🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <1993Jan24.075244.27275@spectrum.CMC.COM> lars@spectrum.CMC.COM  
(Lars Poulsen) writes:
> My first experience with machine-readable documentation was the Univac
> Exec-8 Operating System Programmer's Reference Manual (fondly known as
> the PRM; I used to know the UP-xxxx number by heart). I got in touch
> with this in late 1970, but it was not new then. (It was very poorly
> done, in UPPER-CASE ONLY, SINCE THE NATIVE CHARACTERSET WAS 6-BIT
> FIELDATA AND THE OFFICIAL COPY WAS OFFSET PRINTED OFF COPY PRINTED ON A
> MISADJUSTED DRUM PRINTER.)

UP-4144, a number forever burned into my neurons.  I even have an  
original, upper-case only, hand-bound(glopped) copy of the '1108 OPERATING  
SYSTEM EXEC PRM (VERSION 22.5)'!  Unfortunately, there are no dates or OS  
level references in it, so I can't date it precisely.  If, however, the  
22.5 refers to the OS level, then it would be 1968 or 69 - the earliest  
System Memorandum is for Exec 26, from Sept 1970.

> At that time, IBM had been producing manuals in SCRIBE for several
> years, and the IBM 2741 Selectric Terminal was the industry standard
> for what I believe IBM at that time called Text Processing.
> I was working at the Copenhagen University Academic Computer Center
> (RECKU, now part of UNI-C) and at the request of the biology department,
> we installed terminal device drivers for the IBM 2741 and clones. In
> 1972, we upgraded the operating system, and the old driver did not work
> anymore, so we wrote a new one. About 5000 lines of assembly language,
> and worked very shortly after we got the new system to test on. At the
> same time, the "Document Processor" formatting software, and the editor
> became available in ASCII versions so we could write lower-case
> documents.

The SM announces the ASCII printer support for level 26.  I think our  
local ED did ASCII then, but most text was in FIELDDATA for many years.


> Fun stuff. Sometimes I miss it...
Me, too.....

--
George Baltz  N3GB          301-405-3059     gwb@n3gb.umd.edu
Captain (Emeritus), UMD Hors d'Oeuvres Team
Computer Science Center, U of Maryland       "I got FREE checking at BCCI"
College Park, MD 20742-2411                        - "Murphy Brown"








Keep poster happy...........grrrrr