Hallelujah!

From: Dean Billing <drbilling_at_ucdavis.edu>
Date: Thu Apr 8 18:26:56 1999

>On Mon, 5 Apr 1999, Derek Peschel wrote:
>
>> I was going to mention RPG in my original post but I changed my mind. ...
> ...
>Believe it or not people still use that abomination. ...
>
>Its funny because it's programmed much like the earlier versions of
>ForTran, where each statement and associated arguments and data must start
>in a particular column due to its origins as a punched card language.
>
>I would hope the latest version of RPG does away with the archaic column
>specificity.

Don't know about the latest versions of RPG, but it should not be forgotten
that RPG was developed as an emulator for the 407 Tab machine. You could
use it to turn a 1401 with a very small memory, i.e. 1.2K, into a 407 Tab
machine, thusly you could turn the legion of 407 plug board programmers
into computer programmers. One 1401 could do the same amount of work as
several 407 Tab machines, much to the chagrin of IBM because the rent on
one 1401 could be less than the rent of three 407s, depending on the
configurations of each.

-- Dean
Received on Thu Apr 08 1999 - 18:26:56 BST