Mainframe COBOL » computer science

What we miss about MIS: Old-school ideas that weren’t so bad

Mike — Sat, 02 Oct 2010 03:14:49 +0000

Back before the age of the PC, men in computer science — and they were almost always men — wearing white shirts, ties and pocket protectors spent their days punching data requests onto cards.

This was the highly specialized, highly centralized computing environment of the day, centered on machines like the IBM System/360, launched in 1964. The System/360 was programmed with punch cards (formally called Hollerith cards, named for Herman Hollerith, who invented them in 1887 for use in census tabulating and started a company that would lead to the formation of IBM).

IBM Gives Schools Discounts on Power Systems Iron

Mike — Tue, 21 Sep 2010 00:57:56 +0000

When any server maker gets its systems installed at educational institutions to run their back office operations, there are secondary and potentially huge effects that come from that school using those machines. For one thing, if the school partitions some of the machine to have it be used as a resource for students who are taking computer science or engineering courses, as was the case at my alma mater, Penn State, then a new breed of potential customers learns on your box. And that helps grease a sale down the road.

This was one of the reasons why the Penn State engineering labs were packed to the rafters with DEC VAXen minis and Sun Microsystems workstations when I was there, and the compsci department taught COBOL and Fortran on a pretty hefty IBM 3080 mainframe. This is also why Unix took off in academia and then moved into the data center, and how two three decades later, Linux did the same thing. The familiarity with Windows on the desktop 15 years ago is how Windows made its way into data centers from a slightly different angle. Familiarity does not breed contempt–all users have contempt for most systems–but it does breed comfort of a sort. The beast you know is better than the beast you don’t.

What is the difference between “technology” and “engineering” majors?

Mike — Sun, 07 Feb 2010 00:32:05 +0000

What the difference between:

Computer networking technology
Computer programming technology
Computer science
Computer Engineering Technology

Cobol is mainly for business and FORTRAN is usually for engineering programs. As a programmer your outlook isn’t looking to great in my opinion. MORE