Text 26601, 84 rader
Skriven 2007-01-11 14:36:00 av George Vandervort (1:382/8)
  Kommentar till text 26557 av Alan Zisman (1:123/789.0)
Ärende: Is SPSS a Real Programing Language?
===========================================
Wednesday January 10 2007 22:42, Alan Zisman wrote to ED VANCE:

<SNIP>

 AZ>
 AZ> In 1974, I started a Masters' program at Montreal's Concordia
 AZ> University... because we were all doing research theses where we had
 AZ> to analyze data, we got access to the 'calculator lab'-- a room full
 AZ> of newly-purchased electronic gadgets each the size of a
 AZ> (then-current) IBM Selectric typewriter. These were four function (+,
 AZ> -, *, /) electronic calculators-- the only difference between these
 AZ> and todays near-throwaway handheld models (aside from size and cost)
 AZ> were that these sported two independent memories... you could store
 AZ> one number in M1, and a different number in M2, and recall them as
 AZ> needed.
 AZ>
 AZ> Pretty cool-- we felt very priviledged-- the undergraduates had to do
 AZ> their calculations with paper and pencil. I hate to think what one of
 AZ> these sold for. But within a very few years, these expensive and
 AZ> cumbersome systems were replaced with much cheaper handheld models.
 AZ>
 AZ> I ended up with more calculations than I could do there, however-- I
 AZ> had to learn to use a punch card machine to create a data set to be
 AZ> analyzed on the mainframe. (For some other data, I was able to use a
 AZ> very early version of SPSS on a time-sharing terminal).
 AZ>
 AZ> --
 AZ> - email: alan (at) zisman (dot) ca
 AZ> - website: http://www.zisman.ca
 AZ>
 AZ> -+- MT-NewsWatcher/3.5.1 (Intel Mac OS X)
 AZ>  + Origin: Ad Hoc (1:123/789.0)

Hello Alan!

My coments are not intended as an Insult to you..

Way back in 1965-66 at Southwest Texas Collage (Now called Texas State
University), as a Business major, I learned Basic, Fortran,Cobal and Machine
language on a Sperry Univac and Deck PDP-11 main frame computer,
using Punch cards and Teletype Data entry..
and later on the University of Texas's BIG Control DATA CDC 6600
Tourus System, that was kind of like the HAL 9000 in the Movie
Most Programs took 100's of Punch Cards, to produce the desired Output from the
Computer, and a Small Typo, or wrong Formula would most often require you to
get a current Printout of your Punch Cards, and hours of Review to ferret out
the Typos or errors in your program..



Now that was real programing..
then in the fall of 1967-68 The Business/Math department had to share
the Mainframe computer department with Political Science and Social Studies
Students that uses "SPSS" to print out 100's of pages of raw data..

The Math and Business Students regarded SPSS as a
"MONKEY" Laguage, much like the old TV comercial for
"JIFFY-POP" Popcorn, that was so easy to POP,
that even a Monkey could do it..

The reason for this ovservation, was that the SPSS Students,
would only have 4 or 5 Punch cards that made up the Core of their
Programing knowledge, that would produce 100's of pages of Raw Data,

Most of the SPSS Students had no Idea of amount of Machine Code, or programing
needed for the Computer to convert their 4-5 Data Request Cards into the 100's
of pages of Data..

in the last 40 years there, they no longer teach Fortran or Cobal,
it mostly C, C++, and several other new laguages..



Regards,
George Vandervort
InterNet EMail: georgev@austin.rr.com
Tech Support: http://home.austin.rr.com/llr/spa/

'Using yesterday's software to create tomorrow's problems today'


... I've been there, done that, got the T-shirt...
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