2012 21:33:42 -0700, Patrick Elliott wrote:

> And, no, I don't mean an integer, I mean a "human readable"
> two digit number, which could only contain 0-9, in two characters

What it's called is "Binary Coded Decimal" IIRC

Jim

Post a reply to this message

>> And, no, I don't mean an integer, I mean a "human readable"
>> two digit number, which could only contain 0-9, in two characters
>
> What it's called is "Binary Coded Decimal" IIRC

BCD is where you use 8 bits to represent two 4-bit binary integers which 
are constrained to be less than 10 each.

If he really /means/ that it stored two /characters/, that would be 16 
bits, not 8. (But I rather doubt that's what it does.)

Exhibit C: EBCDIC.

Post a reply to this message

Am 23.07.2012 06:44, schrieb Darren New:
> On 7/22/2012 21:33, Patrick Elliott wrote:
>> dates. And, no, I don't mean an integer, I mean a "human readable" two
>> digit
>> number, which could only contain 0-9, in two characters.
>
> Most likely packed BCD, with two digits in one byte, actually.

Fortunately in many cases, AFAIK actually no. So often enough, migrating 
from BCD to packed BCD was sufficient.

Post a reply to this message

Am 23.07.2012 16:04, schrieb Invisible:
>>> And, no, I don't mean an integer, I mean a "human readable"
>>> two digit number, which could only contain 0-9, in two characters
>>
>> What it's called is "Binary Coded Decimal" IIRC
>
> BCD is where you use 8 bits to represent two 4-bit binary integers which
> are constrained to be less than 10 each.

No; that would be /packed/ BCD.

Post a reply to this message

On 23/07/2012 2:49 PM, Jim Henderson wrote:
> What it's called is "Binary Coded Decimal" IIRC

I remember that. I used to boot H316s by entering BCD into the switch 
register, step by step. Until it would load the loader tape.
Ah! Memories.

-- 
Regards
     Stephen

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On 7/23/2012 7:04, Invisible wrote:
> If he really /means/ that it stored two /characters/, that would be 16 bits,
> not 8. (But I rather doubt that's what it does.)

Sometimes, sometimes not. There's a data type for "packed BCD", and a data 
type for "display BCD."  Which you stored depends on what you intended to do 
with it. Remember that COBOL is also intended as a report generator, to a 
large extent.

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   "Oh no! We're out of code juice!"
   "Don't panic. There's beans and filters
    in the cabinet."

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On 7/22/2012 9:44 PM, Darren New wrote:
> On 7/22/2012 21:33, Patrick Elliott wrote:
>> dates. And, no, I don't mean an integer, I mean a "human readable" two
>> digit
>> number, which could only contain 0-9, in two characters.
>
> Most likely packed BCD, with two digits in one byte, actually.
>
I have to say.. I am glad I forgot what those where. lol

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On 7/23/2012 11:43 AM, Darren New wrote:
> On 7/23/2012 7:04, Invisible wrote:
>> If he really /means/ that it stored two /characters/, that would be 16
>> bits,
>> not 8. (But I rather doubt that's what it does.)
>
> Sometimes, sometimes not. There's a data type for "packed BCD", and a
> data type for "display BCD."  Which you stored depends on what you
> intended to do with it. Remember that COBOL is also intended as a report
> generator, to a large extent.
>
I think we probably used a lot more of the "display" sort, just so we 
could see, in the crash dump, what the hell happened. lol

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On Mon, 23 Jul 2012 18:53:05 +0100, Stephen wrote:

> On 23/07/2012 2:49 PM, Jim Henderson wrote:
>> What it's called is "Binary Coded Decimal" IIRC
> 
> I remember that. I used to boot H316s by entering BCD into the switch
> register, step by step. Until it would load the loader tape.
> Ah! Memories.

I seem to have lost mine.  Dad always said it was the second thing to 
go....AFAICR. ;)

Jim

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On 24/07/2012 5:47 AM, Jim Henderson wrote:
> I seem to have lost mine.  Dad always said it was the second thing to
> go....AFAICR.;)

And the little blue pills brings back memories of the first. ;-)

-- 
Regards
     Stephen

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On Tue, 24 Jul 2012 05:52:21 +0100, Stephen wrote:

> On 24/07/2012 5:47 AM, Jim Henderson wrote:
>> I seem to have lost mine.  Dad always said it was the second thing to
>> go....AFAICR.;)
> 
> And the little blue pills brings back memories of the first. ;-)

Oh, is *that* what the first is? ;)

Jim

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On 24/07/2012 9:37 PM, Jim Henderson wrote:
> On Tue, 24 Jul 2012 05:52:21 +0100, Stephen wrote:
>
>> On 24/07/2012 5:47 AM, Jim Henderson wrote:
>>> I seem to have lost mine.  Dad always said it was the second thing to
>>> go....AFAICR.;)
>>
>> And the little blue pills brings back memories of the first. ;-)
>
> Oh, is *that* what the first is? ;)
>

I thought that it was you who told me. :-P


-- 
Regards
     Stephen

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On Tue, 24 Jul 2012 22:02:44 +0100, Stephen wrote:

> On 24/07/2012 9:37 PM, Jim Henderson wrote:
>> On Tue, 24 Jul 2012 05:52:21 +0100, Stephen wrote:
>>
>>> On 24/07/2012 5:47 AM, Jim Henderson wrote:
>>>> I seem to have lost mine.  Dad always said it was the second thing to
>>>> go....AFAICR.;)
>>>
>>> And the little blue pills brings back memories of the first. ;-)
>>
>> Oh, is *that* what the first is? ;)
>>
>>
> I thought that it was you who told me. :-P

Nah, wouldn't have been me - the joke goes that dad couldn't remember the 
first thing that goes....

Jim

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On 24/07/2012 11:31 PM, Jim Henderson wrote:
> Nah, wouldn't have been me - the joke goes that dad couldn't remember the
> first thing that goes....

I was extrapolating.

-- 
Regards
     Stephen

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On Thu, 26 Jul 2012 19:59:40 +0100, Stephen wrote:

> On 24/07/2012 11:31 PM, Jim Henderson wrote:
>> Nah, wouldn't have been me - the joke goes that dad couldn't remember
>> the first thing that goes....
> 
> I was extrapolating.

Oh, is /that/ what you call it? ;)

Jim

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