Posted by Mike on Saturday, September 4, 2010 - 10 views
To upgrade or not to upgrade? That is the question facing many state governments and their computer systems.
It’s a dilemma that hasn’t been made any easier by two recent examples on opposite sides of the country.
After a week when a data storage failure in a relatively new statewide system created havoc for Virginia state agencies, the final three agencies – including the 74 branches of the Department of Motor Vehicles – are expected to resume services today.
“The crash – still baffling to state officials – exposes the vulnerability of modern, massively complex interconnected computer networks,” writes the Washington Post today.
READ MORE
Posted by Mike on Wednesday, July 7, 2010 - 204 views
A techie shares experiences from working at a university’s computer consulting office
Programming pranks
When I first started working in the consulting office, one of our regular clients was a staff member, a programmer who happened to be blind. He programmed in PL/1 and Cobol, which, as the old-timers will remember, could be quite verbose. He would show up with a hundred-page printout and ask for help in debugging it. I would read the printout and we would carry on a discussion of the logic and so on. He seemed to have his entire program memorized, because he of course could not read it, yet he knew every line of code. I was amazed.
READ MORE
Posted by Mike on Friday, June 4, 2010 - 393 views
KNOXVILLE — The University of Tennessee Office of Information Technology (OIT) will shut down the university’s IBM mainframe computer next year as its last major application, the Student Information System (SIS), is replaced with the new Banner Online Services system.
The IBM mainframe, online since the late 1960s, will be powered down and removed from use once Banner Online Services is up and running. The target date for the mainframe’s removal is June 2011.
READ MORE
Posted by Mike on Friday, May 28, 2010 - 265 views
A meeting at the Pentagon lays the foundations for the computer language that will later be known as COBOL, which goes on to become a … READ MORE
Comments:
Filed Under: cobol
Posted by Mike on Saturday, May 15, 2010 - 125 views
With their bulky frames and snub noses, the shuttles, like the giant mainframe computers used in their development, are relics of a much earlier stop on the … READ MORE
Posted by Mike on Friday, March 19, 2010 - 189 views
Unfortunately, you couldn’t play it unless you had access to a mainframe computer. How did electronic games make the leap from mainframe to mainstream? … READ MORE
Posted by Mike on Monday, February 1, 2010 - 131 views
Most of you are never going to write a program C, C++ or COBOL in your lifetime. I would not advise against learning them though. After you know something … MORE
Comments:
Filed Under: cobol
Posted by Mike on Monday, January 18, 2010 - 205 views
Old-timers may notice a resemblance to the mainframe time-share systems of yesteryear. In many respects, it appears that the computer services delivery …
MORE
