<div dir="ltr"><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:georgia,serif">Personally I've only used punch cards as free flash cards. My dad provided them as he retired legacy systems when I was in kindergarten.</div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:georgia,serif"><br></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:georgia,serif">FWIW I was in the basement of a large company 4 years ago and stumbled across two punch card machines that I thought were in storage, a week later I discovered them running a program. Today I'm working on updating a radar system from Vax/VMS to modern hardware.</div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:georgia,serif"><br></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:georgia,serif">If anyone is interested in also working on updating a system written in Ada on VMS and moving it to Linux using Ada and C++ drop me a line.<br clear="all"></div><div><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_signature" data-smartmail="gmail_signature"><div dir="ltr"><div><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><div style="font-size:small"><font face="georgia, serif"><br></font></div><div style="font-size:small"><font face="georgia, serif">Richard J. Kolb</font></div></div></div></div></div></div></div><br></div><br><div class="gmail_quote"><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr">On Thu, May 2, 2024 at 10:49 AM Mark E. Mallett <<a href="mailto:mem@schmem.com">mem@schmem.com</a>> wrote:<br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex">On Wed, May 01, 2024 at 07:52:37PM -0400, <a href="mailto:jon.maddog.hall@gmail.com" target="_blank">jon.maddog.hall@gmail.com</a> wrote:<br>
...<br>
<br>
> So BASIC has a lot of detractors, mostly due to the infamous "GOTO".<br>
<br>
FORTRAN's "computed goto" put that to shame ;)<br>
<br>
<br>
> So here is to you, BASIC! You moved a lot of people forward.<br>
<br>
Indeed.<br>
<br>
-mm- (no thanks on the supercomputer)<br>
<br>
<br>
PS: Some time in the mid-70s I wrote a FORTRAN preprocessor that<br>
allowed the use of symbolic labels. It could also renumber labels,<br>
move format statements to their own section with their own number<br>
grouping. A la ratfor I guess, tho I had never heard of that (it<br>
sort of barely existed then anyway).<br>
<br>
PPS: I only ever took one language course in my ignoble time at college,<br>
prior to the thing in the PS above. It was FORTRAN. I took it three<br>
times because I failed it twice, me being a horrible student and<br>
distracted by.. well, computers. The third time I got a D. The final<br>
term project was returned with a red scrawl over the front page saying<br>
"I asked for a project, not a thesis." That was sort of on my mind<br>
because I think I had that printout up until about a week ago when it<br>
was accidentally thrown out by somebody working on the house here.<br>
<br>
Ah, nostalgia. I remember that.<br>
<br>
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</blockquote></div>