In a message dated 10/25/06 3:14:21 PM US Mountain Standard Time,
mikeaber@swbell.net writes:
···
I feel your pain! My first mainframe computer was a Honeywell with a
whopping 8-meg (no disks, just tape). "JCL" was keyed in through
octal buttons..there was no typewriter console let alone a CRT
(Cathode Ray Tube or monitor for you youngsters <smile>.)
****
One must define acronyms on first use, just to be polite. This should happen
in any context. But in 1970's competereeze, "JCL" means Job Control
Language in IBM.
It is basically a definition of the underlying requests for computer
resourses. It could be memory, how it is stored, time for computation...or alot of
other stuff. Don't goof this one up either. What was that "//**" or **//" to
earmark JCL? We don't even think about this one anymore!
Octal- means in groups of eight...counting by eights. The number 11 in octal
means 9 in decimal. The number 11 in binary means 3 in decimal.
****
We would have been better off in our current society if we only had eight
fingers and toes. Digital would be easier to teach the youngsters, with the base
2 concept. Base ten is not easy to convert to a computereeze...a
binary-octal-hexidecimal type counting system.
BS
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