Article View: alt.folklore.computers
Article #620777Re: Nostalgia
From: Charlie Gibbs
Date: Fri, 02 Mar 2018 04:51
Date: Fri, 02 Mar 2018 04:51
31 lines
3411 bytes
3411 bytes
On 2018-03-02, Walter Bushell <pr...@panix.com> wrote: > In article <3ve99dtbi7vu0jda6...@4ax.com>, > J. Clarke <jclarke...@gmail.com> wrote: > >> Second, once >> the habit develops, it's easy to run out of variable names and end up >> using "l" (lower case L), which is identical to "1" (one) in many >> fonts which can lead to very difficult to identify bugs. > > A simple keypuch error based on that. Very early (1967), three of us > were trying to debug a compile error, from another programmer. After a > few minutes, I said that's not an "IF" statement, that's a 1F (One F) > statement. I think I had to pull the card to show them. My favourite design flaw in the IBM 029 keyboard was putting the vertical bar (|) over the Y, immediately to the left of the numeral 1 that's over the letter O. A quick scan of a printout or an interpreted card would easily miss the fact that you over-reached when typing a 1. And a computer dumb enough not to throw a data exception would let it hang around for a long time. I found one in a mortgage master file, where it had been lurking for years. Another good one is in printers whose letter C looks a lot like a zero with the right-hand edge cut off - as might happen if the hammer timing is a bit out of adjustment. That one makes hex dumps easy to mis-interpret. -- /~\ cgibbs@kltpzyxm.invalid (Charlie Gibbs) \ / I'm really at ac.dekanfrus if you read it the right way. X Top-posted messages will probably be ignored. See RFC1855. / \ HTML will DEFINITELY be ignored. Join the ASCII ribbon campaign!
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X-Received: by 10.223.157.196 with SMTP id q4mr442133wre.23.1519966291689; Thu, 01 Mar 2018 20:51:31 -0800 (PST) X-BeenThere: alt.folklore.computers@googlegroups.com Received: by 10.28.126.75 with SMTP id z72ls76651wmc.12.gmail; Thu, 01 Mar 2018 20:51:30 -0800 (PST) X-Received: by 10.28.116.6 with SMTP id p6mr38712wmc.5.1519966290798; Thu, 01 Mar 2018 20:51:30 -0800 (PST) MIME-Version: 1.0 Path: mbox-mo1.pugleaf.net!130ni5309wmv.0!nntp.google.com!feeder1-2.proxad.net!proxad.net!feeder1-1.proxad.net!ecngs!feeder.ecngs.de!border1.nntp.ams1.giganews.com!nntp.giganews.com!peer01.ams1!peer.ams1.xlned.com!news.xlned.com!peer01.am4!peer.am4.highwinds-media.com!peer03.iad!feed-me.highwinds-media.com!news.highwinds-media.com!spln!extra.newsguy.com!newsp.newsguy.com!news1 From: Charlie Gibbs <cgibbs@kltpzyxm.invalid> Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Nostalgia Date: 2 Mar 2018 04:51:16 GMT Organization: NewsGuy.com Lines: 31 Message-ID: <p7al8405j9@news1.newsguy.com> References: <p67o2727bv@news1.newsguy.com> <p6967v$t5b$1@dont-email.me> <p6q0kb$t5$1@reader2.panix.com> <2MWdnbgKEKQjRA_HnZ2dnUU78XHNnZ2d@giganews.com> <ffga3cFrifbU1@mid.individual.net> <ffgu5uF5nalU15@mid.individual.net> <1313349967.541300884.430961.peter_flass-yahoo.com@news.eternal-september.org> <p6vrnc$ue5$1@dont-email.me> <slrnp97b4c.eu5.grahn+nntp@frailea.sa.invalid> <0lq79dpae03ai000r0690fja58qcud4udu@4ax.com> <slrnp97s31.eu5.grahn+nntp@frailea.sa.invalid> <3ve99dtbi7vu0jda6ut1kcbemr6j4ta28v@4ax.com> <proto-1FD911.20443601032018@news.panix.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: pc68837ffb78bf1179b8bbc40f512823377a8d46dd38c9555.newsdawg.com User-Agent: slrn/1.0.1 (Linux) X-Received-Bytes: 2709 X-Received-Body-CRC: 1627589041 Bytes: 2840 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit