Re: System 34

[John P Carr <jpcarr@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

        My first job in TAB / DP / MIS / IS / IT     was a keypunch operator
on a 3742 key to 
        diskette machine.   (3741 had one station, 3742 had two,  each
person facing each other).

        A BIG 34 shop.   Twin 34's  one running MAPICS and the other running
home grown stuff.
        Ah MAPICS .  Relative Number processing.     I even went thru 40
hours of Oliver Whites
        videos on MRP, CCP, Production planning, etc. 

        Then I got promoted to being THE system operator on both 34's.

        From that Job I went to work for a sevice bureau running a 370.  The
BIG IRON.  
        As a ( believe me)  RPG programmer(Ya on a 370 to handle a sys/3
converted system)

        First day on the job the operator tells me my program had an array
index error.
        I said,   "Well give it a 1 to reset it and keep running"     He
said,  John You don't 
        understand this is a 370.   You got a 200 page unformatted core
dump.  Figure it out.
        I said,  "Let me see the console message".    He leans over and
starts showing me a 
        green bar report.   I said where's the console?  he said right here.
I said that's not a 
        console,   that's a typewriter connected to a computer.   Ah,
unformated core dumps,
        80 column cards,  JCL,  those were the days.

        So began my introduction to the "Big Iron"   
        Many more funny stories about remove-able disk packs,   
        tapes with data checks ,

        And one I still have nightmares about,   
        "The significance of a 7 day backup tape rotation, and 
        on the 8th day finding what 4040404040.... means
        in the last 256 bytes of a 512 byte customer sales history file."

        John Carr






        From:   nina jones@ddi on 01/08/2000 07:49 PM
        To:     MIDRANGE-L@MIDRANGE-L@midrange.com@SMTP@EXCHCONNECT
        cc:      

        Subject:        Re: System 34

        > GREAT memory !!! :-)
        > 
        > We also had a data entry "machine" (forget the name/model now - I
was a kid then
        > <BG>) and they Accounting would enter stuff to a diskette and then
I'd pop it into
        > the S/34 for processing... High tech :-)

        3741.

        nj
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