[univacky]

Filenames? We used to DREAM of having filenames!

Writing COBOL on the UNIVAC 490 series (30 bit word, FIELDATA character set), our files were on tapes. A tape request was submitted to the tape library, they would pull the tape(s) containing your file(s), and deliver them to the operations floor.

The customer would submit hand-written transactions, which would be sent to the keypunchers, who would punch them onto cards.

The tapes and transaction cards would be sent to the ops floor (where there was the actual computer). The operator would load the first tape in each file onto a UNISERVO tape drive, and go to the patch panel to run wires to assign logical devices to physical devices. ( https://www.computerhistory.org/collections/catalog/10266686... see page 57)

Then they would put the job deck into the card reader and enter the "UR" (read the Unit Record device) command into the console, which had a spool of paper, not a screen. When the program was awaiting input, they would load the transaction cards and give the console command to continue the program.

We did have a fearsome beast of a FASTRAND drum system for random-access storage, but that was just for executable code and temporary files.

Then you might well get called in the middle of the night, because one of the programs in the job aborted. They called it "aborted" then. Or ABEND (ABnormal END), if you were an IBM person. You would come in, read the core dump (reading core dumps was a valuable skill), and determine that there was a data problem in a transaction (e.g. an alpha character in a numeric field). You would find the offending card, pull it, tear it in half and set it aside to be addressed in the morning as a missing transaction, and tell ops to rerun the job. With luck, there were no bad cards after that one.

Tell that to kids today, and they won't believe you.

[zozbot234]

> ... ABEND ...

Sorry, I don't know German.

[deadbeeves]

Luxury.