🚀 go-pugleaf

ae@sei.UUCP writes:


++The SOAP format was like this (for SOAP-1; SOAP-2 was different because
++it accommodated index registers):
++     1-40 ignored in input; used as a 1/card loader on output
++       41 card type, usually blank, 1 meant COMMENT (I think, or was it
++	  5?), there were others
++       42 sign (for data)
++    43-47 location
++    48-50 opcode
++    51-55 data address
++    56-60 instruction address
++    61-72 comment
++Columns 73-80 weren't read and could be used for sequence numbering.

++It's 30 years since I programmed a 650 and I still remember most of the
++opcodes, but I'll spare you that...

Which just goes to show that 650 programmers live on!  I remember it
very well myself... It was my first computer experience (1962 at the
Polytechnic Institute of Brooklyn).  The problem with the FORTRAN compiler
(wasnt it called FORTRANSIT?) was that it had a few intermediary passes,
which on that machine meant punching an intermediate file!.  So, to compile
a FORTRAN code you had to wait first while a SOAP translation was punched out,
read it back in to the 2nd pass and then get an object binary punched out.
In many cases the SOAP deck was 2x larger than the original FORTRAN.
I caught near-pneumonia in the summer of '63 standing for hours in the
very cold machine room trying to compile and recompile a structural 
engineering code of a few thousand cards.

The 650 was lots of fun.  One problem tho was the emergency switch that
was on the front console within easy reach of a misplaced hand.  Hitting the
switch was fatal!  It set the brakes on the drum and stopped the machine
cold.  Usually this caused the drum to come off its moorings and rattle around
in the console.  It required major repairs.  All because of a little switch.
After this happening twice in the 3 years the machine was at Poly, they
eventually disabled the switch.

It was nice working with a machine with blinking lights tho.  I still have
the hardware manual.
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