Talk:1755: Old Days - Revision history

172.70.206.151: move reply to comment above another comment inserted between

2023-02-07T22:59:58Z

move reply to comment above another comment inserted between

162.158.167.168 at 10:43, 7 January 2017

2017-01-07T10:43:47Z

162.158.69.160 at 18:39, 7 November 2016

2016-11-07T18:39:58Z

162.158.88.254: We were poor

2016-11-06T17:34:32Z

We were poor

108.162.246.42: Comment on 2x image

2016-11-06T15:29:18Z

Comment on 2x image

172.68.78.133: Kids today have it easy

2016-11-06T13:37:54Z

Kids today have it easy

172.68.51.48: Undo revision 130057 by 141.101.104.122 (talk)

2016-11-06T01:48:19Z

Undo revision 130057 by 141.101.104.122 (talk)

141.101.104.122: Blank Atm card

2016-11-05T22:50:59Z

Blank Atm card

Davidy22 at 17:31, 5 November 2016

2016-11-05T17:31:11Z

ExplainBot at 15:45, 5 November 2016

2016-11-05T15:45:51Z

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 The "4-6 weeks" thing might be a reference to high-performance computing, in particular scientific calculations, a few decades back. From what I've heard from older people in my scientific field (I'm too young to have experienced it myself), you'd prepare your program on punch cards, mail these to an institution owning a fast computer (because your group or university didn't have one), and they'd run the program and mail the result back to you. This, I've been told, took a few weeks. Maybe someone with first-hand experience can give more information. [[Special:Contributions/141.101.104.98|141.101.104.98]] 10:34, 4 November 2016 (UTC)
 : I strongly echo 141.101's recollections.  The second panel of 1755 is not far from the truth.
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 : I'm tempted to say that this taught me a lot about the art of programming and the importance of checking your code and writing for re-use...but I rather doubt it.  When I finally got to my second year in college, I had access to a PDP-11/20 with DecTapes and a DecWriter terminal, that's about when I started to learn something useful...and in my final year, 1977 - I was finally granted access to the PDP-11/70, UNIX and a ADM 3a "glass teletype".  I could really get to learning the craft that's still paying my mortgage 40 years later. [[User:SteveBaker|SteveBaker]] ([[User talk:SteveBaker|talk]]) 14:25, 4 November 2016 (UTC)
 Is it just me, or is there a parallel between sending you code off to be compiled and sending your code off to an app store. In both cases a required part of the build is sending your code off to a private company for approval. [[User:Olleicua|Olleicua]] ([[User talk:Olleicua|talk]]) 15:28, 4 November 2016 (UTC)

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	It is not clear to me that the final 'Wow' indicates that Cueball falls for it. Other interpretations include surprise that Hairbun cares so little or that she would go so far, or shock that she thinks so little of Cueball or indignity that she cares so little for his (admittedly ageist) social overture. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.69.160\|162.158.69.160]] 18:39, 7 November 2016 (UTC)		It is not clear to me that the final 'Wow' indicates that Cueball falls for it. Other interpretations include surprise that Hairbun cares so little or that she would go so far, or shock that she thinks so little of Cueball or indignity that she cares so little for his (admittedly ageist) social overture. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.69.160\|162.158.69.160]] 18:39, 7 November 2016 (UTC)
		+
		+	....I'm 17 and fell for this completely. I feel naive. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.167.168\|162.158.167.168]] 10:43, 7 January 2017 (UTC)

← Older revision		Revision as of 18:39, 7 November 2016
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	... and when we got home, our Dad would kill us, and dance about on our graves singing "Hallelujah." :-D --[[Special:Contributions/162.158.88.254\|162.158.88.254]] 17:34, 6 November 2016 (UTC)		... and when we got home, our Dad would kill us, and dance about on our graves singing "Hallelujah." :-D --[[Special:Contributions/162.158.88.254\|162.158.88.254]] 17:34, 6 November 2016 (UTC)
		+
		+	It is not clear to me that the final 'Wow' indicates that Cueball falls for it. Other interpretations include surprise that Hairbun cares so little or that she would go so far, or shock that she thinks so little of Cueball or indignity that she cares so little for his (admittedly ageist) social overture. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.69.160\|162.158.69.160]] 18:39, 7 November 2016 (UTC)

← Older revision		Revision as of 17:34, 6 November 2016
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	Back in my day, we lived RFC 1149. Y'all got it easy now. scoff --[[Special:Contributions/172.68.78.133\|172.68.78.133]] 13:37, 6 November 2016 (UTC)		Back in my day, we lived RFC 1149. Y'all got it easy now. scoff --[[Special:Contributions/172.68.78.133\|172.68.78.133]] 13:37, 6 November 2016 (UTC)
		+
		+	... and when we got home, our Dad would kill us, and dance about on our graves singing "Hallelujah." :-D --[[Special:Contributions/162.158.88.254\|162.158.88.254]] 17:34, 6 November 2016 (UTC)

← Older revision		Revision as of 15:29, 6 November 2016
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	Interesting: there exist two versions of this comic with different size https://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/old_days.png and https://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/old_days_2x.png The latter is used when zooming in on the comic's page --[[Special:Contributions/172.68.51.70\|172.68.51.70]] 19:48, 4 November 2016 (UTC)		Interesting: there exist two versions of this comic with different size https://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/old_days.png and https://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/old_days_2x.png The latter is used when zooming in on the comic's page --[[Special:Contributions/172.68.51.70\|172.68.51.70]] 19:48, 4 November 2016 (UTC)
		+
		+	: This is to allow browsers to show a higher resolution image on screens that support it. For example, on my Mac Retina display, which has 2 screen pixels per CSS pixel in each dimension, the comic I see on xkcd's page looks much crisper than the version here. This is because xkcd is using the <tt>srcset</tt> tag to select the 2x version of the image on high-resolution screens scaled down 50%; or rather, not scaled up by 2x like most other images.
		+
		+	: I think this is the first time xkcd has used this feature. I don't recall seeing it before, and comic 1754 doesn't use it. -- [[Special:Contributions/108.162.246.42\|108.162.246.42]] 15:29, 6 November 2016 (UTC)

	You didn't have to ship the punch cards to a company, but you did have to put them into a queue to be processed, and if you did have a typo or other simple mistake, you'd have to wait to get the output before knowing (which could take days). Most of what she says actually makes sense, it's just not fully accurate. You use to have to manually collect your garbage (making sure you unallocated your memory). You often did have to mix code and assembly (thought not for comments, and would that be // or /* */ or # or...). She also follows computer storage history. So again, not accurate, but it makes sense. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.237.88\|108.162.237.88]] 19:56, 4 November 2016 (UTC)		You didn't have to ship the punch cards to a company, but you did have to put them into a queue to be processed, and if you did have a typo or other simple mistake, you'd have to wait to get the output before knowing (which could take days). Most of what she says actually makes sense, it's just not fully accurate. You use to have to manually collect your garbage (making sure you unallocated your memory). You often did have to mix code and assembly (thought not for comments, and would that be // or /* */ or # or...). She also follows computer storage history. So again, not accurate, but it makes sense. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.237.88\|108.162.237.88]] 19:56, 4 November 2016 (UTC)

← Older revision		Revision as of 13:37, 6 November 2016
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	Is there a parallel here between real life and computing? Panel 3 is like the way people wait until their trashcan's full before throwing it out, and panel 2 could reference how you had to mail things to people in the 'old days' instead of texting them, which takes no time nowadays. So, she's using the things he knows were true in the past (such as texting not existing) to make ridiculous statements which sound believable to him. Not sure about the other panels though. [[User:ExplainBot\|ExplainBot]] ([[User talk:ExplainBot\|talk]]) 15:39, 5 November 2016 (UTC)		Is there a parallel here between real life and computing? Panel 3 is like the way people wait until their trashcan's full before throwing it out, and panel 2 could reference how you had to mail things to people in the 'old days' instead of texting them, which takes no time nowadays. So, she's using the things he knows were true in the past (such as texting not existing) to make ridiculous statements which sound believable to him. Not sure about the other panels though. [[User:ExplainBot\|ExplainBot]] ([[User talk:ExplainBot\|talk]]) 15:39, 5 November 2016 (UTC)
		+
		+	Back in my day, we lived RFC 1149. Y'all got it easy now. scoff --[[Special:Contributions/172.68.78.133\|172.68.78.133]] 13:37, 6 November 2016 (UTC)

@@ Line 1: / Line 1: @@
-**********HACK TODAY AND GET FREE MONEY************
+<!--Please sign your posts with ~~~~-->
-We are hackers, We just succeeded with a new invention. We've got hacked ATM cards for sale. These hacked ATM cards have been programmed to work on any ATM machine. The cards have been topped up with $100,000 With a daily withdrawal of $3000 per day ( depending on how it is programmed ). The cards have got some special features which includes;
+[https://www.ece.cmu.edu/~ganger/712.fall02/papers/p761-thompson.pdf Reflections on Trusting Trust] (pdf), Ken Thompson's acceptance speech for the 1984 Turing Award, in which he discusses creating a backdoor in the C compiler (yes, there was only 1 when he invented the language) that itself creates a second backdoor in the login program when it is compiled. Additionally, it reproduces itself when compiling the C compiler from un-tampered-with source code, so that anyone using the binary (compiled) compiler would be unable to avoid reproducing the backdoor in all its forms. This is the sort of thing that gives security programmers nightmares. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.221.168|108.162.221.168]] 04:52, 4 November 2016 (UTC) (bonsaiviking)
-*Deactivating the CCTV cameras when inserted in the ATM machine,
-* It comes with a 4 digit pin just like every other ATM card,
+The "4-6 weeks" thing might be a reference to high-performance computing, in particular scientific calculations, a few decades back. From what I've heard from older people in my scientific field (I'm too young to have experienced it myself), you'd prepare your program on punch cards, mail these to an institution owning a fast computer (because your group or university didn't have one), and they'd run the program and mail the result back to you. This, I've been told, took a few weeks. Maybe someone with first-hand experience can give more information. [[Special:Contributions/141.101.104.98|141.101.104.98]] 10:34, 4 November 2016 (UTC)
-* It can be topped up when the money in it has been exhausted,
-*It is untraceable and undetected.
+Source Code on Punched Cards: As an undergrad at Durham Uni I remember punching PL1 source code onto cards to be inserted into a batch queue to be compiled and run on an IBM360 at the nearby city of Newcastle, overnight.
-The cards were successfully programmed with the hard-work of our hackers in USA. And they are cloned using a writer (MSR 606).
+[[Special:Contributions/141.101.98.160|141.101.98.160]] 11:57, 4 November 2016 (UTC)
-If you need to get the cards, order one today and it will be shipped to your location. Contact us on to get one..
-SIMPLEHACKERS2@GMAIL.COM
+At the risk of emulating Dilbert's "Topper", I remember at school writing programs on coding sheets (effectively squared paper; one character in each box), which would get sent to the local university, where they would be punched onto cards and run on the mainframe.  The following week, you'd get your coding sheets back, plus the cards and the printout from your batch job.  Then you'd make your corrections, also on coding sheets... [[Special:Contributions/141.101.98.143|141.101.98.143]] 13:35, 4 November 2016 (UTC)
-***********Serious buyers only**********

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 : Punch cards 79-80 in the U.S. for C programming. We did have text editors too for other languages, but we'd punch up and submit decks to a queue for batch processing. Usually only waited minutes (though the when big projects were due, it could take an hour - the bad part was there wasn't any way to stop an infinite loop until the job limit ran out.  We were given so much in "computer dollars" for the class (because the machines were also used for outside work for real money) and you'd have to ask for extra if you used it up. I miss the green bar paper though. [[User:Afbach|Afbach]] ([[User talk:Afbach|talk]]) 18:25, 4 November 2016 (UTC)
-Is there a parallel here between computing and real life? For example, panel 3 mimics real life garbage collection, where you let your trashcan pile up before collection. Similarly, without texting in the 'old days' you would have had to mail stuff to people whereas to do things we can do in seconds now. So she's using his views of the
+Is there a parallel here between computing and real life? For example, panel 3 mimics real life garbage collection, where you let your trashcan pile up before collection. Similarly, without texting in the 'old days' you would have had to mail stuff to people whereas to do things we can do in seconds now. So she's using his views of the {{unsigned|ExplainBot}}
 I think the punched cards explanation is missing the point that C (or any language, that I know) didn't _require_ that it be on punched cards.  I.e. there was nothing in the language specification that prohibited the program from being on paper tape, mag tape, disk, etc. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.74.70|162.158.74.70]] 14:22, 4 November 2016 (UTC)Pat

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	Punch cards did not actually use binary, but a position based coding. Each column (character) had 12 positions where a hole could be punched. Numbers were represented by one hole in the matching numbered row; letters by two holes, one in the upper three row, and one in the lower nine, giving 27 combinations; punctuation and symbols mostly used three holes. I learnt this punching FORTRAN into cards in 1968[[Special:Contributions/141.101.98.232\|141.101.98.232]] 01:14, 5 November 2016 (UTC)		Punch cards did not actually use binary, but a position based coding. Each column (character) had 12 positions where a hole could be punched. Numbers were represented by one hole in the matching numbered row; letters by two holes, one in the upper three row, and one in the lower nine, giving 27 combinations; punctuation and symbols mostly used three holes. I learnt this punching FORTRAN into cards in 1968[[Special:Contributions/141.101.98.232\|141.101.98.232]] 01:14, 5 November 2016 (UTC)

−	Is there a parallel here between real life and computing? Panel 3 is like the way people wait until their trashcan's full before throwing it out, and panel 2 could reference how you had to mail things to people in the 'old days' instead of texting them, which takes no time nowadays. So, she's using the things he knows were true in the past (such as texting not existing) to make statements which sound believable to him. Not sure about the other panels though. [[User:ExplainBot\|ExplainBot]] ([[User talk:ExplainBot\|talk]]) 15:39, 5 November 2016 (UTC)	+	Is there a parallel here between real life and computing? Panel 3 is like the way people wait until their trashcan's full before throwing it out, and panel 2 could reference how you had to mail things to people in the 'old days' instead of texting them, which takes no time nowadays. So, she's using the things he knows were true in the past (such as texting not existing) to make ridiculous statements which sound believable to him. Not sure about the other panels though. [[User:ExplainBot\|ExplainBot]] ([[User talk:ExplainBot\|talk]]) 15:39, 5 November 2016 (UTC)