David JONESVisicalc is a single 28KB binary; with a 180 page manual. We have strayed so far from the light.
pinkemma@pinkemma the light shines, and together, I believe we can find it again friend.
Jon@drj just be grateful that manuals no longer take more storage than the software they document.
Tim Ward βπͺπΊπΆ #FBPE@oddhack @drj In those days we reckoned to need around 1k disk storage for each byte of code delivered, to include source code and documentation as well as the various levels of object code and the files used to drive the EPROM programmer. Coding in assembler, of course, the source code was MUCH bigger than the generated code.
@TimWardCam @drj Just as well the VMS manual set was not online in its entirety. We only had 750 512-byte blocks/student of disk quota even without that.
@TimWardCam @drj We didn't get access to the campus 370, just a 11/780. Sounds like you might predate me by a few years though - I was a frosh in 1980 (when the older students were still ranting "I want the (PDP)-10 back!" :-))
@TimWardCam @oddhack on Phoenix in 1990 it was 10 tracks at 42K per track. But that also meant only 10 files, because 1 track could not be used for more than 1 file; unless Partitioned Data Set.
@drj @oddhack Yeah, everything had to be in PDSs.
Then there was the time that notional "rent" for disk space was introduced. Which was calculated at midnight every night. So it didn't take long for the students to get into the habit of emailing themselves their files every night, then deleting them, then restoring them from emails in the morning, thus being charged no rent. From which it didn't take long for the Computing Service to calculate the rent continuously rather than just at midnight.
@TimWardCam haha. there were other odd places to store stuff. my INIT script (which had a length limit similar to the original Tweets, one record i suppose) stored most of the actual code in a JOB output, which it would COLLECT, run through ZED, and then execute (which resubmitted the job).
This was cool (haha) because while file access could be granted to other people, only me myself my actual userid could submit and collect jobs.
@TimWardCam @drj we had an appeals process for students wanting more than their 750 block quota, the "Student Computing Policies Committee". Which was basically the compunerds sitting around a table passing judgement on requests made by non-compunerds, with light supervision by the computing center staff. I'm not sure which dysfunctional governmental system SCPC most resembled but it wasn't great. At least there was no pay-for-play (or, I had no offers to pay me to vote for a request).
Bert Driehuis@TimWardCam @oddhack @drj oh man, those wasteful tracks! I'm an MVS survivor myself, and the idea of having to divvy up tracks myself was one of the most important factors to make me pick UNIX for my next assignment.
I probably would've been better off now if I had taken the proffered path of becoming an MVS system programmer, but the waste put me off it. Not to mention having been retired with a meaningful pension by now :-)
fedops ππ
Marcus ReynoldsAh, spreadsheet memories. And Lotus 123. Quattro Pro. Framework, anybody remember Framework Suite?
Tim ChaseI was a Quattro teen, but occasionally used Lotus and later As Easy As for my DOS spreadsheet needs π
Jernej SimoncΜiΔ οΏ½@MarcusMASTO @drj I remember my father using Framework III for something on our 286.
kdgregoryBut consider this: 28kb was more than half of the physical memory on the device!
@kdgregory yeah, i mean i'm looking at (and running) a DOS binary, but yeah, it will have been similar on the Apple II and friends. The manual i found was a ROM version for the Atari 800.