• Dennis (unregistered) in reply to grammarpolice
    grammarpolice:
    "grinded to a halt" that should be "ground to a halt"

    "put ever single Wang" should be "put every single Wang"

    There's a Viagra advertisement next to the Comments link of this article! (In Firefox - I loaded the page in IE7 and no ad appeared.)

  • Paul Holt (unregistered)

    This is exactly the sort of failure that is the meat-and-potatoes of the comp.risks usenet newsgroup. It's like a dailywtf except that it's rarely stupidity that causes the problems, but unexpected combinations of factors.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RISKS_Digest

    http://www.cs.berkeley.edu/~brewer/cs262/PriorityInversion.html

  • (cs) in reply to pweegar
    pweegar:
    gads, I remember our Wang system. I worked for a state agency here in Az. I started around 1994. They were still using a Wang for many things, including word processing. We even had a dedicated Wang employ who worked as a consultant for many years with us.

    Then we moved to a client/server environment using HP pc and MS Word. What fun THAT was, coverting all those Wang documents! All kinds of strange characters in documents that would cause Word to go really strange.

    Plus, I remember how heavy the Wang computer was when we finally rolled it out of the computer room, down a carpeted hall.. Ah, the good ole days!

    Did you work for AHCCCS? I was there from '88-'92. I remember the 7150 and the 7310 quite fondly, I still think that their PACE database was an extremely slick system (for a character-based interface).

    The then-system manager, Ron Somethingorother, had put off the OS updates for so long that they had to go through several rounds of "patch, let it run for a week, apply next patch" before they could be brought up to date.

    I wasn't happy when Wang went away, their minis were pretty slick. I heard that Y2K was a major culprit in their downfall, but I was long past them doing SQL Server by that time.

  • Some Random Cardboard Tube Samurai (unregistered)

    http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2000/09/22

  • Drizzt (unregistered) in reply to SomeCoder

    Same here! I was 2 in fact, and in 1985, when I was 2 1/2, my parents bought a Mac Plus ;)

  • (cs)

    I can't say I ever saw a Wang. But I have fond memories of a "Wang Sign". It was a penalty for screwing up in a certain high school extra-curricular activity. One of the seniors had cut the Wang logo out of the cardboard box and made a necklace-of-shame out of the thing. Geek humor. Fun times.

    Even Firefox remembers Wang. Or at least the spell checker does. Oh. Wait...

  • (cs) in reply to Drone
    Drone:
    Jaap-Jan van der Veen:
    I was in my mother's womb, being a three month old fetus.

    This is a nice one to slap my father in the face. He worked for Wang at that time. And all the when we were talking about old stuff. I recently bought an Atari 130XE, we had that type when I was about six years old.

    And all that time he keeps rattling on about how advanced and perfect Wang was for that time. Now I know better, so that will be a nice conversation when he comes home tonight >:).

    What? You're 23 years old, and still living with your parents? Zounds.
    The government in Australia is trying to encourage people not to leave home until 25 (for various economic reasons...). Probably just because the Prime Minister lived with his parents until he was 31 though (and then only because they got him a wife)...

  • (cs)

    January 1, 1984? I was 9 and playing with my Commodore 64. The same C-64 that my dad (electrical engineer) and I re-wired and modified (how I learned about circuitry and using a soldering gun).

    Man, I miss that computer...

  • (cs) in reply to grammarpolice
    grammarpolice:
    "grinded to a halt" that should be "ground to a halt"
    While we're at it, "ever" should be "every" and "36's" should be "36s."

    So much for proofreading.

  • Outed (unregistered) in reply to grammarpolice
    grammarpolice:
    "grinded to a halt" that should be "ground to a halt"
    You're right. That's what we get for outsourcing this site.
  • (cs) in reply to Bernie
    Bernie:
    1984 - at that time you had to set time and date on every boot of a Wang VS, and the OS didn't use temp files during boot.
    That's why I didn't buy this article. Seems like this is something a tech could have walked an EU through over the phone. Was there any state-of-the-art computer in 1984 that couldn't set the date at the console? The VAX saved its date and time in the TOY clock (most boxen after the 11/7xx had it), but it could be easily set at the console without rebooting. Heck, even some PCs could set their time in the BIOS at that point.
  • (cs) in reply to operagost
    operagost:
    Seems like this is something a tech could have walked an EU through over the phone. Was there any state-of-the-art computer in 1984 that couldn't set the date at the console?
    A couple of things... a) The issue was such that the system ran itself into deadlock. Short of hitting The Button, the box was hung.

    b) Hitting The Button and setting a date of "tomorrow" (or two days prior) would have caused the customer's batch systems to freak out.

    c) Many customers on the smaller VS systems had no real concept of rebooting the system. Remember, this is 1984 and "The Wang" was generally stuffed into a corner of the machine room amidst the IBM mainframes and left to handle the admin's doing word processing for their bosses. The IBM console operators wouldn't touch it - the "technical contact" for MANY MANY MANY of my accounts was the head lawyer, or equivalent.

    d) In that era, all of the computer manufacturers were WAY into customer service. My beeper was going off ALL the time. A customer calls "umm, my admin can't get her printer to work" and we'd be on site... even to just flip the power switch. (yes, MANY times)

  • TimmyT (unregistered) in reply to purge
    purge:
    AC:
    January 1984? I was in the womb.
    Me too, born in June.

    I was 61 years old in 1984. I don't know how old I am now. I don't remember much at all anymore...

    LOL, I can't wait to get old, that sounds like FUN

    captcha: poopypants - how appropriate!

  • Spaghetti Code Western (unregistered) in reply to bah

    RE: Is anyone still working in an office using Wang computer?

    Yes, and the browser sucks.

  • Ann Oni (unregistered) in reply to Spaghetti Code Western

    But does it have USB? Can the Wang recognize a HID (Human Interface Device)?

    snicker I'm totally 8 years old on the inside.

  • Terje (unregistered)

    I was 11 years old in 1984, got my first digital watch for my birthday. At november 11 - sometime after 11 the watch displayed 11.11 11:11:11 - that was a great moment..

    My computer in 1984 used TOS (Tandberg Operating System) loaded from 8 inch floppy disk.

  • B (unregistered) in reply to Shiny
    Shiny:
    kahuna:
    Foosball Girl In My Dreams:
    But, but, if they worked overnight, then it would have been Jan 2 by the time the fix went out, and the files could have been deleted... or was everyone too drunk to figure that out?

    read it again... once the bug hit, you couldn't even boot so that it would fix the problem. the shipped fix probably involved booting from a floppy or something.

    I think the point you're missing is that the computers could have booted the next day, since the thing stopping them was the deletion of the then-unexpired temporary files.

    The next day - files expire, boot succeeds, everyone smiles (for the next 4 years or so).

    I don't think so, I'd imagine the temporary files from January 2 would have their expiry dates set to January 3 and so on...

    The bug probably was instead of adding 1 to the calculated day-of-the-year for days past February 29 in a leap year, the routine did that for all days. Systems would have booted properly from March 1 onwards, but I wonder if businesses were willing to wait till then :)

  • Theo (unregistered) in reply to grammarpolice
    grammarpolice:
    "grinded to a halt" that should be "ground to a halt"
    Well spotted. But you missed "And like many Operating Systems of Old", which should have been "And like many Operating Systems of yore".
  • Tirinoarim (unregistered) in reply to Theo

    Didn't Wang take up the warranty contract for the old Amiga Computers? I'm sure it was under the heading "Wang cares"...

  • (cs) in reply to Monomelodies
    Monomelodies:
    I'm not sure I agree - a computer has a timestamp (epoch, local, whatever) and that's what you make do with. Languages have routines, not operating systems IMHO.

    Err, not heard of system calls then?

    Andrew.

    EDIT: 6 years old by 1/1/84 and just about to start hacking on Spectrum BASIC...

  • (cs) in reply to SomeCoder
    SomeCoder:
    Geez... all these kids posting on this thread... makes me feel old.

    I wasn't terribly old in 1984 but I was alive :)

    Same here, but I remember Wang being the big competition of IBM and DEC back then. I'm gonna be dead by 2070 anyway. So whogizzashit what will happen then? :)

  • Jamie (unregistered) in reply to FredSaw

    Didn't this company have a line of computers named the King?

  • (cs) in reply to poochner
    poochner:
    ubersoldat:
    1 Who in his right mind would name a big HW/SW company Wang? A chinesse maybe.
    That would be Dr Wang to you, bub. Two Chinese fellows founded it, but it's an American company, since it was founded in Massachusetts, and headquartered there ever since.

    As for the funny looking building, there's a Siemens office with its own (very phallic) water tower, which you see on GA 400 just as you get to the "Welcome to Cumming" sign. That one always cracks me up.

    I know that Germans are supposed to lack a sense of humour, but surely even they can recognise a pun when it, er, slaps them in the face. Any company called "Siemens" that chooses to locate an office building, phallic or otherwise, in a place called "Cummings" must be an, er, brick short of a load.

    And I agree with the poster complaining about people posting their dates of birth (with the obvious exception of the chap born in 1923). This is not Facebook, guys. Let's get back to that happy, bygone era when everybody signed off with a hilarious comment on their captcha.

  • erisdiscordia (unregistered) in reply to real_aardvark
    real_aardvark:
    ...I agree with the poster complaining about people posting their dates of birth (with the obvious exception of the chap born in 1923).

    That post seems to have gone missing. Which is a damn shame, considering that had you not mentioned their post, I wouldn't have gotten the joke regarding the 1923 birth. Or was that your own addition?

    e.

  • (cs)

    Funny, files that "expire". My first thought was that they would be deleted automatically after their expiry date. LOL

  • (cs) in reply to Freddy Bob
    Freddy Bob:
    grammarpolice:
    "grinded to a halt" that should be "ground to a halt"

    or "did grind to a halt"

    or "began to grind to a halt" perhaps

    Congratulations. I've finally added "nitpickers" to my list of people that I hate

  • (cs)

    "Where were you the morning of January 1st, 1984?"

    I was still cooking in the womb.

  • nerdierthanu (unregistered)

    Since we are all posting our ages, I was 4 in 84, and on a C64 when I wasn't playing on my Atari. The following year in kindergarten I was certified on DBII, which has proven to be a most impressive sounding accomplishment. In reality I don't remember a damn thing about DBII but it did build an aptitude for using computers at a young age.

  • (cs) in reply to erisdiscordia
    erisdiscordia:
    real_aardvark:
    ...I agree with the poster complaining about people posting their dates of birth (with the obvious exception of the chap born in 1923).

    That post seems to have gone missing. Which is a damn shame, considering that had you not mentioned their post, I wouldn't have gotten the joke regarding the 1923 birth. Or was that your own addition?

    e.

    purge:
    AC:
    January 1984? I was in the womb.
    Me too, born in June.

    I was 61 years old in 1984. I don't know how old I am now. I don't remember much at all anymore...

    Fixed.

    Now, can the kiddies here get back to (a) penis jokes or (b) finding Chinese surnames hysterically funny? So much more creative than cutting and pasting your birth certificate...

  • Blame (unregistered) in reply to ParkinT
    ParkinT:
    Although George Orwell knew nothing of computers, he apparently predicted the year correctly!!
    Since he wrote 1984 in 1948, I get the feeling he probably did know something about computers.
  • (cs) in reply to operagost
    operagost:
    That's why I didn't buy this article.

    Guess you should ask for a refund of your purchase price, then.

    operagost:
    Seems like this is something a tech could have walked an EU through over the phone. Was there any state-of-the-art computer in 1984 that couldn't set the date at the console?

    Please re-read the article, and at least make a slight effort to comprehend what you're reading. You'll then, if you are even halfway intelligent, understand why "walking an EU through over the phone" wouldn't have worked. You might also try reading some of the other 70 or so comments that explain in detail what the problem was, and why simply setting the time and date wasn't possible.

    If you don't understand the article, don't waste time posting criticism of it. You might do better asking someone to explain it instead.

  • TB (unregistered) in reply to purge

    That's is really funny, presuming of course that it is not actually true.

    I was 14, no 13 (before my birthday) then.

  • Kelly (unregistered) in reply to joe.edwards
    January 1984? I was in the womb.

    Ditto. I was feeling clever until I saw that someone else posted this.

  • Goats (unregistered) in reply to KenW
    KenW:
    operagost:
    That's why I didn't buy this article.

    Guess you should ask for a refund of your purchase price, then.

    ...

    Please re-read the article, and at least make a slight effort to comprehend what you're reading.

    ...

    If you don't understand the article, don't waste time posting criticism of it. You might do better asking someone to explain it instead.

    Touchy, aren't we? And maybe you should re-read the original comment.

  • anon (unregistered) in reply to CynicalTyler
    CynicalTyler:
    me 2 lololol!

    But seriously, thank god I never lived in a world with faulty Wangs. Born February. Whew, just missed it.

    So... While in the womb you were:

    a) not a living thing? b) not of this world?

  • Arioch (unregistered)

    WTF is setting Exp.Date for temporary file to something as new as today! it SHOULD be today-10 days, or today - 10 years. But it certainly SHOULD be less than today for temporary files.

    PS:, yes, 'temporary' file flag would be very nice, the thing you had on RT-11 OS for PDP-11, the thing you can emulate on UNIXes, the thing You cannot make on Windows :-((( And that is why temp files are eternally breeding in temp dir like a cancer-mutated cells....

    CAPTCHA: bling - though i'd prefer chime, i think.

  • Arioch (unregistered) in reply to anon
    So... While in the womb you were: a) not a living thing? b) not of this world?

    But maybe one more option: "c) living nothing" ? And that would definitely be something alien to out world, butstill funny :-)

    Was his mother called Rosmary ?

    CAPTCHA: alarm - No! i definitely would prefer chime !!!

  • frank hadder (unregistered) in reply to Some Random Cardboard Tube Samurai
    Some Random Cardboard Tube Samurai:
    http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2000/09/22

    If I could "digg you up" I would.

    As to Wang, this just verifies my theory that I'm the only good thing to come out of the eighties.

  • Anonymous 34 (unregistered)

    You guys don't know heavy. I had an IBM System 34 which I offered for free when I moved house. 5 people from a university computer club arrived to take it away but they could not lift the system unit. The IBM System 34 was sold in the late '70s. Mine had 256K of main memory and two 65 megabyte hard drives. I also had a Honeywell System 8 minicomputer which had 48K of 9 bit RAM in 1K by 1 bit chips, and a 4.9 megabyte hard drive.

  • Sgt. Preston (unregistered) in reply to poochner
    poochner:
    Curious Mind:
    Um. What's going to happen in 2070?
    We're all going to die.
    COOL!! In order to die in 2070, I'll have to live to 2070. Might be a record.
  • (cs) in reply to real_aardvark
    real_aardvark:
    I know that Germans are supposed to lack a sense of humour, but surely even they can recognise a pun when it, er, slaps them in the face. Any company called "Siemens" that chooses to locate an office building, phallic or otherwise, in a place called "Cummings" must be an, er, brick short of a load.
    The problem with puns is that they can be very hard to recognize when it's not your native language. As it happens, I'm German, and I don't get it. What's particularly funny about a Siemens building in Cummings? I mean, apart from the place's name itself?
  • iMalc (unregistered)

    "Who wants Wang!?"

    (Ever played Shadow Warrior?)

  • Dave C. (unregistered) in reply to Curious Mind

    One common solution for the Y2K bug was the short-term fix of assuming that any two-digit year in the range 70 - 99 represented 1970 - 1999 and the remaining two-digit year values (00 - 69) represented 2000 - 2069. That fix will work just great until you try to represent the year 2070.

    I'll be 104 years-old by then and long past caring.

  • (cs) in reply to Mith

    Well in 1984... i was too bussy being born! Yes I was born in middle of 1984, in Russia of all places, so no I do not remember that new year of DOOM DOOM DOOM!

  • (cs)

    Hmmm, 1984 I was 16 and let's just say Molly Ringwald had a much bigger influence on my wang than any old computer company. Breakfast Club: Best Movie Ever, at least to a teenager in the mid-eighties.

    And how does Wang Chung fit into all this?

    Ok, back to technology: You'd think with a term like "Expiration Date" that would be the date the file would be automatically deleted, not the date you could delete it.... -Me

  • Wangus (unregistered) in reply to midiwall

    It wasn't me.

  • Miyamoto (unregistered) in reply to frank hadder

    Excuse me, the NES came out of the eighties.

  • Warhawk (unregistered)

    I started working on the Wang VS in 1983, converting from an IBM370 to a VS80. I don't remember this as a particular problem, but we were not a 24/7 shop and our VS applications were still in development in early 84.

    My current company still has a VS running production applications. 99.9% up time and no problems with hackers.

    Anyone that wants to make fun of the VS operating system should remember that when companies converted to client/server, they normally had to increase the IT staff by 100-200 percent.

  • (cs) in reply to brazzy
    brazzy:
    real_aardvark:
    I know that Germans are supposed to lack a sense of humour, but surely even they can recognise a pun when it, er, slaps them in the face. Any company called "Siemens" that chooses to locate an office building, phallic or otherwise, in a place called "Cummings" must be an, er, brick short of a load.
    The problem with puns is that they can be very hard to recognize when it's not your native language. As it happens, I'm German, and I don't get it. What's particularly funny about a Siemens building in Cummings? I mean, apart from the place's name itself?
    Without the 'i' in 'ie', Siemens would be literally synonymous with (male) Cummings. Pronounced without the German 'Z' for an initial 'S' -- and the way I speak German (Hamburg dialect), it's closer to 'S' -- this is therefore a faily obvious pun. To an English speaker, yes, I agree.

    And sorry about the gratuitous German jibe. I tried to make it "most people think that ..." but screwed up. Allowing for an excusable bias towards toilet humour (I mean, German toilets, really; they bring a whole new meaning to anally retentive), all the Germans I've ever known are amusing company. Never having met Schopenhauer, obviously. (I nearly abbreviated that to "amusing," before realising that someone else would read that sentence wrong as well.)

    You bring up an interesting point, however. I bought my mother a book of swear words and slang in French, and I promise you it's a whole 'nother language, and who has time to learn that? (Unless it's VB. Flames appreciated.)

    Your point therefore leads me to believe that the fault lies with some Georgian red-neck PHB getting back at his employers by deliberately making them seem stupid.

    And I was quite proud of "brick short of a load." Two American English euphemisms wrapped up in a British English euphemism, all for the price of one.

  • (cs) in reply to Dave C.
    Dave C.:
    One common solution for the Y2K bug was the short-term fix of assuming that any two-digit year in the range 70 - 99 represented 1970 - 1999 and the remaining two-digit year values (00 - 69) represented 2000 - 2069. That fix will work just great until you try to represent the year 2070.

    I'll be 104 years-old by then and long past caring.

    But unfortunately your implicit assumption is correct. We'll all still be using Cobol then. Probably Cobol.NET, so at least it's garbage-collected. But what do you get when you remove the garbage from Cobol?

    /joke.

    And yes, I do know that there are no pointers in Cobol.

    BTW, re Y2K: beats me why nobody used nibbles instead. Same storage overhead, and perfectly acceptable in the '60s. AFAIK, IBM 360 stuff even supported nibbles as a data format, natively ...

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