UPDATE: The winner is…Debra Guyette!
*~*~*
Yesterday was Chemo Day—the third round. It’s funny; I almost looked forward to it—or at least I wasn’t filled with dread or fear. I know it’s the beginning of a miserable week, but I don’t even dread that. Not yet. I’ll probably rethink it on Wednesday or Thursday when the deep muscle and joint aches begin—but I have some good drugs to help with that. 🙂
Anyway, I came home from chemo, which ended at 3 PM, and headed straight to bed. Other than getting up for dinner or walks to the bathroom, I slept all the way until 3 AM this morning, and I’ve been up since, on a roll. I puttered picking up things, and even dusted my desktop (a huge chore given all the crap I have on the surface).
Then, I turned my attention to what to do with my blog today—since I def feel up to it.
I love quirky, obscure holidays, and today is an important obscure one. It’s Ada Lovelace Day!
Who is Ada? From the website Time and Date: “Ada Lovelace was an English mathematician who worked with Charles Babbage on his calculating engine, called the Analytical Engine. Her plan to calculate Bernoulli numbers using the engine is now widely considered as the world’s first computer program. In 1980, the United States Department of Defense created a programming language and named it Ada in honor of Ada Lovelace’s contribution to the world of computing.”
I remember when the ADA programming language was a thing back in the day. I remember, too, the state of computers back when I was new to the Army. In fact, during my summer ROTC training before I graduated from college, I was selected to be part of a team that went to an Army base to evaluate an exercise the active duty units there were undergoing. Our job was to shadow and assist the active Army observers. We were the ones entrusted to gather their observations and put them together into a single, extensive report. We were given access to a computer to write up the report—beginning after duty hours so we didn’t disrupt the people who worked there during the day. I was assigned the job of typing up all those reports, editing, then printing out the report (my first editing job, y’all). The computer sent the book to a printer that spit out hundreds of punch cards that looked like the picture above. The others had to take that stack and walk it to another device that read the cards then produced the written report. All those cards had to be kept in order so two people carried it, one holding the cards from the ends and the other supporting it so it didn’t fall to the floor. If you had one card out of order, you had to reprint the entire thing. If they (the active duty folks) decided to make changes to the report you had to repeat the entire process again.
Still, I thought how cool was it that we were able to type up a report, making changes along the way, and we didn’t have to retype the entire thing. It did save labor on that end. LOL
A few years later, I was assigned to work on the general’s staff at Fort Gordon (now, Fort Eisenhower), Georgia and we actually had an internal email system that connected the staff to all the heads of different organizations on the post. So much progress in so few years. Shortly after that, I bought my first computer, a Radio Shack TRS-80, and I was the first on my block to own a personal computer. I had to learn a smattering of code to work it, but that was just part of the adventure!
Today? We all take for granted the innovations. Back then, we felt like we would soon be living in the Jetson’s future.
Anyway, sorry for the long post. Have fun with the puzzle. Solve the puzzle then tell me about any computer innovation that amazed you for a chance to win a $5 Amazon gift card!
Comment
Actually being able to do games and puzzles online amazes me. It is easier when you know what to expect. I hope you continue to do as well as you can. Now I am off to Meet Milton.
Comment
Debra! Good luck with the storm. I’ll be thinking about you!
Comment
Oh my! So many. Way back then, I found myself married to a programmer. When whatever company he worked for upgraded their computers, the old ones were sent home with the programmer. Consequently, we had a “home” computer very early on. Early to mid eighties. I even took a programming class myself to learn more about them. Much more than turning it on and doing what I wanted to do with it, I didn’t much care for how it was done. But being able to write – and edit – something without white-out, so cool! Then my programmer husband brought home a new program to bata test. It was called Windows. I loved it! It was so much easier than having type in everything. A couple years later, along came Word. I don’t remember the name of the old program, but Word made it look so cumbersome. Having husband in that world, I got to see many of the innovations as they came along. It’s rather humbling to remember that I was on the fringe of all that tech. Wow! What memories.
Comment
I have one of those love/hate relationship with computers I love that it allows me to work from home. Amazes me how fast you can research and write a paper or answer a question but then there is the flip side my sons don’t know how to research using the Dewy decimal system or an encyclopedia not to mention because of speed it gives us there is no patience for the smallest delays or time for real communication because every one has a walking mini computer in their hand. I am the mean mom that took electronics away before dinner, made them actually go to a library and research something and actually do basic math in their head without use of computer, calculator or cash register. They know how to count change back to someone should something happen to the electronic devices. I remember dial up internet. Using paper spreadsheets for accounting at my first job. The thing that I am most thankful for is my late teenage and early adulthood was Before social media, thank you Lord!!!!
Comment
I remember in high school taking a digital arts class and learning so much… we had to draw and make a mini motion pic with music… boy has technology changed since then…
Comment
5:36 – the whole concept of computers continues to amaze me.
Comment
I remember atari, then computer games, emails, and much more. I’d like to try drawing ones or CAD, someday.
Comment
This might sound like a funny thing to be amazed by but my father learned to use computers in college back in the 1960s. He kept boxes of punch cards from his projects. We used to laugh about how fast computers became accessible to everyone.
Comment
programming
Comment
When I went to college in 1982 (10 years out of HS) I snuck in with 2 life experience credits as a transfer. I was taking Paralegal classes through Penn State at the time. In HS, I managed to avoid anything above algebra I and II and geometry. I took sciences, but what I liked so didn’t take chemistry. In college, I had more sciences but still avoided most math. I was able to sub a computer class for math.
At that time, they were still using punch cards and who knows what else. I had a Vic 20 and a Commodore 64. Since this was a real intro class, we had to write basic programs as homework. I commuted every day since I had a job in my off days, so I used my Vic 20 to write the programs. the next class, I ran them on the computer at work and printed them out. That was in 1982-4. I finished up Penn ST with a 3.75 and Cal State with high honors and a 3.70 GPA.
That said, how much technology has advanced since then.
Comment
We had a Vic20 and eventually a Commodore 64 with a tape drive. In the 70s I wrote computer programs using keypunch and cards. The biggest improvement I saw was the personal keyboard and screen, the next biggest was wifi… I can still hear that dial-up modem tone!
Comment
In the late 70’s I worked at Prudential and we used the computer cards to run programs for Group Pensions Actuarial calculations. Then I trained in COBOL programming (also did a little Fortran for the math computations). That’s the time when we transitioned from the cards to terminal input. So much has changed in what can be done on computers from those old days of just mainframes for business, government and sciences. And the upgrade from PacMan to doing games on smartphones.
Comment
GPS is crazy, we always know where we were and where everyone in our family is.
Comment
Thanks for playing, everyone!
The winner, chosen by a random number generator, is…Debra Guyette!