Upon the date 11:10 AM 4/9/99 -0400, John Ruschmeyer said something like:
>> Wonderful quote from my boss, who's (supposed to be a professional
programmer
>> for Caterpillar):
>> "You should use strings instead of integers. You can put bigger numbers in
>> a string."
>
>Sounds a little like a BASIC I used to work with...
>
>My first job out of college was programming in BASIC-X, the proprietary
>dialect used on the BTI-5000 and BTI-8000 minis. One of its features was
>"string arithmetic" which allowed you to store arbitrary precision
>numbers in strings and perform the normal mathematical functions.
>
>Example:
>
> 10 DIM A$(10), B$(10)
> 20 A$="12345678.90"
> 30 B$="34567890.10"
> 40 A$=A$+B$
> 50 PRINT B$
>
>Handy for big dollar calculations like Bill Gates' net worth or the
>annual budget reconciliation.
>
>Out of curiousity, am I the only one on the list to have ever seen one
>of these beasts?
>
>The 5000 (I think there were also 4000 and possibly 6000) systems were
>small refrigerator-sized boxes that were used in turnkey apps like car
>dealerships.
There was one of these in Jamestown at the large Chevrolet dealer that was
taken out of service in the late '80's. This was back in '90 or '91 before
I was 'into' old computers. It was sort-of offered to me by a next-door
neighbor who's brother had it stashed in a barn south of town. He worked at
the Chevy dealership. I was lukewarm to it as it was said to be large and I
would have had to keep it out in a damp, unheated garage. Very lousy for
such gear as most of you know.
Anyway, he gave me the make and model (which I forgot now, but I *think* it
could have been a 4000) and I called BTI to see what it was and other info.
BTI knew from the s/n I gave them the actual dealer who had owned it and
other service info. The friendly fellow I talked with told me it was either
HP 1000- or 2000-based hardware or was a clone of same. Again, I cannot
recall for sure whether it was clone or actual HP iron. Do you, John, or
anybody else know which it was?
He told that they make systems that are mostly used in auto dealerships,
which confirms what you'd learned John. If I got the machine they could
offer some documentation if any was laying around their office. (Where can
we find this type of friendly personality at any company nowadays?)
The lead fell through as the neighbor got killed in a rather tragic auto
accident while on his way to work early one morning. Left a pregnant young
wife and 4-yr-old stepdaughter.
Regards, Chris
-- --
Christian Fandt, Electronic/Electrical Historian
Jamestown, NY USA cfandt_at_netsync.net
Member of Antique Wireless Association
URL:
http://www.ggw.org/awa
Received on Fri Apr 09 1999 - 12:49:46 BST