Z(1) = Y + W(1)

A #Fortran Statement in this #Vintage #computing input device.

The famous “punched cards”, which each cold hold 80 characters or one line of programming instructions or data for processing.

I learned this language, and created my assignments in decks of those cards.

Back in November, when I was starting in mastodon, we had a delightful thread about it, which included this image. @k11m1 — see it here

#QotoJournal #History #Technology #Programming

May 17, 2020, 8:32 PM <!—more—>

Programming, can be Fun or Frustrating

A more recent conversation, which started naturally once I saw Klimi's post :

My response to this simple statement was a long reply, which I thoroughly enjoyed writing, and now forms the body of this page.

Getting it Right on the First Try ?

LOL...

It is not impossible, but it takes a lot of concentration, and hopefully a smaller programme to work with.

When I first learned, we did not have access to computers directly at all; that was reserved for the high priesthood, serving the needs and whims of the large, school gym sized computer center. We students would create our programmes, that had to do some task assigned by profs.

Making my own Deck — IBM model 29 :

And later get the lines of code ready for input — punch cards for us. I did my own punching, found a quiet room with a machine in the Physics department, little used, and would go there to prepare my deck,

Because testing was laborious (revisions equaling new cards needed, finding a punch, etc) we tried the best we could to read and follow the logic.

But I think getting it bug free in 3 passes was good, very good.

20 Years Later...

Fast forward many years, and me teaching BASIC programming; my students were bright, did well, but they found it quite hard to create a small programme in paper only (without trying to run and see what happens, to find the errors).

This was good for discipline, but it is less common. They whined every time I called for a pencil and paper only task, lol....😺

And it continued :

@k11m1 Yeah, it was something that was needed when computing power was a precious resource, much less common, and we needed to conserve it.

Good things resulted from that – people created solutions to enable remote access, shared systems, one large machine that processed tasks from many people or departments; scheduling, so you could slot a job for some late hour when there were less people around.

Following the logic is a good thing, as you write line by line, it should make sense, and flow — or else, why did you use that line, and the next?

There are pesky typos that break things, but other than those small input errors, the code should be understandable and make sense.

Someone else might have to work on it someday, and that will make their job easier and faster too.

Programming Languages Evolved from Needs

Back in time programming languages were developed to cater to some specific need or group of users; making it easier to create the projects they needed.

We used Fortran, which is Formula Translation; it was created for Science and Engineering students and professionals.

I had a room mate who was in the Math department, we were both 1st year students, had the same Profs (from Math department), and the same assignments.

But his class used another language, called Algol – which was a better fit for Math people's needs.

We enjoyed comparing the finished results of our assignments; quite simply, we looked at the thickness of each other's stack of cards. Sometimes, Algol would win (win being a smaller deck, less processing time), other times Fortran got it. 😄

My First Computer was a Burroughs 5500

It was my first time ever seeing and working with a computer — a mammoth Burroughs 5500 mainframe, and I loved every aspect of it.

Over time, I observed that I could tell right away when something was broken in a new project.

• When I had my source code written up, the next step was to hand it in, for a pool of secretaries who would prepare our cards, overnight. Or find a spare IBM punch machine somewhere (my preferred, faster route).
• Got the cards? Processing time! Go to the computing center, and get in line with other students with their own decks; we lined up outside, in front of a room that contained a card reader (input) and a large printer (output). This was a smaller room, wired to the computer next door which was all air conditioned to around 18 degrees Celsius year around.
• The card reader had two doors, it's own Input and Output of student processing; in via one, hand in the deck, watch it be read, get a printout, out via the other door.
• As the deck was handed in and loaded into the card reader, we stood watching, hoping for a good run. Any result would produce a paper printout, those continuous paper forms. Many times, it was a report of an error at some point.
• processing took some seconds; and I noticed that success or failure was indicated by the card reader behaviour; a perfect program would pass thru the reader in linear fashion, smooth flow. I got excited, maybe this time it's all Good!!
• I also noticed that hesitations in the stack flow indicated errors; it would stop at some card, pause or a few seconds, Bad sign! 😔 Soon it would resume, a short report printed, and a more or less dejected student headed out door #2.

...to go back to his desk, his notes and code write up. Read the report (quite cryptic usually), and trace thru the programme to find what was wrong.

Smooth Flow is Good News

Getting a smooth card reader flow was an instant sign I might have made it – and at best happened at the 3rd try or so (worse sometimes, in harder jobs or if you weren't focused enough).

Some great work was done in developing whole languages to be used for teaching Programming, like Pascal — good habits would carry on into a professional's work life, and be appreciated by anyone working with this person, or later maintaining their legacy code.

#QotoJournal #History #Technology #Programming #Retro #IT

And Klimi enjoyed it. 😺

Thank you, I enjoy writing a lot.

And this could be developed into a new Blog post easily, a thought that occurred to me as I wrote it too. Another motivation for going in length.

I have a couple of favourite Blog posts that started this way, as a Toot or a series of them, and were so interesting that a Blog page was next. :)

I am having many ideas for Blogging again, hope it does come; just got to clear my head, jot down notes and fire up the tools. Appreciate the comment, which means a lot. 😄

Some Articles about Punched Cards and Computing :

While searching for the references in the next session of this page, I came across a wonderful list of articles. At the must-visit Computer History Museum, located in Mountain View, California.

Location

Computer History Museum 1401 N. Shoreline Blvd. Mountain View, CA 94043

About 100 Kilometers south of beautiful San Francisco, and very near the GooglePlex, the giant company headquarters which I suggest as a second attraction to visit if you find yourself in this region. The Museum is breath taking, wonderful, get there early as there's much to see.

Reference Articles from CHM :

• Punched Cards & Paper Tape

• The Punched Card's Pedigree

• An Empire Built on Punched Cards

• A Scientific Census

References — Keywords used in this Article

a. FORTRAN :

Fortran is a general-purpose, compiled imperative programming language that is especially suited to numeric computation and scientific computing. Originally developed by IBM in the 1950s for scientific and engineering applications, FORTRAN came to dominate this area of programming early on and has been in continuous use for over six decades in computationally intensive areas such as numerical weather prediction, finite element analysis, etc. Wikipedia page

b. BASIC :

BASIC is a family of general-purpose, high-level programming languages whose design philosophy emphasizes ease of use. The original version was designed by John G. Kemeny and Thomas E. Kurtz and released at Dartmouth College in 1964. They wanted to enable students in fields other than science and mathematics to use computers. Wikipedia page

c. Punched Cards :

A punched card or punch card is a piece of stiff paper that can be used to contain digital data represented by the presence or absence of holes in predefined positions. Digital data can be used for data processing applications or used to directly control automated machinery. Wikipedia page

d. ALGOL :

ALGOL is a family of imperative computer programming languages originally developed in 1958. ALGOL heavily influenced many other languages and was the standard method for algorithm description used by the Association for Computing Machinery in textbooks and academic sources until object-oriented languages came around, for more than thirty years. Wikipedia page

e. Burroughs 5500 :

The Burroughs 5500 was a unique machine, first introduced in 1961 as the B5000. Later advanced to the B5500 (1964) adding disks and finally the B5700 (1971) adding solid state drum. It was the first computer to use the stack as its only means of accessing data. The Burrows 5500 article, Sky Visions Burrows 5500 computer Brochure, Computing History Museum

f. IBM model 29 Card Punch :

The IBM 29 Card Punch (also called the 029 or Type 029 Key Punch or Keypunch), introduced about 1964 to coincide with the introduction of the IBM 360. Available in nine models with various combinations of keyboard (12-key numeric or 64-key alphanumeric)... Columbia University page IBM model 29 video YT

g. PASCAL :

Pascal, a computer programming language developed about 1970 by Niklaus Wirth of Switzerland to teach structured programming, which emphasizes the orderly use of conditional and loop control structures without GOTO statements. Although Pascal resembled ALGOL in notation, it provided the ability to define data types with which to organize complex information. Encyclopedia Britannica page

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Intro

To love is sometimes to let go, respect someone's need to be out and observe, marvel at so much the world has to offer. Sometimes people have a hard time accepting that, while part of a community, or in a closer relationship with someone, all humans have curiosity and it's rich to see and let it blossom.

I offer this post to my friend Coralie, we met very recently, and yet she has such a sensibility, that it saw deeply into my heart and soul.

Yesterday she surprised me, messaging privately and offering a comment that delighted me — that she could perceive my inner nature so clearly. <!—more—>

It closely related to the theme of this page. A toot, written from the hip, not polished or edited but coming from inside, prose flowing. A response to the local system administrator, which sometimes shows concern about my wanderings all over the Fediverse.

This morning, she favourited and boosted it – which brought it into my notifications and a re-read confirms it's poetic, and should be published. To Coralie, I offer this.

Thanks dear friend.

“One sees clearly only with the heart. Anything essential is invisible to the eyes.” — Antoine de Saint Exupery

And so I wrote.

Well done, very good.

And excellent work on implementing that feature, new in non-Japanese instances (in Nippon they created that for Misskey).

I was honoured that you pursued this feature to serve my own nomad lifestyle, lol, but I need the real thing, to join and post as a Local in any instance I am interested it is my modus-operandi.

Thanks to the power and flexibility of the great Pinafore client for Fediverse, each of my current 11 or so instances are ONE click away; I do keep various tabs of Pinafore open, with the most frequently used instances loaded in each.

As I have stated and explained before, this is a personal choice, for a inquiring mind and mid to advanced level users. Not for the average user, who is better served by locating one good instance and staying with it.

Qoto.org has many good things, and that is the reason I volunteer and put many hours and thousands of posts here.

But that's only one side of me; and I have interests that make having various accounts desirable; and I act on them, as you know.

This morning I am connected and actively communicating from 3 instances atm; each with a focus and local feature set that makes it interesting and useful.

But the feature you are referring to, and which got endorsed by a well created poll, is not an important one for me (reasons stated above).

Getting a better software instance is Number one — I am moving to Glitch-Social instances as much as possible. Pleroma awaits a thorough evaluation, which I plan to publish in my Blog.

Enhanced text formatting is so satisfying that I dread anytime I post something significant — like this very post, which I will use as part of a Blog, real soon — in an instance which doesn't offer me that.

I remain a user here, but Nomad is my heart.

Muensterland.Social – a new Instance joined

#FediReporter #WriteFreely #Nomad #Culture #Instances #QotoJournal #KoyuJournal

in response to a system admin post.

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We are always looking for Talent.

A transcription of a Long Form Toot earlier this morning, fully composed on the fly, in my toot Editor at my main Mastodon instance.

Very lightly edited for Blog publishing, adding links and references only, content was ready. The views in the post are my own, but I believe they reflect the values which make our instance a vibrant and pleasant place to be in. <!—more—>

Leadership :

We at Qoto are always scouting for new Talent, and open to suggestions, comments.

Adding new Staff members is good for all communities — it's a labour of love, we do it for the fun, the pleasure of seeing things growing up, a nice social climate growing.

I would like to invite any Active user here at Qoto (or in the Fediverse at large, if you decided to join us) to consider if they would like to help.

• Collaborators are one of the levels I see as important in user's participation in any community. While not in a formal administrative role, Collaborators are recognized for the quality of their posts, interactions.

All communities depend on users participation — otherwise you would be building static web pages and publishing your own content, like a Blog for example.

The Role of Moderators :

• Moderation staff, in my opinion, should be active members, who personally produce content and interact with the local membership to enhance a positive climate.

It's not a Cop on the Beat job, although sometimes we have to perform the duties of judging content and deciding what action if could require, or not.

iv. What makes a good Moderator? Ideally a stable and pondered person, capable of communicating clearly and actively present in the community.

The job of a Moderator is, in my personal view, more than simply keeping an eye out for unacceptable behaviour or content. But any Staff member in a site should be interested in it, a content producer and community builder him/herself.”

Any user can contribute to the site

...through their posts and added content, thru their interaction with others. I find the size of the community ideal, we don't have a huge crowd or overwhelming numbers of new posts.

We all can help:

• say hello to a new user, when they post that first toot. I remember it, mine was just a month ago, this mastodon thing totally new to me. And I also remember receiving a welcome message from the administrator, which is not something you see in many larger places.
• keep an eye out for unwanted posts (for example, as per site rules, porn, open advertising, any spamming, etc). Use the Report button at the bottom of the post, and send in a report to Staff.
• respond to other user threads, even a small comment is encouraging. It's sad to see someone put the effort to create a nice post, well written, with additional info link(s), maybe image(s) —– and see that post sit, ignored. It's disheartening but sadly common.
• make the place feel like a collegial, friendly place to be, which we enjoy spending our time in.

Additional Reflections :

I wrote my own personal reflections back in late November, 2019, about the role of an active user and aspiring leadership candidate. At the time, I was being nominated to the December 2019 Moderator Nominations at Qoto.org.

It's a Long Form page, of course; (1,023 words 6,374 characters). I don't post bare URLs or video links much, Words are my passion.

If interested, take a look at :

Moderator Nomination – My Personal Views

#rgxJournal #QotoJournal #Qoto #Leadership

Page banner image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay

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I have been thinking about a new and better Instance.

And a small snapshot of my busy Tabs list in #Waterfox browser shows that I really was looking for some good GlitchSocial instances.

Found a nice one, here. Muensterland.social came up in my search, from one of those tabs in the header banner.

Thank you, 🐘nipos@muensterland.social ! 😺

#MarkDown love for me. #xp #glitchsocial <!—more—>

How did I find it ?

One of the search tabs I had open (quite hard to locate a List of GlitchSocial instances, when you need one), showed a page which is Nick's Blog and mentioned this new mastodon service he was bringing online.

This whole page is based on a conversation yesterday at Qoto's timeline. Lightly edited for clarity and formatting, adding links, etc.

Crossposting — Gone Wild...

The Funniest part of this — for me anyways, was HOW did this end up here, at Qoto, OMG ??

Not intentional, at all; post was created at a remote new instance, a brand new account. But for good in the end; I am REALLY committed to leaving Mastodon behind and moving to better platforms.

GlitchSocial is one, Pleroma is another, I have accounts in BOTH types of instances, and love their added features, design improvements, and many, many new things.

The Pleroma FE (front end, or user interface — Intro Guide here) is a bit unusual for a mastodon user – but it HAS a second choice of Client; many pleroma instances have the GlitchSocial Web client as an option, sometimes as a link in their Front pages even.

For those of us who like to Read The Friendly Manual, there's a detailed Pleroma FE Guide here.

These notes now appear in a polished Web Magazine here. I developed various pages as extensions of toots and conversations had in various instances; one of the reasons I love having various accounts and always looking for interesting ones to try. #FediReporter I am...

So How did this post end up here, unexpectedly ?

The real screenshot snippet in OP above is just part of the Tabs Overload in my current browser (#Waterfox Current always).

And I HAD been intensively searching for a list (non-existant, afaik) of GlitchSocial instances. They tend to be blended in with generic mastodon ones (no thanks), so it was quite a chore.

[ parenthesis : I will provide that as soon as possible, there is a need ]

And then, what happened ?

My search went into late last night.

• By that time I had found a nice one, created an account and started trying things out.
• Looking good, the basics taken care or, some notes and screenshots saved.
• off to bed, near 3 am.
• Hello again, coffee and we get into it. Configuring a crossposter for the new account, next...

Crossposting ?

Yep. As in, moving posts and content from one network to another. I do enjoy that, there's no denying that there's GOOD stuff in every one. Some are plagued by bad actors, arses and other undesirables.

But, there's The Economist, BBC News, Scientific American, The Guardian and NY Times —– full feeds with quality content I love. Plus, Cats. Lots. of. Cats...

All of those I can chose to share with #fedi friends; easy, with a crossposter.

• for this, my Qoto.org account, I use Moa Bridge, as it is agnostic and doesn't mind my instance name. Recommended for #qoto people. Simple and barebones, functional, a little less explained than the other options.
  

And another, better alternative ;

• if your instance is NOT objected by the hosting instance, a BETTER and EASIER to configure tool is available – the awesome Crossposter, created by Renato Lond at his Brazilian instance.

Rightfully seen as a top notch tool, it has all the controls, works magnificently, fast and has PRETTIER output. Yep. I love it, and use it if the account is acceptable.

There are possibly others, and I welcome suggestions and reports from their users, if desired.

And HOW did it get here ?

...that OP above ? Yeah, you see, you can configure your crossposter of choice to use a Keyword.

• Moa defaults to '#moa' and '#xp'. The shorter one is easy-peasy to remember and only takes 3 chars on the freaking limited Twitter char count. So, I of course use it.

• Renato's tool allows your choice of keywords (yeay for user friendliness!). Since I am always busy, '#xp' is a nice one. Ooops.

...that explains, the surprise appearance of this OP above, here at Qoto.

Woot ?

...was my first response on getting a reply notification to it — I hadn't posted it at Qoto.org, or intended to.

• but the original post at Muensterland.social , had the #xp tag. Intended to bring it into Twitter, which I intended to.
• regardless of my forgetting, Moa is watching for that tag too, and bam! wham! off to Qoto it goes, when it shows in my Twitter stream.

Moral of the Story – be careful with your keywords, as unexpected results do occur.

A revision is in order, after which I will copy and make this into Today's Web Magazine post.

At your friendly #FediReporter home at TeDomum

#QotoJournal #webstories #Fediverse #Culture

#WordCount : 958 words, 7,051 characters used. Thank you qoto.org for a HIGH limit allowance.

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R.G. @rgx@muensterland.social ^—top of page

Have been thinking about new and better Instance. [Part 2]

This morning, I wrote this Toot at a new instance, which I found and registered at late last night.

And picture of my busy Tabs list in #Waterfox browser showed that I really was looking for some good GlitchSocial instances.

Found a nice one, here. Muensterland.social came up in my search, from one of those tabs in the header banner.

Thank you, 🐘nipos@muensterland.social ! 😺

#MarkDown love for me. #xp #glitchsocial <!—more—>

Glitch-Social — Instances List is Needed!

I HAD been intensively searching for a list (non-existant, afaik) of GlitchSocial instances. They tend to be blended in with generic mastodon ones (no thanks), so it was quite a chore.

[ parenthesis : I WILL provide that as soon as possible, there is a need ]

And then, what happened ?

My search went into late last night.

• By that time I had found a nice one, created an account and started trying things out.
• Looking good, the basics taken care or, some notes and screenshots saved.
• off to bed, near 3 am. A few hours of sleep and...
• Hello again, coffee and we get back into it.

Now I am writing this page, to document and describe not only the process, but mainly the Why — the reasons which lead me to look for alternatives in Fediverse, what they can offer, etc.

Why look for a change?

I am REALLY committed to leaving Mastodon behind and moving to better platforms.

GlitchSocial is one, Pleroma is another, I have accounts in BOTH types of instances, and love their added features, design improvements, and many, many new things.

The Pleroma FE (front end, or user interface — Intro Guide here) is a bit unusual for a mastodon user – but it HAS a second choice of Client; many pleroma instances have the GlitchSocial Web client as an option, sometimes as a link in their Front pages even.

For those of us who like to Read The Friendly Manual, there's a detailed Pleroma FE Guide here.

These notes now appear in a polished Web Magazine here. I developed various pages as extensions of toots and conversations had in various instances; one of the reasons I love having various accounts and always looking for interesting ones to try. #FediReporter I am...

How did I find it ?

One of the search tabs I had open (quite hard to locate a List of GlitchSocial instances, when you need one), showed a page which is Nick's Blog and mentioned this new mastodon service he was bringing online.

Got my attention, quickly! Lots to like...

We had planned putting online a new Mastodon instance for a long time but then we saw that a small German instance would go offline soon and decided to take it over.

Continuing an existing service and making sure that all existing users don't lose their digital home is much better than creating a completely new service out of the nothing.

You can find the instance at Muensterland.social but it's mainly meant for people near Muenster and most posts are in German.

Interesting — a thoughful admin is important, and he seems a good one. And it gets Better.

Using GlitchSocial and allowing 5,000 characters for Toots!

The instance runs with the GlitchSocial software (Git repo) which is a fork of Mastodon which allows more settings for users as well as server admin.

For example GlitchSoc makes the 5000 chars limit instead of 500 chars possible [the usual and pesky Mastodon limit] and that's important for having real conversations and not just a short message.

Wow. To have support for larger Toots and messages is ESSENTIAL for my self expression. I have campaigned for about 6 months now, and it's an uphill battle, to tell you the Truth. Why?

• Many of the senior developers in the Mastodon project, starting with Eugen R. himself, came from Twitter.
• The cramped 144 characters there forced users to adapt and try to find clever ways to instill meaning in those miserable spaces.
• As it's prone to happen, people will adapt and thrive, somewhat, even in sh1ty conditions.
• Case in point, all those old TwitterHeads who can't understand why 500 chars is not sufficient. Freak, it's 3 times the TW limit!

My Response to that? Screw your 500 Hard Limit!

Ha, ha, ha, thanks God and some illuminated beings, we DO have instances in mastodon and elsewhere that DO allow more than 500 Characters. Qoto.org has 65,535 characters max limit, a generous allowance even for a very verbal writer.

( I have personally used up about 5,000 tops, I would say. In extreme cases, so this limit is a God-send, yes please. )

And then, the Closer :

A few lines down, this gem :

Additionally we do now have a #Halcyon instance at web.Muensterland.social so you can use it with the easy and beautiful design of Twitter.

Muensterland.social runs on a HP ProLiant DL380 G6 server with two Intel Xeon Quad Core CPUs,32GB memory and 4x72GB RAID5 HDDs so there is still much space for new users.

For a geek like me, the server description was saliva inducing. OMG. I want in, thank you!

Halcyon's Client — Main Features :

Nick is using the well-regarded Halcyon mastodon and Pleroma client. A screenshot below (reduced in size) shows Eugen's account at Mastodon.social as rendered in Halcyon. [img source – Halcyon]

From the homepage for Halcyon :

• It looks like Twitters user interface which you may already know
• It supports custom character limits of Pleroma and modded Mastodon instances
• It supports custom emojis in posts and user names and has a emoji picker
• It's completely free of advertisements and trackers
• It's open source – You can help adding features you're missing
• It has full support for the lists feature including create/edit/delete
• It has full support for the filters – Also from other clients
• There are dozens of free Halcyon instances – No single point of failure
• Halcyon is available in many different languages – Currently 9
• Who to follow feature to easily find other users with similar interests
• Supports different media files like GIFs,videos or audio files
• Privacy friendly players for content from YouTube,Vimeo and Peertube

Looks good, and can be tried without hassle or expense.

Halcyon's Additional Resources :

• List of free Halcyon instances you can use.
• Git instance for the project
• Nick's personal account and projects page

Famous Last Words :

I would like to sincerely thank all the dedicated people who put in a lot of effort, time and resources in providing us all the Software, the Instances and Content for the Fediverse.

It's thanks to them that we can enjoy a rich experience, the freedom to move and find communities we enjoy, and the ability to ignore or even shut the door in the varied annoyances that Internet living has those days (a subject to another post, another day).

Please visit and see new content at your friendly #FediReporter home at TeDomum.net

Originally partially posted at Qoto.org, with many thanks for excellent services and a refined user experience.

#wordCount : 1333 words, 8,021 characters used. Thank you qoto.org for a HIGH limit allowance. [note that this is the actual MarkDown source for this page, and includes tons of URLs and Formatting code.]

#QotoJournal #webstories #Fediverse #Culture

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