Early Risers.

[polybear]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-56271478

[J. S. Bach]

2 hours ago, Barry O said:

COBOL.... luckily I was taught to use Fortran IV  ...snip...

Baz

The school that I had attended was going to offer Fortran but I think that not enough students wanted it to justify the teaching of it. I would gladly have taken it.

[Gwiwer]

12 minutes ago, polybear said:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-56271478

The signaller had fun with that as well.  Considered to be a Cat. A. Incident  

 

[simontaylor484]

I did a bit of programming in BASIC and Ms DOS for.My GCSE computer studies back in the early 90's. 

I also used excel word and databases.

 

At Uni i used Me Office and PowerPoint 

[The White Rabbit]

Evening all.

 

A belated Happy Birthday to @Ian Abel - I was called away yesterday before I could finish reading ERs and post. 

 

Having typed a lengthier post a minute ago, it's been lost and I don't have time to retype, sorry. One of those days? 

[Gwiwer]

Just now, simontaylor484 said:

I did a bit of programming in BASIC and Ms DOS for.My GCSE

No such luck here.  I took a high school General Studies course in "Computer Programming" which turned out to be learning how to punch cards in Fortran.  That was all we got.  I had graduated from university before ever seeing a computer and that was a seven-storey office block full of whirring tapes.  The post-grads got one hour a week on the department's terminal; the undergrads got zilch.  The power in those tape reels might have allowed the upload of a little data in the hour but not much else.  However that was the state of play at the time.  

[brianusa]

10 hours ago, Gwiwer said:

Coffee seems to have progressed from "Camp" brand chicory and coffee essence which was all that was in the house when I was very young through the various levels of instant to the far more refined cafetiere

 

I rather think "Camp" was the only coffee for years.  Until people started travelling they never knew differently.  Coffee these days has like wine, a certain snob appeal.  I drink any old wine as long as I like it and it tastes good; the same with coffee, I'm all right with instant Folgers, around the house.  In restaurants, its taken black, at home white with milk and sugar.  Always two lumps, never decaf!

     Brian.

[tigerburnie]

2 hours ago, laurenceb said:

Would not be suprised

On the subject of coffee concidering that C and S are supposed to be standardised wherever you buy then who much they differ in taste. Costa tasts much better in Derby than Burton, Comparitivly speaking

That's because you're drinking the Derwent in Derby and the Trent tinged with beer and Marmite in Burton........................................

[sixoh8sixoh]

10 hours ago, Mike Bellamy said:

 

Mike - sorry I'm late responding to this - have a look at Booklaw publications of Nottingham - they seem to be advertising almost every volume at £9.99 - I think they may now be the publishers ?

 

https://www.booklaw.co.uk/yeadon-registers.html?page=all

 

Many thanks, that’s very much appreciated! I’ve managed to get hold of both K books second hand (expecting the second in the post shortly) but will definitely order from Book Law in future. 
 

Evening all from the wilds beyond the Wall. Most of my day today has been accompanied by the Sound of Sturgeon. I did manage to finish at a reasonable time tonight, and after dinner took Charlie the Labrador for a walk on the beach. 
 

I’m for the most part a really drinker (Yorkshire Tea or Ringtons), but do usually have one cup of coffee a day. Usually it’s a Nespresso capsule latte using the frother, but sometimes it’s cafetière coffee or very occasionally a coffee from one of the stovetop metal pots that produces coffee like tar. 
 

I’m not a fan of Starbucks coffee, always find it a bit burnt tasting, but I’m happy enough with Costa. My preferred coffee is from a little independent coffee shop halfway between home and the office. The owner and his main staff member are lovely and I’m missing getting to call in frequently during lockdown. 

[Northroader]

Scout camp in the 1950s, billy can steaming over the fire, whole bottle of Camp chicory and coffee goes in, stirred round, ladled out into tin mugs, and I become a coffee snob at the age of thirteen.

[monkeysarefun]

3 hours ago, Barry O said:

Lummy

 

COBOL.... luckily I was taught to use Fortran IV and Algol when I started at Uni. We used a brand new DEC System 10. One of my flatmates ended up high in the Windows software structure. He spent hours perfecting a thing called "SOAP" - Secure Obscure Algol Programmes so that you didn't have to remember to included spaces and also ;;;;;; in the right places for your Algol programme to work.  Since then I have dabbled with a variety of software programmes including CUTLASS, SABRE ( Automatic test equipment programmes) Machine code, CSMP (simulation software)  and I can still (just about) create havoc in DOS.

 

The worst bits of software I have ever had to make use of was SAP.. a complete trainwreck in motion...

 

 

Baz

I liked COBOL, it was structured with sections, paragraphs and sentences, it was all  logical like writing an essay or something.

 

Then everything went all object-oriented like C++ which in comparison was like one of those weird Japanese poems that are short and don't rhyme.

Edited March 3, 2021 by monkeysarefun

[tigerburnie]

I used to write and modify plc programs, I could follow STL, but wrote in ladder, we used 5 different manufacturers products which muddied the waters a bit, Allen Bradley was nice to use, Siemens and their obsession with function blocks did however baffle me at times.

[Barry O]

Goodnight all!

Baz

[PhilJ W]

Evening all from Estuary-Land. Had a fair bit of rain this afternoon, soon got rid of the lingering bits of mist.

1 hour ago, polybear said:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-56271478

If it had touched the overhead all nine lives would have gone in a flash. There's one way they could have moved it .

That reminds me of when I lived in Burnham-on-Crouch. My cottage was a Victorian terraced two up/two down with a single story scullery at the back. I was sweeping the yard one day when I espied a ginger tom cat on the roof of my neighbours scullery. He was sunning himself with his back end overhanging the roof displaying his boy bits. In my hands I had a stiff broom and I couldn't resist giving him a nudge with the bristles. I didn't realise a cat could jump six feet in the air from a laying down position. 

[laurenceb]

Wonder how far you would jump if he returned the favour

Edited March 3, 2021 by laurenceb
For Plil JW

[Coombe Barton]

... and unintentional fusion ...

 

https://johncolby.wordpress.com/2021/03/03/a-day-of-some-success/

[Tony_S]

My first experience programming computers was in something called  City and Guilds old code. In 1969 after O levels some of us who were planning to study sciences in the sixth form were sent to the local technical college for a week to “experience’ computers.  At university in 1972 I got about 20 minutes a week to enter programs in KOSBasic which  was Kent online system Basic. 
In the 1980s BBC Basic was used a lot for teaching and hobby. Some 6502 assembler too. Then when I was an advisory teacher various other languages were required for bits of the strange curriculum we used. Logo, Lisp, Prolog and Forth were played with. Pascal was used to teach programming whe I taught in a sixth form college but at the end most student programs were in Visual Basic. I have got a Python manual in a box with a Raspberry Pi but I haven’t done anything with it. 
Tony

[Erichill16]

Evening All,

Bit of phoning around today and emailing. Took Sydney for a walk then after tea I watched the mighty Reds win their six league win on the trot. Then watched interesting tv program on Chernobyl. As a result I’ve not been able to read the news on here but hope everyone’s ok and there’s been no catastrophes.

Goodnight,

Robert

[tigerburnie]

G'night all

[laurenceb]

Night awl

[PhilJ W]

Goodnight all.

[Winslow Boy]

31 minutes ago, Erichill16 said:

Evening All,

Bit of phoning around today and emailing. Took Sydney for a walk then after tea I watched the mighty Reds win their six league win on the trot. Then watched interesting tv program on Chernobyl. As a result I’ve not been able to read the news on here but hope everyone’s ok and there’s been no catastrophes.

Goodnight,

Robert

It all depends on what you think is a catastrophes.

[andyram]

Evening all.  Another late check in with generic good wishes, congrats and commiserations as appropriate. Sadly, as outlined in earlier posts, the search for Sony’s much sought after games console again proved fruitless. I note the comments of some on here about “marketing”. I have been involved with buying consoles for over 30 years. There are always issues with supplies of any brand new games console. They simply cannot make enough for the demand. The pandemic has certainly made things worse in terms of supply and the ability for customers to order them.  The websites simply cannot cope with the traffic. It has produced a much more difficult situation, probably increased by some wanting them sooner than normal because of the lockdowns.  I usually hold off for at least six months to let the demand ease, usually not purchasing until May or a June. The lockdown and Sarah offering to buy it for Christmas has meant I am amongst those looking to purchase early. The chances are it could well be May and June before I do get my hands on one.

 

 Back to things which many more ER’s will relate to, I have heard from the advertising team of Hornby Magazine. As expected, they were full of apologies for their error and have refunded the price of the advert. They have managed to change it to the correct ad for the digital version of the magazine.  That is as much as they could have done. It is another cause of frustration however because it does reduce the publicity of the special offer.

 

 Back at home, Amber has started to make an effort to make up for her actions yesterday. She has accepted that she did the wrong thing. Home schooling was completed in good time and to a good standard. She has made a start on the tidying up too. Long may it continue.

 

Stay safe.

 

Andy

[Ozexpatriate]

1 hour ago, PhilJ W said:

If it had touched the overhead all nine lives would have gone in a flash.

At university I had a summer job with the local electricity generating board. At that time, most of the work done by the department I was in was related to getting the most out of transformers in large substations by adding cooling fans and there were a lot of on-site visits.

 

The engineers were keen to show off the incinerated cat paws and legs fused to two adjacent high voltage* lines close to a transformer. Other locations had fused bird claws and legs. Obviously it was impossible to clean these lines without deenergizing the lines, taking the substation down for maintenance.

 

* I don't recall the voltage. There's a good chance it was 110kV.

[The Stationmaster]

G'night all