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HPR Episode: How I Got Into Computers

1. Got into computers in 1974 in high school.
 - School had a DEC PDP-11/20 minicomputer
   * Two ASR-33 Teletype terminals, keypunch, line printer, card sorter
   * Ran older operating system RSTS-11 v4a
     - Too low-end to run anything more recent.
     - 16K words of core memory: point-to-point wired "cores"

 - The system was somewhat rudimentary.  It's idea of a prompt was:
 
 READY
 
 - A Teletype terminal does not have a screen, so the print head 
     was the only "cursor" to let you know where you are. 
 
Hardware:
PDP-11/20: Computer Museum 
  https://www.computerhistory.org/revolution/minicomputers/11/366/1946
  
PDP-11/20: Retro Technology
  https://www.retrotechnology.com/pdp11/exhibit/PDP_11_infoage_1.htm

ASR Model 33 Teletype with PDP-11 model computers
  https://www.retrotechnology.com/pdp11/
  
Operating System:
RSTS-11 System Managers Guide
  https://bitsavers.trailing-edge.com/pdf/dec/pdp11/rsts/V04/DEC-11-ORSMA-B-D_RSTSmgr_73.pdf
  
RSTS-11 System Users Guide
  https://bitsavers.trailing-edge.com/pdf/dec/pdp11/rsts/V06/DEC-11-ORSUA-D-D_RSTS_SystemUserGuide_Jul75.pdf



2. Learned BASIC-Plus to get anywhere, starting with 1/2-year course

DEC BASIC Plus Language Manual
  https://bitsavers.trailing-edge.com/pdf/dec/pdp11/rsts/V04/DEC-11-ORBPA-A-D_BASIC-PLUS_LangMan_Oct72.pdf  

 * Course was taught by a math teacher who was not an amazing programmer, 
     but he was a great teacher.  He enabled us to get going with BASIC. 

 * Anticipated pairs programming by working on programs with a friend as
    "Chuck and Duck Enterprises", but we were mainly having fun.
   - Started by necessity (1 TTY), but we got satisfying results faster
   - Both of us could write code, but we learned about using
       complementary strengths to get cool stuff done.

Pairs programming:
  Pairs Programming, from XP
  https://www.extremeprogramming.org/rules/pair.html
  
  Laurie Williams (Her other stuff is good, too)
  https://collaboration.csc.ncsu.edu/laurie/publications.html

   
 * Small memory --> innovation
   - ASCII Art "Poster" Program: 
     Create banner with block letters on LP based on terminal input.
   - Developed a mini-language to encode characters, white space, 
       newlines for each supported character.
   - This was a special-purpose language used to compress data, rather
       than a cool Domain-Specific Language (DSL).
   - We just wanted to make cool banners to come off the line printer.

Domain Specific Languages:  Why ours wasn't a DSL
  Martin Fowler on DSLs
  https://martinfowler.com/tags/domain%20specific%20language.html
  


3. Did a math major in college, after switching away from Comp. Sci.

 * Math had advantages for me
   - More flexible curriculum 
   - Abstractions of the time were more fun to play with
 
 * I used the University computers on jobs as research assistant, tutor, typist
   - Used them in course work, too.
   - Planning my code carefully let me use my excess CPU seconds for fun
   - Rule of Thumb: 1 hour in library is worth 12 hours at the terminal.


4. Branching out in hardware, systems and programming languages

* We learned FORTRAN in the programming courses
   - I resisted the temptation to "think in FORTRAN" 
   - More general approach felt slower for getting individual jobs done.
   - Working from first principles seemed more reliable
   - Often gave me better solutions than following my nose in FORTRAN

   Quirky FORTRAN Preprocessor for Structured Programming (SF/K)
   https://www.worldcat.org/title/fundamentals-of-structured-programming-using-fortran-with-sfk-and-watfiv-s/oclc/301094243

 * Later, I picked up Pascal and TOPS-20 Assembly Language
   
   Pascal: From the source
   Pascal User Manual and Report (Springer)  Trade paperback (1975)
   by Kathleen Jensen, K Jensen, N Wirth

   Trade paperback, Springer, 1975.  English  2nd ed. 167 pages
   ISBN: 0387901442      ISBN-13: 9780387901442
 
 

5. Gear and software rundown:

 * Xerox/Honeywell Sigma Six (descended from Scientific Data Systems)  
    (1977 to 1979)
     https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CP-V_operating_system
     https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SDS_Sigma_series

 * DEC System 2060 (relabeled PDP-10) running TOPS-20 on a 36-bit machine
    (1979 to 1981)
     https://bitsavers.trailing-edge.com/pdf/dec/pdp10/TOPS20/DECnet-20/AA-5091B-TM_TOPS-20_DECnet-20_Programmers_Guide_Jan80.pdf
     https://pdp10.nocrew.org/docs/ad-h391at1.pdf  DECsystem-10 and -20 Processor Ref.


6. Summer and Night Job
 * The Duration Caper:
   Friend fixing a Fortran program to compute bond duration on a large portfolio.
   - Answers weren't coming out, so he printed out several subtotals in his calculation.
   - "Extend the line" to include the last term in the numerator of one big fraction "and you'll have it"
   
   Found a typo in the Jack Clark Francis "bible" of investments theory
   - Throwaway question: "What's this duration stuff, anyway?"
   - Question got me hired as a research assistant by Finance department in Business school
   
   Investments: Analysis and Management, First Edition Hardcover(1972)
   by Jack Clark Francis.  McGraw-Hill Book Company
   ISBN: 0070217858             ISBN-13: 9780070217850
   

 * The "Sure!  I Know Assembly Language" Caper
   Offered a job with Finance, conditional on first assignment.
   - Take over maintenance of a Fortran program with inline Assembly Language
   - Original developer was a senior Computer Science major I knew.
   - Gambled that his code was solid.  And won in the end.
   
   Got paid 3 times minimum wage ($7.50/hour versus $2.30) to look up and read research papers.
   - I'd have done it for free, so this was a sweet gig.
   
   
 * Other jobs:
   - Tutoring math, computer science for food or cash
   - Programming jobs
   - Teaching assistant jobs for statistics, finance courses
   - Security and management of student-run darkroom in Summer months == "reading"
   - Typing papers on a typewriter
 
      
7. After college, started working in non-life insurance.

 * End user computing in actuarial group was in BASIC-Plus on PDP-11s
   - Word processing was in DECword or the WPS-8 dedicated machine.
   - After first year, moved to department-level PDP-11/44
   - For heavy-duty jobs, we also had timesharing access to VAX-11/780
   
 * First project was building a database from mainframe data dump
   - EBCDIC data conversion to ASCII led to my education about signed
       data fields in COBOL.
   - I knew hexadecimal math from my assembly language course
   - I'd seen EBCDIC in dumps while writing FORTRAN on CP-V
   
    Data dumps from 9-track to PDP-11/70 led to Overpunch field conversion
      https://www.3480-3590-data-conversion.com/article-signed-fields.html

 * Note: When you have curly braces at the end of a signed number field, 
     the brace opens in the direction of the positive or negative end of
     the number line.
   - Open brace ({): Value ends in zero and has positive sign.  Zero < X
   - Closing brace (}): Value ends in zero and is negative. Zero > X

 * If field ends in A, the value's final digit is 1, and it's positive
   - B means positive value that ends with a 2, C is 3, ... I is 9.
   - So "00003757D" is $   +375.74.
   
 * If the field ends in J-R, the value is negative and ends in 1-9.
   - So "00000255R" is the value $   -25.59.
   


8. Irony: I was asked to help troubleshoot a program that was crashing
     as it was automatically converting the rates and rules manuals away
     from Unix with 'nroff' to DECword on RSTS in 1982.
  - This may have delayed my adoption of Linux
  - Used Unix (Ultrix) in early 1990s to preprocess data for use in OS/2
  - Had to move to Win 95 and Win NT for work


****** Skipping the Dark Period of DOS/Windows and OS/2 Computing ******
  - Turbo Pascal, APL, PICK, QuickBasic, Visual Basic, Excel with VBA
  - Learned SQL dialects, COM, .Net, and scripting languages

More from Dark Period: Less Slackware


8. Gave Linux a try with Quantian Live CD in 2006 (Thanks, Dirk!)
   https://dirk.eddelbuettel.com/quantian.html 
   https://dirk.eddelbuettel.com/quantian-tmp.pdf (PDF description)
   https://dirk.eddelbuettel.com/quantian/quantian_0.7.9.2.quantian.packages.txt
   
 * Used Live CDs to try Debian packages, repair PCs, and do math stuff
  - Liked Gnumeric, Python, R, and educational software
  - Wiped my Vista laptop in April, 2008 to install Ubuntu full-time
  - Music, checking, and photo editing kept me from switching other PCs

9. Tried Ubuntu "Feisty" using WUBI on Windows XP on Racing Cow
 * Trouble-free install, mainly because I was on an Ethernet cable
   - Tried out Linux software in a risk-free environment to find what I liked
   - GNOME 2 was close enough to Windows and Mac, so no problems with UI
   - Command line was similar to Ultrix and even to DOS, so not so bad.

 * WUBI let me try Ubuntu without having to dual boot or use Live CDs
   - Easy to install and remove, like a Windows application
   - No messy virtualization setup
   - Linux could see and use files on my Windows partition seamlessly

 * Ubuntu "Hardy" on "Titanic" (retired Dell Latitude D820 laptop)
   - Install was easy, except for wireless networking
   - Had to use NDISWRAPPER at first, but everything worked.

 * Switched my main home desktop (Racing Cow) in April, 2011
  - Just in time for Unity, which would not run on my gear.
  - Gnome 2 ran well on my computers, and they choked on Unity and Gnome 3.
  - Taste and older machines led me to go distro hopping.
  - Dan Lynch of Linux Outlaws pointed me to CrunchBang.  Try it.
      https://crunchbang.org


9. Other distros I've tried:

 * Gentoo (June 2011):  https://www.gentoo.org 
 
   Note: It is not as super-hard as you've been told.
   
   Installed it in three 4-hour sessions after reading docs on train
    - Compiled kernel on first shot
    - Added modules for devices I liked, and that recompile worked
    - Got X working enough to use a browser and a window manager
    - Gave up only because I had not decided on my workflows
    - Was afraid to mix GTK and QT or KDE packages at that stage
    - Unsure about reversing wrong choices 
    - Unfamiliar toolkits scared me, although I had no real problems
  
   Conclusion: My problem with Gentoo?  Between keyboard and chair. 


 * Slackware (several times):  https://www.slackware.org
   
   Always installs on first try for me, with huge kernel
    - Knowing what to do after initial install was the problem here, too
    - To remove fear, I updated my 13.37 with all patches by hand
    - Manual updates after install took 2 hours, including learning pkgtool
    - Using generic or custom kernels is only hard when I'm stupid
      * Be sure the drivers to operate your boot disk are compiled in
   
   Conclusion: After hating older versions, it's KDE 4 for the win!
   
     
 * SlackerMedia book:  https://slackermedia.info
   
   Helpful tips on designing workstation around workflows
    - Uses SlackBuilds and SlackBuild queues for repeatable configuration
    - Gave me idea for groups working on math software-in-progress
    - Slackware package format is simple, easy to grasp (for binaries)
    - SlackBuilds: close to a universal format for sharing program source
   
   Why Slackware?
    - There are SlackBuild scripts for Sage and other packages I like
    - Slackware comes with support for TeX for math writing
    - SlackerMedia has queues for audio, video, web editing, publishing
   
   Conclusion: SlackerMath is born.  Still needs to be fleshed out.
    - Slackware distribution-from-scratch based on SlackBuilds
    - Set it up as you wish using your own custom queues
    - Suggested packages would include Sage, R, Octave, GSL, QuantLib,
        Grass GIS, kile, gretl, Tux Racer, euler, gnucap, and others
    - Languages: Python with NumPy/SciPy/matplotlib and bindings to 
        other languages/libraries, Scheme, Perl, Lua, C and Fortran
        
 * Also tried the following, but didn't stay with them
   - Slax (www.slax.org)
   - 
11. Right now: 
  * Five of our six former Windows computers have switched to Linux.
    - "Surfing Cow" decommissioned with CrunchBang as its final O/S.
    - "Racing Cow" still going strong with CrunchBang
    - Sony FE laptop "White Cloud" running Ubuntu 13.04
    - Derringer is my audio editing machine, because it's under 3 lbs.
    - Laptop "Titanic" died after a baptism in red wine
      Back to life with new keyboard, disk, and name -- "Lazarus"
      
  * Number six ("Dawn Pixie") about to go to a Linux "granny" distro
    - Linux Mint or PCLinuxOS (KDE version)
    - Need a "granny" distros for generic use by all comers

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