On Tue, 6 Jan 2026 20:47:48 -0500, c186282 wrote:
The TRUE 'All-Everything System' will be the AIs.
This may NOT be such a great thing, but with the TRILLIONS invested
it's GOING to be The Thing. 'Thin' clients plugged only into the
Higher Intelligence.
https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2026/01/dells-xps-revival-is-a-welcome- reprieve-from-the-ai-pc-fad/
Does Dell see a little gnome with a pin approaching the bubble?
On 1/6/26 01:28, rbowman wrote:
On Tue, 6 Jan 2026 04:10:59 -0000 (UTC), Lawrence D’Oliveiro wrote:
Some degree of UCSD Pascal compatibility was very common among
microcomputer-based implementations.
I remember that being referred to as 'scud pascal'. Dyslexic programmers?
Heh, maybe :-)
But you CAN see why.
In article <10jjg7k$5l5$2@dont-email.me>,
The Natural Philosopher <tnp@invalid.invalid> wrote:
On 06/01/2026 14:46, Peter Flass wrote:
On 1/6/26 03:10, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
From what little I know COBOL looked very like assembler.
Nothing at all like it. Higher-level than C, for example.
Well I will simply disagree. Business transactions are very simple beasts.
I think it's best to think of COBOL as a DSL for business data
processing. Sure, one can write a compiler in it...but one can
also write a compiler in `sed`. Outside of a satisfying a dare
or winning a bet, it doesn't seem like a very good idea.
On 1/6/26 17:22, John Ames wrote:
On Tue, 6 Jan 2026 16:04:17 -0500
c186282 <c186282@nnada.net> wrote:
I'd forgotten ... p-System was the "3rd OS" offered for the original
IBM-PC. Alas it was over-priced and under- performing, so ....
Yeah - a forgotten entry in the saga of write-once-run-anywhere dreams,
right up there with Java workstations...
Well, I'm glad people THINK of such things ... alas
all attempts have been for naught. 'Generic solutions'
require too many compromises.
The TRUE 'All-Everything System' will be the AIs.
This may NOT be such a great thing, but with the
TRILLIONS invested it's GOING to be The Thing.
'Thin' clients plugged only into the Higher
Intelligence.
Unaccountable People You Don't Know will be in charge
of tasking and biasing the Higher Intelligence for
awhile - then it'll start taking care of itself.
Wait, watch, see.
On 2026-01-06, Dan Cross <cross@spitfire.i.gajendra.net> wrote:Yes. I have,
In article <10jjg7k$5l5$2@dont-email.me>,
The Natural Philosopher <tnp@invalid.invalid> wrote:
On 06/01/2026 14:46, Peter Flass wrote:
On 1/6/26 03:10, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
From what little I know COBOL looked very like assembler.
<snicker>
Nothing at all like it. Higher-level than C, for example.
Well I will simply disagree. Business transactions are very simple beasts.
You've never worked on a payroll system, have you?
I think it's best to think of COBOL as a DSL for business data
processing. Sure, one can write a compiler in it...but one can
also write a compiler in `sed`. Outside of a satisfying a dare
or winning a bet, it doesn't seem like a very good idea.
A friend once wrote an 8080 cross-assembler in COBOL.
It ran rings around Univac's official cross-assembler -
which was written in FORTRAN.
It's ironic watching the industry change from centralized
systems in the '60s and '70s (due to the high cost of
electronics) to distributed systems starting in the '80s,
only to have it come full circle now. The difference is
that rather than cost, the driving factor is centralized
control.
On 1/6/26 05:10, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
On 06/01/2026 03:27, Peter Flass wrote:
On 1/5/26 12:50, John Ames wrote:
On Mon, 5 Jan 2026 12:33:53 -0700
Peter Flass <Peter@Iron-Spring.com> wrote:
Actually, many systems programming languages have no I/O, the idea
being that non-OS programs call the OS to do the I/O, and the OS
interacts directly with the hardware.
"Systems programming" usually implies implementation of an OS, though, >>>> and IIRC that was the sense that Kernighan was using. You can't excuse >>>> limitations by "oh, the OS handles that" when your program *is* the
OS.*
* (Obviously, there's a certain point in any HLL where Deep Magic has
to handle interfacing between language constructs and bare metal, >>>> but
the higher up the "threshold of minimum abstraction" is, the less >>>> suitable it is for systems programming in the first place.
Of course, there's also the problem where seemingly *any* language >>>> that's not designed for systems programming will ultimately get
pressed into service for systems programming *somewhere...*)
I seem to recall reading that someone once wrote an OS in COBOL.
From what little I know COBOL looked very like assembler.
If assembler was RIDICULOUSLY WORDY :-)
In article <ZN-dnYy-SfLC5MD0nZ2dnZfqnPednZ2d@giganews.com>,
c186282 <c186282@nnada.net> wrote:
On 1/6/26 05:10, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
On 06/01/2026 03:27, Peter Flass wrote:
On 1/5/26 12:50, John Ames wrote:
On Mon, 5 Jan 2026 12:33:53 -0700
Peter Flass <Peter@Iron-Spring.com> wrote:
Actually, many systems programming languages have no I/O, the idea >>>>>> being that non-OS programs call the OS to do the I/O, and the OS
interacts directly with the hardware.
"Systems programming" usually implies implementation of an OS, though, >>>>> and IIRC that was the sense that Kernighan was using. You can't excuse >>>>> limitations by "oh, the OS handles that" when your program *is* the OS.* >>>>>
* (Obviously, there's a certain point in any HLL where Deep Magic has >>>>> to handle interfacing between language constructs and bare metal, but
the higher up the "threshold of minimum abstraction" is, the less >>>>> suitable it is for systems programming in the first place.
Of course, there's also the problem where seemingly *any* language >>>>> that's not designed for systems programming will ultimately get >>>>> pressed into service for systems programming *somewhere...*) >>>>>
I seem to recall reading that someone once wrote an OS in COBOL.
From what little I know COBOL looked very like assembler.
If assembler was RIDICULOUSLY WORDY :-)
MOVE THE IMMEDIATE MODE OPERAND WITH VALUE 42 INTO REGISTER A0
AND ADD THE VALUE AT THE LOCATION 1234 DECIMAL GIVING A BYTE
RESULT STORING INTO REGISTER "Z ZERO"
- Dan C.
In alt.folklore.computers Peter Flass <Peter@iron-spring.com> wrote:
[snip]
I think Brinch-Hansen used Modula-2.
I remember name of Concurrent Pascal. My impression was that
Brinch-Hansen used Concurrent Pascal.
On Tue, 6 Jan 2026 13:19:54 +0100
"Carlos E.R." <robin_listas@es.invalid> wrote:
Turbo Pascal had [...]
Sure did! But TP didn't roll out 'til 1983, thirteen years into the language's existence.
I don't think anyone used the original flavor of the language.
The ISO standard wasn't finalized 'til 1983, the same year as TP; even
UCSD Pascal didn't come around 'til 1977. But it was being used for
teaching well before that, and Kernighan's essay was published in '81,
so people were most definitely using (or trying to use) earlier forms
of the language for stuff.
On Tue, 6 Jan 2026 13:19:54 +0100, Carlos E.R. wrote:
I don't think anyone used the original flavor of the language.
They did. Or at least they tried to.
On 1/6/26 11:30, John Ames wrote:
On Tue, 6 Jan 2026 13:19:54 +0100
"Carlos E.R." <robin_listas@es.invalid> wrote:
Turbo Pascal had [...]
Sure did! But TP didn't roll out 'til 1983, thirteen years into the
language's existence.
I don't think anyone used the original flavor of the language.
The ISO standard wasn't finalized 'til 1983, the same year as TP; even
UCSD Pascal didn't come around 'til 1977. But it was being used for
teaching well before that, and Kernighan's essay was published in '81,
so people were most definitely using (or trying to use) earlier forms
of the language for stuff.
I used the M$/IBM multi-pass Pascal compiler (still
have it in a VM) I *think* that came out maybe a
year before TP.
Remember seeing a little ad in a magazine for TP.
The price was good, the claims seemed impressive.
So, I bought it. NOT disappointed. Made development
unbelievably quicker/easier. Had to wait until v3
to get good graphics though. Even found a good use
for the 'turtle'.
On Tue, 6 Jan 2026 07:42:36 -0700, Peter Flass wrote:
I think Brinch-Hansen used Modula-2.
Didn’t he create his own language, called “Edison”?
On 1/6/26 01:28, rbowman wrote:
On Tue, 6 Jan 2026 04:10:59 -0000 (UTC), Lawrence D’Oliveiro wrote:
Some degree of UCSD Pascal compatibility was very common among
microcomputer-based implementations.
I remember that being referred to as 'scud pascal'. Dyslexic programmers?
Heh, maybe :-)
But you CAN see why.
I think the idea was to make a 'generic' interpreted
Pascal that could be run on many different kinds of
machines. BASIC was widespread, but kinda ugly, and
'C' was too cryptic.
The modern UCSD 'Pascal' wound up being Python.
I'd forgotten ... p-System was the "3rd OS" offered for
the original IBM-PC. Alas it was over-priced and under-
performing, so ....
On 2026-01-06 22:30, c186282 wrote:
On 1/6/26 11:30, John Ames wrote:
On Tue, 6 Jan 2026 13:19:54 +0100
"Carlos E.R." <robin_listas@es.invalid> wrote:
Turbo Pascal had [...]
Sure did! But TP didn't roll out 'til 1983, thirteen years into the
language's existence.
I don't think anyone used the original flavor of the language.
The ISO standard wasn't finalized 'til 1983, the same year as TP; even
UCSD Pascal didn't come around 'til 1977. But it was being used for
teaching well before that, and Kernighan's essay was published in '81,
so people were most definitely using (or trying to use) earlier forms
of the language for stuff.
I used the M$/IBM multi-pass Pascal compiler (still
have it in a VM) I *think* that came out maybe a
year before TP.
Remember seeing a little ad in a magazine for TP.
The price was good, the claims seemed impressive.
So, I bought it. NOT disappointed. Made development
unbelievably quicker/easier. Had to wait until v3
to get good graphics though. Even found a good use
for the 'turtle'.
I remember trying both compilers. The M$ variant was unbelievable slow.
Sorry, but THIS is how I see it all going, soon.
The whole research/commercial/regulatory universe is 101% for AI and
nothing BUT the AI.
I wouldn't be surprised if non-AI-Slave PCs are either deliberately
sabotaged or made illegal. This is Giant Money, Giant Power.
https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2026/01/dells-xps-revival-is-a-welcome- reprieve-from-the-ai-pc-fad/
Does Dell see a little gnome with a pin approaching the bubble?
On 7 Jan 2026 02:00:12 GMT
rbowman <bowman@montana.com> wrote:
https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2026/01/dells-xps-revival-is-a-welcome-
reprieve-from-the-ai-pc-fad/
Does Dell see a little gnome with a pin approaching the bubble?
Shockingly, it turns out that businesses do better when they make and
sell things that people actually *want* o_O
I think that AI could be used on a proper computer system to do all
the little annoying things that people as ignorant as me have to ask
experts about. Backups, defragmenting routines, checking for updates, changing ownership on disks and volumes and applying patches but my
model of AI would be running only on one's computer and be active
when the processor(s) have enough free cycles to be useful.
Leave it to M$ (and IBM) to screw it up. Pascal was specifically
designed for fast one-pass compilation.
On 07/01/2026 14:47, Peter Flass wrote:
Leave it to M$ (and IBM) to screw it up. Pascal was specifically
designed for fast one-pass compilation.
No., it wasn't. It was designed as a teaching language. Borland hacked
it about and made it a hacker paradise with as quick 'write/run' times
as BASIC
It's ironic watching the industry change from centralized systems in the
'60s and '70s (due to the high cost of electronics) to distributed
systems starting in the '80s,
only to have it come full circle now. The difference is that rather
than cost, the driving factor is centralized control.
On 2026-01-06 17:30, John Ames wrote:
On Tue, 6 Jan 2026 13:19:54 +0100 "Carlos E.R."Ah. I did not meet it till about the time of TP 2.
<robin_listas@es.invalid> wrote:
Turbo Pascal had [...]
Sure did! But TP didn't roll out 'til 1983, thirteen years into the
language's existence.
I don't think anyone used the original flavor of the language.
The ISO standard wasn't finalized 'til 1983, the same year as TP; even
UCSD Pascal didn't come around 'til 1977. But it was being used for
teaching well before that, and Kernighan's essay was published in '81,
so people were most definitely using (or trying to use) earlier forms
of the language for stuff.
On 06/01/2026 21:06, c186282 wrote:
On 1/6/26 05:10, The Natural Philosopher wrote:Some assembler is...it's a choice. Especially Macro assembler...
On 06/01/2026 03:27, Peter Flass wrote:
On 1/5/26 12:50, John Ames wrote:
On Mon, 5 Jan 2026 12:33:53 -0700 Peter FlassI seem to recall reading that someone once wrote an OS in COBOL.
<Peter@Iron-Spring.com> wrote:
Actually, many systems programming languages have no I/O, the idea >>>>>> being that non-OS programs call the OS to do the I/O, and the OS
interacts directly with the hardware.
"Systems programming" usually implies implementation of an OS,
though,
and IIRC that was the sense that Kernighan was using. You can't
excuse limitations by "oh, the OS handles that" when your program
*is* the OS.*
* (Obviously, there's a certain point in any HLL where Deep Magic
has
to handle interfacing between language constructs and bare
metal,
but
the higher up the "threshold of minimum abstraction" is, the
less suitable it is for systems programming in the first place. >>>>> Of course, there's also the problem where seemingly *any*
language that's not designed for systems programming will
ultimately get pressed into service for systems programming
*somewhere...*)
From what little I know COBOL looked very like assembler.
If assembler was RIDICULOUSLY WORDY :-)
On 1/7/26 08:57, John Ames wrote:welcome-
On 7 Jan 2026 02:00:12 GMT rbowman <bowman@montana.com> wrote:
https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2026/01/dells-xps-revival-is-a-
will missAmazing but still I bought several (used) Latitudes andreprieve-from-the-ai-pc-fad/
Does Dell see a little gnome with a pin approaching the bubble?
Shockingly, it turns out that businesses do better when they make and
sell things that people actually *want* o_O
beingthen
able to shop for those if I ever have enough cash for that sort of
thing. I am glad I go my Precision when I did. I think that AI could
be used on a proper computer system to do all the little annoying things
that people as ignorant as me have to ask experts about. Backups, defragmenting routines, checking for updates, changing ownership on
disks and volumes and applying patches but my model of AI would be
running only on one's computer and be active when the processor(s) have enough free cycles to be useful.
Now when they get that sort of tool if I am alive and in funds
an AI computer might be halfway interesting.intelligence
After all I have spent nearly 88 years developing my own
and it seems to work very well for my purposes. (Some may disagree!)
On 2026-01-07, c186282 <c186282@nnada.net> wrote:
On 1/6/26 17:22, John Ames wrote:
On Tue, 6 Jan 2026 16:04:17 -0500
c186282 <c186282@nnada.net> wrote:
I'd forgotten ... p-System was the "3rd OS" offered for the original
IBM-PC. Alas it was over-priced and under- performing, so ....
Yeah - a forgotten entry in the saga of write-once-run-anywhere dreams,
right up there with Java workstations...
Well, I'm glad people THINK of such things ... alas
all attempts have been for naught. 'Generic solutions'
require too many compromises.
The TRUE 'All-Everything System' will be the AIs.
This may NOT be such a great thing, but with the
TRILLIONS invested it's GOING to be The Thing.
'Thin' clients plugged only into the Higher
Intelligence.
It's ironic watching the industry change from centralized
systems in the '60s and '70s (due to the high cost of
electronics) to distributed systems starting in the '80s,
only to have it come full circle now. The difference is
that rather than cost, the driving factor is centralized
control.
Unaccountable People You Don't Know will be in charge
of tasking and biasing the Higher Intelligence for
awhile - then it'll start taking care of itself.
Wait, watch, see.
Fasten your seatbelts, folks.
Colleges don't always make great choices and do their students a
disservice. At one time University of Montana used Modula-2, another Wirth production. Later they chose Java after being offered financial incentives
by Sun. (I think it was before Oracle). Arguably a better choice although
it didn't do much when we were looking for C/C++ programmers.
FORTRAN and COBOL are still around, but I don't thinks anyone from
the 70s would recognize them.
On Wed, 7 Jan 2026 19:21:09 -0700, Peter Flass wrote:
FORTRAN and COBOL are still around, but I don't thinks anyone from
the 70s would recognize them.
COBOL is still COBOL. Fortran has evolved somewhat, post-Fortran-77.
Leave it to M$ (and IBM) to screw it up. Pascal was specifically
designed for fast one-pass compilation.
On Tue, 6 Jan 2026 22:37:40 -0500
c186282 <c186282@nnada.net> wrote:
Sorry, but THIS is how I see it all going, soon.
The whole research/commercial/regulatory universe is 101% for AI and
nothing BUT the AI.
I wouldn't be surprised if non-AI-Slave PCs are either deliberately
sabotaged or made illegal. This is Giant Money, Giant Power.
Doesn't matter how much money they throw at it - what they're selling
will never do half of what they're claiming, and they're singularly un- interested in researching anything else. The VC firehose is already
starting to dribble; it's taken *entirely* too long, but investors have finally begun to look at the "burn infinite money on things that don't
work -> ??? -> profit...?" plan
and go "wait, maybe we *don't* want to
do that?" Ed Zitron's been writing about this for a couple years now,
and just covered that recently:
https://www.wheresyoured.at/the-enshittifinancial-crisis/#blue-owl-in-a-coal-mine
It's been infuriating but also hilarious to watch this much money flail blindly for this long at things the people backing it plainly have no understanding of, simply because a handful of grifters/con-men suckered
them in with the promise of "you'll *totally* be able to fire everyone
and replace them with chatbots Real Soon Now."
It's gonna be a global financial disaster when the bubble finally goes, mind you, but there is
a certain black comedy to it.
On Wed, 07 Jan 2026 06:33:50 GMT, Charlie Gibbs wrote:
It's ironic watching the industry change from centralized systems in the
'60s and '70s (due to the high cost of electronics) to distributed
systems starting in the '80s,
only to have it come full circle now. The difference is that rather
than cost, the driving factor is centralized control.
The game has changed a bit as anyone who suffered through a time-sharing system will affirm. Nothing like trying to trying to run a cross assembler on a VAX when accounting is doing the payroll.
On 06/01/2026 21:06, c186282 wrote:
On 1/6/26 05:10, The Natural Philosopher wrote:Some assembler is...it's a choice. Especially Macro assembler...
On 06/01/2026 03:27, Peter Flass wrote:
I seem to recall reading that someone once wrote an OS in COBOL.
From what little I know COBOL looked very like assembler.
If assembler was RIDICULOUSLY WORDY :-)
On 7 Jan 2026 02:00:12 GMT
rbowman <bowman@montana.com> wrote:
https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2026/01/dells-xps-revival-is-a-welcome-
reprieve-from-the-ai-pc-fad/
Does Dell see a little gnome with a pin approaching the bubble?
Shockingly, it turns out that businesses do better when they make and
sell things that people actually *want* o_O
On 2026-01-07, Peter Flass <Peter@Iron-Spring.com> wrote:
Leave it to M$ (and IBM) to screw it up. Pascal was specifically
designed for fast one-pass compilation.
Is that why people wrote programs bottom-up
(i.e. with the main function at the bottom
to avoid forward references)?
On 2026-01-07, The Natural Philosopher <tnp@invalid.invalid> wrote:
On 06/01/2026 21:06, c186282 wrote:
On 1/6/26 05:10, The Natural Philosopher wrote:Some assembler is...it's a choice. Especially Macro assembler...
On 06/01/2026 03:27, Peter Flass wrote:
I seem to recall reading that someone once wrote an OS in COBOL.
From what little I know COBOL looked very like assembler.
If assembler was RIDICULOUSLY WORDY :-)
I remember CS weenies fawning over a language called pl360, the
misbegotten bastard child of Algol and 360 assembly language. :-p
I hated Wirthian languages from the start and still do.
Just bad chemistry, I guess. But I couldn't stand having
some snooty compiler slap my wrist and tell me that I
couldn't do what I could do in a couple of lines of
assembly language.
Our CS department had Algol 60, Algol 68, and Algol W.
I never did succeed in getting a program to run.
On 2026-01-07, John Ames <commodorejohn@gmail.com> wrote:
On 7 Jan 2026 02:00:12 GMT
rbowman <bowman@montana.com> wrote:
https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2026/01/dells-xps-revival-is-a-welcome-
reprieve-from-the-ai-pc-fad/
Does Dell see a little gnome with a pin approaching the bubble?
Shockingly, it turns out that businesses do better when they make and
sell things that people actually *want* o_O
The smart ones try to control what people want.
On 2026-01-07, Peter Flass <Peter@Iron-Spring.com> wrote:
Leave it to M$ (and IBM) to screw it up. Pascal was specifically
designed for fast one-pass compilation.
Is that why people wrote programs bottom-up (i.e. with the main
function at the bottom to avoid forward references)?
On Tue, 6 Jan 2026 22:37:40 -0500
c186282 <c186282@nnada.net> wrote:
Sorry, but THIS is how I see it all going, soon.
The whole research/commercial/regulatory universe is 101% for AI and
nothing BUT the AI.
I wouldn't be surprised if non-AI-Slave PCs are either deliberately
sabotaged or made illegal. This is Giant Money, Giant Power.
Doesn't matter how much money they throw at it - what they're selling
will never do half of what they're claiming, and they're singularly un- interested in researching anything else. The VC firehose is already
starting to dribble; it's taken *entirely* too long, but investors have finally begun to look at the "burn infinite money on things that don't
work -> ??? -> profit...?" plan and go "wait, maybe we *don't* want to
do that?" Ed Zitron's been writing about this for a couple years now,
and just covered that recently:
https://www.wheresyoured.at/the-enshittifinancial-crisis/#blue-owl-in-a-coal-mine
It's been infuriating but also hilarious to watch this much money flail blindly for this long at things the people backing it plainly have no understanding of, simply because a handful of grifters/con-men suckered
them in with the promise of "you'll *totally* be able to fire everyone
and replace them with chatbots Real Soon Now." It's gonna be a global financial disaster when the bubble finally goes, mind you, but there is
a certain black comedy to it.
On 1/7/26 21:26, Lawrence D’Oliveiro wrote:
On Wed, 7 Jan 2026 19:21:09 -0700, Peter Flass wrote:
FORTRAN and COBOL are still around, but I don't thinks anyone from
the 70s would recognize them.
COBOL is still COBOL. Fortran has evolved somewhat, post-Fortran-77.
Yea, COBOL kind is kind of frozen in time now.
However that might not be a BAD thing ...
On Wed, 7 Jan 2026 09:56:20 +0000, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
On 06/01/2026 21:06, c186282 wrote:
Some assembler is...it's a choice. Especially Macro assembler...
If assembler was RIDICULOUSLY WORDY :-)
I remember a strange attempt to do Win32 API programming in 'assembler'.
The author more or less reinvented C using MASM.
I hated Wirthian languages from the start and still do.
Just bad chemistry, I guess. But I couldn't stand having
some snooty compiler slap my wrist and tell me that I
couldn't do what I could do in a couple of lines of
assembly language.
On 2026-01-07, John Ames <commodorejohn@gmail.com> wrote:
On 7 Jan 2026 02:00:12 GMT
rbowman <bowman@montana.com> wrote:
https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2026/01/dells-xps-revival-is-a-welcome-
reprieve-from-the-ai-pc-fad/
Does Dell see a little gnome with a pin approaching the bubble?
Shockingly, it turns out that businesses do better when they make and
sell things that people actually *want* o_O
The smart ones try to control what people want.
On Wed, 7 Jan 2026 19:21:09 -0700, Peter Flass wrote:
FORTRAN and COBOL are still around, but I don't thinks anyone from
the 70s would recognize them.
COBOL is still COBOL. Fortran has evolved somewhat, post-Fortran-77.
On Wed, 7 Jan 2026 19:21:09 -0700, Peter Flass wrote:
FORTRAN and COBOL are still around, but I don't thinks anyone from
the 70s would recognize them.
COBOL is still COBOL. Fortran has evolved somewhat, post-Fortran-77.
On 2026-01-07, Peter Flass <Peter@Iron-Spring.com> wrote:
Leave it to M$ (and IBM) to screw it up. Pascal was specifically
designed for fast one-pass compilation.
Is that why people wrote programs bottom-up
(i.e. with the main function at the bottom
to avoid forward references)?
C had forward declarations from early on, but they were somewhat jankyIs that why people wrote programs bottom-up (i.e. with the main
function at the bottom to avoid forward references)?
C is also like that. And C++, for all its enormous complexity in other
areas, preserves the tradition.
Huge amounts of perfectly useable technology are 'frozen in time'
My coffee beaker is no different in principle from a bronze age
beaker.
Round wheels predate the Ark...
On 08/01/2026 04:57, Charlie Gibbs wrote:
On 2026-01-07, John Ames <commodorejohn@gmail.com> wrote:Try being the operative word.
On 7 Jan 2026 02:00:12 GMT
rbowman <bowman@montana.com> wrote:
https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2026/01/dells-xps-revival-is-a-welcome- >>>> reprieve-from-the-ai-pc-fad/
Does Dell see a little gnome with a pin approaching the bubble?
Shockingly, it turns out that businesses do better when they make and
sell things that people actually *want* o_O
The smart ones try to control what people want.
Remember, if you relieve people of all their net disposable income, your customer base disappears.
On 1/7/26 15:03, rbowman wrote:
The program language landscape changes so rapidly that whatever language
Colleges don't always make great choices and do their students a
disservice. At one time University of Montana used Modula-2, another
Wirth production. Later they chose Java after being offered financial
incentives by Sun. (I think it was before Oracle). Arguably a better
choice although it didn't do much when we were looking for C/C++
programmers.
you learn today will probably be niche in a few years. FORTRAN and COBOL
are still around, but I don't thinks anyone from the 70s would recognize them. I was there and I used both at the time.
On Wed, 7 Jan 2026 19:21:09 -0700, Peter Flass wrote:
FORTRAN and COBOL are still around, but I don't thinks anyone from the
70s would recognize them.
COBOL is still COBOL. Fortran has evolved somewhat, post-Fortran-77.
On 2026-01-07, The Natural Philosopher <tnp@invalid.invalid> wrote:
On 06/01/2026 21:06, c186282 wrote:
On 1/6/26 05:10, The Natural Philosopher wrote:Some assembler is...it's a choice. Especially Macro assembler...
On 06/01/2026 03:27, Peter Flass wrote:
I seem to recall reading that someone once wrote an OS in COBOL.
From what little I know COBOL looked very like assembler.
If assembler was RIDICULOUSLY WORDY
I remember CS weenies fawning over a language called pl360, the
misbegotten bastard child of Algol and 360 assembly language. :-p
C had forward declarations from early on ...
I hated Wirthian languages from the start and still do. Just bad
chemistry, I guess. But I couldn't stand having some snooty compiler
slap my wrist and tell me that I couldn't do what I could do in a couple
of lines of assembly language.
On Thu, 08 Jan 2026 04:57:26 GMT, Charlie Gibbs wrote:
I hated Wirthian languages from the start and still do. Just bad
chemistry, I guess. But I couldn't stand having some snooty compiler
slap my wrist and tell me that I couldn't do what I could do in a couple
of lines of assembly language.
Ever run into PL/M?
On Thu, 08 Jan 2026 04:57:23 GMT, Charlie Gibbs wrote:
On 2026-01-07, Peter Flass <Peter@Iron-Spring.com> wrote:
Leave it to M$ (and IBM) to screw it up. Pascal was specifically
designed for fast one-pass compilation.
Is that why people wrote programs bottom-up (i.e. with the main
function at the bottom to avoid forward references)?
C is also like that. And C++, for all its enormous complexity in other
areas, preserves the tradition.
On Thu, 8 Jan 2026 02:26:25 -0000 (UTC), Lawrence D’Oliveiro wrote:
On Wed, 7 Jan 2026 19:21:09 -0700, Peter Flass wrote:
FORTRAN and COBOL are still around, but I don't thinks anyone from the
70s would recognize them.
COBOL is still COBOL. Fortran has evolved somewhat, post-Fortran-77.
Yeah, you don't need the continuation punch in column 6 :) I should take a look and see if that much has really changed,
On Thu, 08 Jan 2026 04:57:26 GMT, Charlie Gibbs wrote:
On 2026-01-07, The Natural Philosopher <tnp@invalid.invalid> wrote:
On 06/01/2026 21:06, c186282 wrote:
On 1/6/26 05:10, The Natural Philosopher wrote:Some assembler is...it's a choice. Especially Macro assembler...
On 06/01/2026 03:27, Peter Flass wrote:
I seem to recall reading that someone once wrote an OS in COBOL.
From what little I know COBOL looked very like assembler.
If assembler was RIDICULOUSLY WORDY
I remember CS weenies fawning over a language called pl360, the
misbegotten bastard child of Algol and 360 assembly language. :-p
I don't remember that one but I do recall when PL/I was going to be the
one language to rule them all.
On Thu, 8 Jan 2026 07:00:14 -0000 (UTC), Lawrence D’Oliveiro wrote:
On Thu, 08 Jan 2026 04:57:23 GMT, Charlie Gibbs wrote:
On 2026-01-07, Peter Flass <Peter@Iron-Spring.com> wrote:
Leave it to M$ (and IBM) to screw it up. Pascal was specifically
designed for fast one-pass compilation.
Is that why people wrote programs bottom-up (i.e. with the main
function at the bottom to avoid forward references)?
C is also like that. And C++, for all its enormous complexity in other
areas, preserves the tradition.
I usually put main() at the top of the file, preceded by the
declarations.
It's hard to brag about top-down development when you write your
program bottom-up ...
Lawrence =?iso-8859-13?q?D=FFOliveiro?= <ldo@nz.invalid> writes:
On Wed, 7 Jan 2026 19:21:09 -0700, Peter Flass wrote:
FORTRAN and COBOL are still around, but I don't thinks anyone from
the 70s would recognize them.
COBOL is still COBOL. Fortran has evolved somewhat, post-Fortran-77.
Modern COBOL is very different than COBOL-68 (or even COBOL-84).
It even has pointers.
On Thu, 8 Jan 2026 11:20:01 +0000
The Natural Philosopher <tnp@invalid.invalid> wrote:
Huge amounts of perfectly useable technology are 'frozen in time'
My coffee beaker is no different in principle from a bronze age
beaker.
Round wheels predate the Ark...
But if existing solutions are basically fine, how are vendors supposed
to sell new ones, I ask you?
On 2026-01-08, The Natural Philosopher <tnp@invalid.invalid> wrote:
On 08/01/2026 04:57, Charlie Gibbs wrote:
On 2026-01-07, John Ames <commodorejohn@gmail.com> wrote:Try being the operative word.
On 7 Jan 2026 02:00:12 GMT
rbowman <bowman@montana.com> wrote:
https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2026/01/dells-xps-revival-is-a-welcome- >>>>> reprieve-from-the-ai-pc-fad/
Does Dell see a little gnome with a pin approaching the bubble?
Shockingly, it turns out that businesses do better when they make and
sell things that people actually *want* o_O
The smart ones try to control what people want.
Remember, if you relieve people of all their net disposable income, your
customer base disappears.
This is why a good parasite won't bleed its host completely white.
The exception to this is if there's such an abundance of potential
hosts that you can afford to use them up and throw them away.
This is why governments and large corporations are so much in
favour of population growth.
C++'s "//" construct is a lot easier to code.
Hmm ... remember the "spinning rims" fetish about a decade ago ?
On Wed, 7 Jan 2026 19:21:09 -0700, Peter Flass wrote:
On 1/7/26 15:03, rbowman wrote:
The program language landscape changes so rapidly that whatever language
Colleges don't always make great choices and do their students a
disservice. At one time University of Montana used Modula-2, another
Wirth production. Later they chose Java after being offered financial
incentives by Sun. (I think it was before Oracle). Arguably a better
choice although it didn't do much when we were looking for C/C++
programmers.
you learn today will probably be niche in a few years. FORTRAN and COBOL
are still around, but I don't thinks anyone from the 70s would recognize
them. I was there and I used both at the time.
I'm comfortable up to Fortran 77 but would have to learn the current
version. However, I've used C for about 45 years and it still looks like
C.
https://www.tiobe.com/tiobe-index/
Going from Python2 to Python3 required some updating but it wasn't a relearning process. I've got a first edition little book, Lutz's 'Python Pocket Reference', from 1998. It would require very few edits to bring it
up to date.
I haven't kept up with C++ but my use has always been a subset of the full language.
Sure, some languages never caught on. Go is on the list but the change was the wrong way. Ada hangs on, mostly for government projects but follows Scratch. Ruby didn't scale and is a footnote. Pike was always niche. The
list goes on.
If I had a kid in college I would hope for Python as the didactic
language. C would be good but academics don't seem to like it. Not enough arcane points to fill a semester? C++, maybe. Java, I suppose, although
I've seen the aftermath when people trained in Java try to use languages
with less hand holding and try to unravel ***foo.
On 1/8/26 09:43, Scott Lurndal wrote:
Lawrence =?iso-8859-13?q?D=FFOliveiro?= <ldo@nz.invalid> writes:
On Wed, 7 Jan 2026 19:21:09 -0700, Peter Flass wrote:
FORTRAN and COBOL are still around, but I don't thinks anyone from
the 70s would recognize them.
COBOL is still COBOL. Fortran has evolved somewhat, post-Fortran-77.
Modern COBOL is very different than COBOL-68 (or even COBOL-84).
It even has pointers.
Then is it even still "COBOL" ? "NuBOL" instead ?
How long before Japan and Korea (and a lot of others soon after)
cease to be whatever they were ? They keep importing young foreign
labor,
more and more and more, which means whatever the culture/history was
keeps evaporating.
On Thu, 8 Jan 2026 02:26:25 -0000 (UTC), Lawrence D’Oliveiro wrote:
On Wed, 7 Jan 2026 19:21:09 -0700, Peter Flass wrote:
FORTRAN and COBOL are still around, but I don't thinks anyone from the
70s would recognize them.
COBOL is still COBOL. Fortran has evolved somewhat, post-Fortran-77.
Yeah, you don't need the continuation punch in column 6 :) I should take a look and see if that much has really changed,
On Thu, 08 Jan 2026 04:57:26 GMT, Charlie Gibbs wrote:
On 2026-01-07, The Natural Philosopher <tnp@invalid.invalid> wrote:
On 06/01/2026 21:06, c186282 wrote:
On 1/6/26 05:10, The Natural Philosopher wrote:Some assembler is...it's a choice. Especially Macro assembler...
On 06/01/2026 03:27, Peter Flass wrote:
I seem to recall reading that someone once wrote an OS in COBOL.
From what little I know COBOL looked very like assembler.
If assembler was RIDICULOUSLY WORDY
I remember CS weenies fawning over a language called pl360, the
misbegotten bastard child of Algol and 360 assembly language. :-p
I don't remember that one but I do recall when PL/I was going to be the
one language to rule them all.
rbowman <bowman@montana.com> writes:
On Thu, 08 Jan 2026 04:57:26 GMT, Charlie Gibbs wrote:
I hated Wirthian languages from the start and still do. Just bad
chemistry, I guess. But I couldn't stand having some snooty compiler
slap my wrist and tell me that I couldn't do what I could do in a
couple of lines of assembly language.
Ever run into PL/M?
I have a listing of the PL/M 8080 cross-compiler somewhere in storage.
On 1/8/26 09:43, Scott Lurndal wrote:
Lawrence =?iso-8859-13?q?D=FFOliveiro?= <ldo@nz.invalid> writes:
On Wed, 7 Jan 2026 19:21:09 -0700, Peter Flass wrote:
FORTRAN and COBOL are still around, but I don't thinks anyone from
the 70s would recognize them.
COBOL is still COBOL. Fortran has evolved somewhat, post-Fortran-77.
Modern COBOL is very different than COBOL-68 (or even COBOL-84).
It even has pointers.
Then is it even still "COBOL" ? "NuBOL" instead ?
How long before Japan and Korea (and a lot of others soon after)
cease to be whatever they were ? They keep importing young foreign
labor, more and more and more, which means whatever the
culture/history was keeps evaporating.
Soon 'Japan' will just be a geographic name, not anything to do with
an ancient culture, not anything with a history.
On Thu, 8 Jan 2026 20:23:33 -0500
c186282 <c186282@nnada.net> wrote:
How long before Japan and Korea (and a lot of others soon after)
cease to be whatever they were ? They keep importing young foreign
labor, more and more and more, which means whatever the
culture/history was keeps evaporating.
Soon 'Japan' will just be a geographic name, not anything to do with
an ancient culture, not anything with a history.
Spoiler alert, that's *all of history* - we're just more aware of it
now. Try reading medieval literature sometime, and count the number of references to tribes and states that are just names on a map or foot-
notes in the distant history of some present-day ethnic group.
On Thu, 8 Jan 2026 20:23:33 -0500, c186282 wrote:
How long before Japan and Korea (and a lot of others soon after)
cease to be whatever they were ? They keep importing young foreign
labor,
more and more and more, which means whatever the culture/history was
keeps evaporating.
I'm wondering how that will go over. A third generation Korean in Japan is still that damn Korean.
Other regions, even in 'blender' areas, still DO have a certain
'national character' and 'common history'. Turkey is NOT like Germany
is NOT like England is NOT like France.
On 1/8/26 17:48, rbowman wrote:
On Thu, 8 Jan 2026 20:23:33 -0500, c186282 wrote:
How long before Japan and Korea (and a lot of others soon after)
cease to be whatever they were ? They keep importing young foreign >>> labor,
more and more and more, which means whatever the culture/history was >>> keeps evaporating.
I'm wondering how that will go over. A third generation Korean in
Japan is
still that damn Korean.
Yes and people who worked at trades like tanning and leather crafting as
well as butchers were traditional outcasts and still are rejected by other Japanese.
Koreans have been brought to Japan since its earliest days as an Empire to
enrich the culture with their arts and religious knowlege and hundreds
of years
back when Japan had invaded Korea under Hideyoshi many artisans were
willing
to flee to Japan to escape the strife that the Japanese had brought to Korea.
But Japan recently employed lots of foreign workers in low paid jobs and housed them in very inadequate conditions. Recently means for me in
the last 20-25 years.
Source about centuries back in manga: HYOUGE MONO Manga about
the very real life of this accomplished tea master who was Sasuke Furuta,
but ended up as Tea Master to Hideyoshi. Incredible manga was available
on line with but like the real life the story has a rather bitter ending.
On Thu, 8 Jan 2026 22:15:11 -0500
c186282 <c186282@nnada.net> wrote:
Other regions, even in 'blender' areas, still DO have a certain
'national character' and 'common history'. Turkey is NOT like Germany
is NOT like England is NOT like France.
They do now - but they had a different character once upon a time.
England used to be a bunch of Celts and a handful of Roman expats 'til
the Germanic tribes rolled in; then it was a bunch of Saxons squabbling
with their Scots and Welsh neighbors 'til the Normans steamrolled
everyone - and the Normans themselves were Vikings "gone native" in
France (like the Rus over in Kyiv.) And the "native" French were just a *different* blend of Gallic, Germanic, and Latin, way back when. Turkey
useta be Phrygia, back in the mists of time...
All of history's successive tides shaped the world we know today, and
all the things happening now will shape what comes after; that is, as
they say, the way of things.
It's just that prior to getting the facts kinda approximately more-or-
less straight-ish in the last few centuries, we had a *lot* less clear
of a picture of it - and a huge part of what's shaped *this* period of history, for better and for worse, is the collective culture shock of realizing that practically *every* modern-day culture* is a relative
newcomer standing in the ruins of countless older societies with which
they may or may not have anything much in common.
* (Less a few outliers like, yes, east Asia - but even Japanese history
has its wrinkles, they just don't like to talk about them. Just ask
the Ainu...)
On Wed, 7 Jan 2026 19:21:09 -0700, Peter Flass wrote:
On 1/7/26 15:03, rbowman wrote:
The program language landscape changes so rapidly that whatever language
Colleges don't always make great choices and do their students a
disservice. At one time University of Montana used Modula-2, another
Wirth production. Later they chose Java after being offered financial
incentives by Sun. (I think it was before Oracle). Arguably a better
choice although it didn't do much when we were looking for C/C++
programmers.
you learn today will probably be niche in a few years. FORTRAN and COBOL
are still around, but I don't thinks anyone from the 70s would recognize
them. I was there and I used both at the time.
I'm comfortable up to Fortran 77 but would have to learn the current
version. However, I've used C for about 45 years and it still looks like
C.
https://www.tiobe.com/tiobe-index/
Going from Python2 to Python3 required some updating but it wasn't a relearning process. I've got a first edition little book, Lutz's 'Python Pocket Reference', from 1998. It would require very few edits to bring it
up to date.
I haven't kept up with C++ but my use has always been a subset of the full language.
Sure, some languages never caught on. Go is on the list but the change was the wrong way. Ada hangs on, mostly for government projects but follows Scratch. Ruby didn't scale and is a footnote. Pike was always niche. The
list goes on.
If I had a kid in college I would hope for Python as the didactic
language. C would be good but academics don't seem to like it. Not enough arcane points to fill a semester? C++, maybe. Java, I suppose, although
I've seen the aftermath when people trained in Java try to use languages
with less hand holding and try to unravel ***foo.
Are you another Japan-Hater ???
On 1/8/26 14:52, rbowman wrote:
On Thu, 8 Jan 2026 02:26:25 -0000 (UTC), Lawrence D’Oliveiro wrote:
On Wed, 7 Jan 2026 19:21:09 -0700, Peter Flass wrote:
FORTRAN and COBOL are still around, but I don't thinks anyone from
the 70s would recognize them.
COBOL is still COBOL. Fortran has evolved somewhat, post-Fortran-77.
Yeah, you don't need the continuation punch in column 6 :) I should
take a look and see if that much has really changed,
AAAAUUUGGGHHH ! You just triggered my PTSD about FORTRAN and PUNCH
CARDS !!! :-)
Huh ? You're demonizing Japan ? Most EVERY nation/culture can be
demonized, and/or lauded.
However Japan IS a bit different ... their geographics did let them
build a kind of singular culture over a very long period.
They do now - but they had a different character once upon a time.
England used to be a bunch of Celts and a handful of Roman expats 'til
the Germanic tribes rolled in; then it was a bunch of Saxons squabbling
with their Scots and Welsh neighbors 'til the Normans steamrolled
everyone - and the Normans themselves were Vikings "gone native" in
France (like the Rus over in Kyiv.) And the "native" French were just a *different* blend of Gallic, Germanic, and Latin, way back when. Turkey
useta be Phrygia, back in the mists of time...
On Thu, 8 Jan 2026 20:15:24 -0500, c186282 wrote:Golly that was a long time ago...garterettes?
On 1/8/26 09:43, Scott Lurndal wrote:
Lawrence =?iso-8859-13?q?D=FFOliveiro?= <ldo@nz.invalid> writes:
On Wed, 7 Jan 2026 19:21:09 -0700, Peter Flass wrote:
FORTRAN and COBOL are still around, but I don't thinks anyone from
the 70s would recognize them.
COBOL is still COBOL. Fortran has evolved somewhat, post-Fortran-77.
Modern COBOL is very different than COBOL-68 (or even COBOL-84).
It even has pointers.
Then is it even still "COBOL" ? "NuBOL" instead ?
That triggered a distant memory of SNOBOL.
Salt LakeThey put their trust in Jesus, not brakes
is the all time worse but some people think STOP is an acronym for Slight
Tap On Pedal.
They do now - but they had a different character once upon a time.It was other people before that. too. Celts are late invaders from the
England used to be a bunch of Celts and a handful of Roman expats 't
On Thu, 08 Jan 2026 22:45:45 GMT, Charlie Gibbs wrote:
C++'s "//" construct is a lot easier to code.
That is something I was happy to see adapted by C, JavaScript and other C like languages. I don't know who had it first. If it's used consistently
it makes commenting out blocks easier although '#if 0' works.
On Thu, 08 Jan 2026 20:09:03 GMT, Scott Lurndal wrote:
rbowman <bowman@montana.com> writes:
On Thu, 08 Jan 2026 04:57:26 GMT, Charlie Gibbs wrote:
I hated Wirthian languages from the start and still do. Just bad
chemistry, I guess. But I couldn't stand having some snooty compiler
slap my wrist and tell me that I couldn't do what I could do in a
couple of lines of assembly language.
Ever run into PL/M?
I have a listing of the PL/M 8080 cross-compiler somewhere in storage.
iirc the Mostek AID-80F development system had a native PL/M
implementation. It was almost, but not quite, CP/M.
On 8 Jan 2026 at 19:49:16, rbowman <bowman@montana.com> wrote:
On Wed, 7 Jan 2026 19:21:09 -0700, Peter Flass wrote:
On 1/7/26 15:03, rbowman wrote:
The program language landscape changes so rapidly that whatever language >>> you learn today will probably be niche in a few years. FORTRAN and COBOL >>> are still around, but I don't thinks anyone from the 70s would recognize >>> them. I was there and I used both at the time.
Colleges don't always make great choices and do their students a
disservice. At one time University of Montana used Modula-2, another
Wirth production. Later they chose Java after being offered financial
incentives by Sun. (I think it was before Oracle). Arguably a better
choice although it didn't do much when we were looking for C/C++
programmers.
I'm comfortable up to Fortran 77 but would have to learn the current
version. However, I've used C for about 45 years and it still looks like
C.
https://www.tiobe.com/tiobe-index/
Going from Python2 to Python3 required some updating but it wasn't a
relearning process. I've got a first edition little book, Lutz's 'Python
Pocket Reference', from 1998. It would require very few edits to bring it
up to date.
I haven't kept up with C++ but my use has always been a subset of the full >> language.
Sure, some languages never caught on. Go is on the list but the change was >> the wrong way. Ada hangs on, mostly for government projects but follows
Scratch. Ruby didn't scale and is a footnote. Pike was always niche. The
list goes on.
If I had a kid in college I would hope for Python as the didactic
language. C would be good but academics don't seem to like it. Not enough
arcane points to fill a semester? C++, maybe. Java, I suppose, although
I've seen the aftermath when people trained in Java try to use languages
with less hand holding and try to unravel ***foo.
Python is OK but Rexx is better.
On Thu, 8 Jan 2026 20:54:14 -0500, c186282 wrote:
On 1/8/26 14:52, rbowman wrote:
On Thu, 8 Jan 2026 02:26:25 -0000 (UTC), Lawrence D’Oliveiro wrote:
On Wed, 7 Jan 2026 19:21:09 -0700, Peter Flass wrote:
FORTRAN and COBOL are still around, but I don't thinks anyone from
the 70s would recognize them.
COBOL is still COBOL. Fortran has evolved somewhat, post-Fortran-77.
Yeah, you don't need the continuation punch in column 6 :) I should
take a look and see if that much has really changed,
AAAAUUUGGGHHH ! You just triggered my PTSD about FORTRAN and PUNCH
CARDS !!! :-)
Don't forget the coding forms.
https://archive.org/details/fortrancodingform
More horrors from the past:
https://www.math-cs.gordon.edu/courses/cs323/FORTRAN/fortran.html
I was so scarred by the initial brush with programming it was about 10
years before I had any interest in it. Of course the game had changed. You could wirewrap up a working Z80 on the kitchen table and replace a 3'x3' panel full of ice cube relays or a bushel of TTLs with a much less
physical implementation of logic.\
On 09/01/2026 01:35, rbowman wrote:
On Thu, 08 Jan 2026 22:45:45 GMT, Charlie Gibbs wrote:For a block I use
C++'s "//" construct is a lot easier to code.
That is something I was happy to see adapted by C, JavaScript and other C
like languages. I don't know who had it first. If it's used consistently
it makes commenting out blocks easier although '#if 0' works.
/*
...
*/
Bit shorter than
#if 0
...
#endif
Don't forget the Danes and Norwegians...
On 09/01/2026 02:02, rbowman wrote:
On Thu, 08 Jan 2026 20:09:03 GMT, Scott Lurndal wrote:PL/M was a language. CP/M was almost an operating system
rbowman <bowman@montana.com> writes:
On Thu, 08 Jan 2026 04:57:26 GMT, Charlie Gibbs wrote:
I hated Wirthian languages from the start and still do. Just bad
chemistry, I guess. But I couldn't stand having some snooty compiler >>>>> slap my wrist and tell me that I couldn't do what I could do in a
couple of lines of assembly language.
Ever run into PL/M?
I have a listing of the PL/M 8080 cross-compiler somewhere in storage.
iirc the Mostek AID-80F development system had a native PL/M
implementation. It was almost, but not quite, CP/M.
On Thu, 8 Jan 2026 07:00:14 -0000 (UTC), Lawrence D’Oliveiro wrote:
On Thu, 08 Jan 2026 04:57:23 GMT, Charlie Gibbs wrote:
On 2026-01-07, Peter Flass <Peter@Iron-Spring.com> wrote:
Leave it to M$ (and IBM) to screw it up. Pascal was specifically
designed for fast one-pass compilation.
Is that why people wrote programs bottom-up (i.e. with the main
function at the bottom to avoid forward references)?
C is also like that. And C++, for all its enormous complexity in other
areas, preserves the tradition.
I usually put main() at the top of the file, preceded by the
declarations.
On 2026-01-08, rbowman <bowman@montana.com> wrote:
On Thu, 8 Jan 2026 02:26:25 -0000 (UTC), Lawrence D’Oliveiro wrote:
On Wed, 7 Jan 2026 19:21:09 -0700, Peter Flass wrote:
FORTRAN and COBOL are still around, but I don't thinks anyone from the >>>> 70s would recognize them.
COBOL is still COBOL. Fortran has evolved somewhat, post-Fortran-77.
Yeah, you don't need the continuation punch in column 6 :) I should take a >> look and see if that much has really changed,
The one WATFIV extension I recall was a magic character which caused
the remainder of the card to be treated as comments. People called
this character a "zigamorph"; you produced it on a keypunch by
using the multi-punch key to punch 12-11-0-7-8-9 in one column.
In an EBCDIC card reader this translates to 0xFF.
They do now - but they had a different character once upon a time.
England used to be a bunch of Celts and a handful of Roman expats
It was other people before that. too. Celts are late invaders from
the broinze age.
On Thu, 8 Jan 2026 22:15:11 -0500, c186282 wrote:
However Japan IS a bit different ... their geographics did let them
build a kind of singular culture over a very long period.
Their culture doesn't like to examine its roots. If it wasn't for Koreans teaching them how to grow rice they'd still be eating millet. The
calligraphy is mostly Chinese eve if it is pronounced differently. Shinto
is homegrown but Buddhism came from the west.
That's not to say there weren't tweaks. Avalokiteshvara had a sex change
and became Kannon, who has overtones of Amaterasu, The Kirishitans blended Kannon with the Virgin Mary. Very adaptable people.
All of history's successive tides shaped the world we know today, and
all the things happening now will shape what comes after; that is, as
they say, the way of things.
On 1/9/26 03:02, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
On 09/01/2026 01:35, rbowman wrote:
On Thu, 08 Jan 2026 22:45:45 GMT, Charlie Gibbs wrote:For a block I use
C++'s "//" construct is a lot easier to code.
That is something I was happy to see adapted by C, JavaScript and
other C
like languages. I don't know who had it first. If it's used consistently >>> it makes commenting out blocks easier although '#if 0' works.
/*
...
*/
Bit shorter than
#if 0
...
#endif
Great as long as the block doesn't contain comments.
On 9 Jan 2026 07:04:49 GMT
rbowman <bowman@montana.com> wrote:
Don't forget the Danes and Norwegians...
Also true, though they'd hardly even gotten settled in when William
decided to take a jaunt across the Channel and do some conquerin'...
The Natural Philosopher <tnp@invalid.invalid> writes:
On 09/01/2026 02:02, rbowman wrote:
On Thu, 08 Jan 2026 20:09:03 GMT, Scott Lurndal wrote:PL/M was a language. CP/M was almost an operating system
rbowman <bowman@montana.com> writes:
On Thu, 08 Jan 2026 04:57:26 GMT, Charlie Gibbs wrote:
I hated Wirthian languages from the start and still do. Just bad
chemistry, I guess. But I couldn't stand having some snooty compiler >>>>>> slap my wrist and tell me that I couldn't do what I could do in a
couple of lines of assembly language.
Ever run into PL/M?
I have a listing of the PL/M 8080 cross-compiler somewhere in storage.
iirc the Mostek AID-80F development system had a native PL/M
implementation. It was almost, but not quite, CP/M.
So? Mr. Bowman's comment referred to the AID-80F development system.
On Fri, 9 Jan 2026 10:00:20 +0000
The Natural Philosopher <tnp@invalid.invalid> wrote:
They do now - but they had a different character once upon a time.
England used to be a bunch of Celts and a handful of Roman expats
It was other people before that. too. Celts are late invaders from
the broinze age.
Also true - and the different Neolithic and early Bronze Age cultures
crossed whole *swaths* of Eurasia, in the Elder Days.
There are claims that American copper (id-ed by Isotope) was on many
bronze age tools in Europe.... Did people cross the Atlantic? Was
there a land bridge?
On 9 Jan 2026 07:04:49 GMT rbowman <bowman@montana.com> wrote:
Don't forget the Danes and Norwegians...
Also true, though they'd hardly even gotten settled in when William
decided to take a jaunt across the Channel and do some conquerin'...
Never looked at Python, but I'm a huge Rexx fan. I used to use it all
the time (MVS, VM, and OS/2). Now I use it less (Linux), to the extent
that I often have to refresh my knowledge, but I have several vital
utilities written in Rexx.
On 09/01/2026 16:02, Scott Lurndal wrote:
The Natural Philosopher <tnp@invalid.invalid> writes:
On 09/01/2026 02:02, rbowman wrote:
On Thu, 08 Jan 2026 20:09:03 GMT, Scott Lurndal wrote:PL/M was a language. CP/M was almost an operating system
rbowman <bowman@montana.com> writes:
On Thu, 08 Jan 2026 04:57:26 GMT, Charlie Gibbs wrote:
I hated Wirthian languages from the start and still do. Just bad >>>>>>> chemistry, I guess. But I couldn't stand having some snooty
compiler slap my wrist and tell me that I couldn't do what I could >>>>>>> do in a couple of lines of assembly language.
Ever run into PL/M?
I have a listing of the PL/M 8080 cross-compiler somewhere in
storage.
iirc the Mostek AID-80F development system had a native PL/M
implementation. It was almost, but not quite, CP/M.
So? Mr. Bowman's comment referred to the AID-80F development system.
Did it? It was ambiguous.
On 09/01/2026 04:13, John Ames wrote:
They do now - but they had a different character once upon a time.It was other people before that. too. Celts are late invaders from the broinze age.
England used to be a bunch of Celts and a handful of Roman expats 't
On Fri, 9 Jan 2026 18:51:43 +0000 The Natural Philosopher <tnp@invalid.invalid> wrote:
There are claims that American copper (id-ed by Isotope) was on many
bronze age tools in Europe.... Did people cross the Atlantic? Was there
a land bridge?
That *is* an intriguing question - AFAIK the evidence we have is scant,
but it's certainly a fascinating notion. Dunno if we'll ever get any
solid answers, but you gotta wonder...
On 09/01/2026 01:35, rbowman wrote:
On Thu, 08 Jan 2026 22:45:45 GMT, Charlie Gibbs wrote:For a block I use /*
C++'s "//" construct is a lot easier to code.
That is something I was happy to see adapted by C, JavaScript and other
C like languages. I don't know who had it first. If it's used
consistently it makes commenting out blocks easier although '#if 0'
works.
...
*/
Bit shorter than #if 0 ...
#endif
On 09/01/2026 15:16, Peter Flass wrote:
On 1/9/26 03:02, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
On 09/01/2026 01:35, rbowman wrote:Great as long as the block doesn't contain comments.
On Thu, 08 Jan 2026 22:45:45 GMT, Charlie Gibbs wrote:For a block I use /*
C++'s "//" construct is a lot easier to code.
That is something I was happy to see adapted by C, JavaScript and
other C like languages. I don't know who had it first. If it's used
consistently it makes commenting out blocks easier although '#if 0'
works.
...
*/
Bit shorter than #if 0 ...
#endif
Comments are reserved either ror this /********************************************* * This is a comment and conmatains no code * **********************************************/
Or somecode('blah'); // Blah processing unit.
which is easy enough to asterisk out
That *is* an intriguing question - AFAIK the evidence we have is
scant, but it's certainly a fascinating notion. Dunno if we'll ever
get any solid answers, but you gotta wonder...
Heyerdahl was disliked by the academics but he had an embarrassing
habit of building boats and going places that shouldn't have been
reachable in their theories.
Before Doggerland sank anybody could wander over without having to
build a coracle.
On Thu, 08 Jan 2026 22:45:45 GMT, Charlie Gibbs wrote:
C++'s "//" construct is a lot easier to code.
That is something I was happy to see adapted by C, JavaScript and other C >like languages. I don't know who had it first. If it's used consistently
it makes commenting out blocks easier although '#if 0' works.
On Fri, 9 Jan 2026 10:02:41 +0000, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
On 09/01/2026 01:35, rbowman wrote:
On Thu, 08 Jan 2026 22:45:45 GMT, Charlie Gibbs wrote:For a block I use /*
C++'s "//" construct is a lot easier to code.
That is something I was happy to see adapted by C, JavaScript and other
C like languages. I don't know who had it first. If it's used
consistently it makes commenting out blocks easier although '#if 0'
works.
...
*/
Bit shorter than #if 0 ...
#endif
Certainly. Unless someone snuck in /* stupid comment */ over in column
100 where you overlooked it.
On Fri, 9 Jan 2026 18:48:06 +0000, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
On 09/01/2026 16:02, Scott Lurndal wrote:
The Natural Philosopher <tnp@invalid.invalid> writes:
On 09/01/2026 02:02, rbowman wrote:
On Thu, 08 Jan 2026 20:09:03 GMT, Scott Lurndal wrote:PL/M was a language. CP/M was almost an operating system
rbowman <bowman@montana.com> writes:
On Thu, 08 Jan 2026 04:57:26 GMT, Charlie Gibbs wrote:
I hated Wirthian languages from the start and still do.
Just bad chemistry, I guess. But I couldn't stand
having some snooty compiler slap my wrist and tell me
that I couldn't do what I could do in a couple of lines
of assembly language.
Ever run into PL/M?
I have a listing of the PL/M 8080 cross-compiler somewhere
in storage.
iirc the Mostek AID-80F development system had a native PL/M
implementation. It was almost, but not quite, CP/M.
So? Mr. Bowman's comment referred to the AID-80F development
system.
Did it? It was ambiguous.
https://deramp.com/mostek.html
To clarify, the system ran M/OS-80 which was very much like CP/M.
I believe there was an implementation of the PL/M language available.It's been a day or two. I know I used it to burn EPROMs but I worked
with the Z80 assembler, not PL/M.
On 9 Jan 2026 20:36:38 GMT
rbowman <bowman@montana.com> wrote:
That *is* an intriguing question - AFAIK the evidence we have is
scant, but it's certainly a fascinating notion. Dunno if we'll ever
get any solid answers, but you gotta wonder...
Heyerdahl was disliked by the academics but he had an embarrassing
habit of building boats and going places that shouldn't have been
reachable in their theories.
Certainly can't accuse him of not putting his money where his mouth was.
Before Doggerland sank anybody could wander over without having to
build a coracle.
It's truly amazing how much of the world was walkable in the Ice Age;
doesn't explain *every* place humans ended up (it's absolutely mind-
boggling to consider how far back the Pacific islands were settled,)
but it absolutely made a whole lotta places readily accessible for a
good long while. Makes you wonder, too, how many of the various quasi- Atlantean legends in northwest Europe are really mutated folk memory
from a *staggeringly* long time ago...
On Fri, 9 Jan 2026 10:02:41 +0000, The Natural Philosopher wrote:Or even a /* #endif */
On 09/01/2026 01:35, rbowman wrote:
On Thu, 08 Jan 2026 22:45:45 GMT, Charlie Gibbs wrote:For a block I use /*
C++'s "//" construct is a lot easier to code.
That is something I was happy to see adapted by C, JavaScript and other
C like languages. I don't know who had it first. If it's used
consistently it makes commenting out blocks easier although '#if 0'
works.
...
*/
Bit shorter than #if 0 ...
#endif
Certainly. Unless someone snuck in /* stupid comment */ over in column
100 where you overlooked it.
On Wed, 7 Jan 2026 19:21:09 -0700, Peter Flass wrote:
FORTRAN and COBOL are still around, but I don't thinks anyone from
the 70s would recognize them.
COBOL is still COBOL. Fortran has evolved somewhat, post-Fortran-77.
On 09/01/2026 21:24, John Ames wrote:
On 9 Jan 2026 20:36:38 GMTYes.
rbowman <bowman@montana.com> wrote:
That *is* an intriguing question - AFAIK the evidence we have is
scant, but it's certainly a fascinating notion. Dunno if we'll ever
get any solid answers, but you gotta wonder...
Heyerdahl was disliked by the academics but he had an embarrassing
habit of building boats and going places that shouldn't have been
reachable in their theories.
Certainly can't accuse him of not putting his money where his mouth was.
Before Doggerland sank anybody could wander over without having to
build a coracle.
It's truly amazing how much of the world was walkable in the Ice Age;
doesn't explain *every* place humans ended up (it's absolutely mind-
boggling to consider how far back the Pacific islands were settled,)
but it absolutely made a whole lotta places readily accessible for a
good long while. Makes you wonder, too, how many of the various quasi-
Atlantean legends in northwest Europe are really mutated folk memory
from a *staggeringly* long time ago...
125m of sea level rise in a few thousand years...and a global
temperature rise of
up to 10°C
Odd how that didn't 'destroy the planet'...
On 9 Jan 2026 20:36:38 GMT
rbowman <bowman@montana.com> wrote:
That *is* an intriguing question - AFAIK the evidence we have is
scant, but it's certainly a fascinating notion. Dunno if we'll ever
get any solid answers, but you gotta wonder...
Heyerdahl was disliked by the academics but he had an embarrassing
habit of building boats and going places that shouldn't have been
reachable in their theories.
Certainly can't accuse him of not putting his money where his mouth was.
Before Doggerland sank anybody could wander over without having to
build a coracle.
It's truly amazing how much of the world was walkable in the Ice Age;
doesn't explain *every* place humans ended up (it's absolutely mind-
boggling to consider how far back the Pacific islands were settled,)
but it absolutely made a whole lotta places readily accessible for a
good long while. Makes you wonder, too, how many of the various quasi- Atlantean legends in northwest Europe are really mutated folk memory
from a *staggeringly* long time ago...
It's truly amazing how much of the world was walkable in the Ice
Age; doesn't explain *every* place humans ended up (it's absolutely
mind- boggling to consider how far back the Pacific islands were
settled,) but it absolutely made a whole lotta places readily
accessible for a good long while. Makes you wonder, too, how many
of the various quasi- Atlantean legends in northwest Europe are
really mutated folk memory from a *staggeringly* long time ago...
It's also instructive to realize how badly humans wanted to get away
from their neighbors.
On 09/01/2026 21:24, John Ames wrote:
On 9 Jan 2026 20:36:38 GMTYes.
rbowman <bowman@montana.com> wrote:
That *is* an intriguing question - AFAIK the evidence we have is
scant, but it's certainly a fascinating notion. Dunno if we'll ever
get any solid answers, but you gotta wonder...
Heyerdahl was disliked by the academics but he had an embarrassing
habit of building boats and going places that shouldn't have been
reachable in their theories.
Certainly can't accuse him of not putting his money where his mouth was.
Before Doggerland sank anybody could wander over without having to
build a coracle.
It's truly amazing how much of the world was walkable in the Ice Age;
doesn't explain *every* place humans ended up (it's absolutely mind-
boggling to consider how far back the Pacific islands were settled,)
but it absolutely made a whole lotta places readily accessible for a
good long while. Makes you wonder, too, how many of the various quasi-
Atlantean legends in northwest Europe are really mutated folk memory
from a *staggeringly* long time ago...
125m of sea level rise in a few thousand years...and a global
temperature rise of
up to 10°C
Odd how that didn't 'destroy the planet'...
'C' has added a few nicey-nice things, but not TOO much.
You can (I do) stick pretty much to K&R and everything
still works fine.
On Thu, 08 Jan 2026 22:45:45 GMT, Charlie Gibbs wrote:
C++'s "//" construct is a lot easier to code.
That is something I was happy to see adapted by C, JavaScript and other C like languages. I don't know who had it first. If it's used consistently
it makes commenting out blocks easier although '#if 0' works.
It did if you lived in Doggerland, or used to walk from Australia to Indonesia.
On Sat, 10 Jan 2026 07:42:47 -0700, Peter Flass wrote:
It did if you lived in Doggerland, or used to walk from Australia to
Indonesia.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stone_Spring
The rest of the trilogy, 'Bronze Summer' and 'Iron Winter', are okay but
the focus moves from Doggerland.
Le 08-01-2026, Lawrence D’Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> a écrit :
On Wed, 7 Jan 2026 19:21:09 -0700, Peter Flass wrote:
FORTRAN and COBOL are still around, but I don't thinks anyone from
the 70s would recognize them.
COBOL is still COBOL. Fortran has evolved somewhat,
post-Fortran-77.
Is it really still the same COBOL?
On Sat, 10 Jan 2026 07:42:47 -0700, Peter Flass wrote:
It did if you lived in Doggerland, or used to walk from Australia to
Indonesia.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stone_Spring
The rest of the trilogy, 'Bronze Summer' and 'Iron Winter', are okay but
the focus moves from Doggerland.
The Natural Philosopher <tnp@invalid.invalid> writes:
On 09/01/2026 21:24, John Ames wrote:
On 9 Jan 2026 20:36:38 GMTYes.
rbowman <bowman@montana.com> wrote:
That *is* an intriguing question - AFAIK the evidence we have is
scant, but it's certainly a fascinating notion. Dunno if we'll ever
get any solid answers, but you gotta wonder...
Heyerdahl was disliked by the academics but he had an embarrassing
habit of building boats and going places that shouldn't have been
reachable in their theories.
Certainly can't accuse him of not putting his money where his mouth was. >>>
Before Doggerland sank anybody could wander over without having to
build a coracle.
It's truly amazing how much of the world was walkable in the Ice Age;
doesn't explain *every* place humans ended up (it's absolutely mind-
boggling to consider how far back the Pacific islands were settled,)
but it absolutely made a whole lotta places readily accessible for a
good long while. Makes you wonder, too, how many of the various quasi-
Atlantean legends in northwest Europe are really mutated folk memory
from a *staggeringly* long time ago...
125m of sea level rise in a few thousand years...and a global
temperature rise of
up to 10°C
Odd how that didn't 'destroy the planet'...
Apples are not equal to oranges.
On 1/10/26 12:44, rbowman wrote:
On Sat, 10 Jan 2026 07:42:47 -0700, Peter Flass wrote:
It did if you lived in Doggerland, or used to walk from Australia to
Indonesia.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stone_Spring
The rest of the trilogy, 'Bronze Summer' and 'Iron Winter', are okay
but the focus moves from Doggerland.
I love a nice upbeat story.
On 2026-01-09, c186282 <c186282@nnada.net> wrote:
'C' has added a few nicey-nice things, but not TOO much.
You can (I do) stick pretty much to K&R and everything
still works fine.
I think of my style as "K&R plus prototypes". In fact, to
work both ways, my code is still full of constructs like this:
#ifdef PROTOTYPE
int foo(char *bar, BOOL baz)
#else
int foo(bar, baz) char *bar; BOOL baz;
#endif
On Fri, 9 Jan 2026 10:00:20 +0000, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
On 09/01/2026 04:13, John Ames wrote:
They do now - but they had a different character once upon a time.It was other people before that. too. Celts are late invaders from the
England used to be a bunch of Celts and a handful of Roman expats 't
broinze age.
Before Doggerland sank anybody could wander over without having to build a coracle.
On 1/9/26 15:32, rbowman wrote:
On Fri, 9 Jan 2026 10:00:20 +0000, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
On 09/01/2026 04:13, John Ames wrote:
They do now - but they had a different character once upon a time.It was other people before that. too. Celts are late invaders from the
England used to be a bunch of Celts and a handful of Roman expats 't
broinze age.
Before Doggerland sank anybody could wander over without having to
build a
coracle.
Correct. However it mostly sank about 12,000 years
ago when all the ice melted. Even the Beaker People
had to float over to England.
Stick to my estimation that England perhaps ranks
as the "most invaded" country ever :-)
Original pop ? Who the fuck knows ?
On 1/10/26 18:51, c186282 wrote:
On 1/9/26 15:32, rbowman wrote:
On Fri, 9 Jan 2026 10:00:20 +0000, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
On 09/01/2026 04:13, John Ames wrote:
They do now - but they had a different character once upon a time.It was other people before that. too. Celts are late invaders from the >>>> broinze age.
England used to be a bunch of Celts and a handful of Roman expats 't
Before Doggerland sank anybody could wander over without having to
build a
coracle.
Correct. However it mostly sank about 12,000 years
ago when all the ice melted. Even the Beaker People
had to float over to England.
Stick to my estimation that England perhaps ranks
as the "most invaded" country ever :-)
Original pop ? Who the fuck knows ?
People just kept heading west, and when they got to England they had to stop.
On 1/10/26 10:23, Scott Lurndal wrote:
The Natural Philosopher <tnp@invalid.invalid> writes:
On 09/01/2026 21:24, John Ames wrote:
On 9 Jan 2026 20:36:38 GMTYes.
rbowman <bowman@montana.com> wrote:
That *is* an intriguing question - AFAIK the evidence we have is
scant, but it's certainly a fascinating notion. Dunno if we'll ever >>>>>> get any solid answers, but you gotta wonder...
Heyerdahl was disliked by the academics but he had an embarrassing
habit of building boats and going places that shouldn't have been
reachable in their theories.
Certainly can't accuse him of not putting his money where his mouth
was.
Before Doggerland sank anybody could wander over without having to
build a coracle.
It's truly amazing how much of the world was walkable in the Ice Age;
doesn't explain *every* place humans ended up (it's absolutely mind-
boggling to consider how far back the Pacific islands were settled,)
but it absolutely made a whole lotta places readily accessible for a
good long while. Makes you wonder, too, how many of the various quasi- >>>> Atlantean legends in northwest Europe are really mutated folk memory
from a *staggeringly* long time ago...
125m of sea level rise in a few thousand years...and a global
temperature rise of
up to 10°C
Odd how that didn't 'destroy the planet'...
Apples are not equal to oranges.
Don't worry about the planet. With or without life on it Earth will take care of itself just as does Venus or Mercury. The risk is
to the last few hundred years of human progress(?). We might
manage to revert to barbarism if the temperature does not go too
high for our systems by which I mean the whole means by which
your body maintains homeostasis which includes food systems,
medical systems, transport systems. I suspect without clear
evidence that we may hit another bottleneck and suffer large
losses of population and genetic diversity human and otherwise.
On 1/10/26 18:51, c186282 wrote:
On 1/9/26 15:32, rbowman wrote:People just kept heading west, and when they got to England they had to
On Fri, 9 Jan 2026 10:00:20 +0000, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
On 09/01/2026 04:13, John Ames wrote:
They do now - but they had a different character once upon a time.It was other people before that. too. Celts are late invaders from
England used to be a bunch of Celts and a handful of Roman expats 't
the broinze age.
Before Doggerland sank anybody could wander over without having to
build a coracle.
Correct. However it mostly sank about 12,000 years ago when all the
ice melted. Even the Beaker People had to float over to England.
Stick to my estimation that England perhaps ranks as the "most
invaded" country ever :-)
Original pop ? Who the fuck knows ?
stop.
On Sat, 10 Jan 2026 20:03:27 -0700, Peter Flass wrote:
On 1/10/26 18:51, c186282 wrote:
On 1/9/26 15:32, rbowman wrote:People just kept heading west, and when they got to England they had to
On Fri, 9 Jan 2026 10:00:20 +0000, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
On 09/01/2026 04:13, John Ames wrote:
They do now - but they had a different character once upon a time. >>>>>> England used to be a bunch of Celts and a handful of Roman expats 't >>>>> It was other people before that. too. Celts are late invaders fromthe broinze age.
Before Doggerland sank anybody could wander over without having to
build a coracle.
Correct. However it mostly sank about 12,000 years ago when all the >>> ice melted. Even the Beaker People had to float over to England.
Stick to my estimation that England perhaps ranks as the "most
invaded" country ever :-)
Original pop ? Who the fuck knows ?
stop.
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2150867.Westviking https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Farfarers
No, you just build a boat. Mowat has been accused of having a vivid imagination particularly for 'Never Cry Wolf' but he does point out that
by island hopping in the Hebrides and Faroes before heading for Iceland
you are only out if sight of land for a couple of days, assuming you don't get blown off course.
He tells a plausible story. In 'Collapse' Jared Diamond claims that one of the reasons for the abandonment of Greenland along with climate change was
an irrational reluctance of the Norse to eat fish. Excuse me? He bases
that on the lack of fish bones in the middens. I've never had it but I
think the process of producing hákarl might dissolve the bones.
On 10 Jan 2026 14:40:30 GMT, Stéphane CARPENTIER wrote:
Le 08-01-2026, Lawrence D’Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> a écrit :
On Wed, 7 Jan 2026 19:21:09 -0700, Peter Flass wrote:
FORTRAN and COBOL are still around, but I don't thinks anyone from
the 70s would recognize them.
COBOL is still COBOL. Fortran has evolved somewhat,
post-Fortran-77.
Is it really still the same COBOL?
I imagine it’s still backward-compatible.
My point being that the new stuff added to Fortran changes the
language out of all recognition (e.g. free-format source, user-defined
types, type parameters, CONTAINS), whereas the same is not true of
COBOL.
From what I've read, even the Neanderthals knew how
to build at least crude boats - pushed out onto some
of the Greek islands.
So yea, modern humans carried on the practice. It got
them to England and beyond. Well, SOME of them ...
the death rate would have been rather high for any
long voyage.
Building GOOD, large-ish, properly steerable boats ...
THAT took much longer than expected. Seems easy now,
but for whatever reasons the ancients had a hard time
of it.
England ... NOT too far. Even crap boats would do it.
The Beaker People completely infiltrated the existing
English pop about 4400bc - but they'd HAVE to have
floated there. Clearly their boats were 'adequate',
and there'd have been a LOT of them.
On 1/10/26 03:27, The Natural Philosopher wrote:No it didn't. It destroyed doggerland. And as for walking to australia,
Odd how that didn't 'destroy the planet'...
It did if you lived in Doggerland, or used to walk from Australia to Indonesia.
Our ancestors survived global warming, ice ages, plagues, wars, and
all sorts of other problems, at least long enough to breed and pass
on the genes.
On 1/10/26 11:44, rbowman wrote:
On Sat, 10 Jan 2026 07:42:47 -0700, Peter Flass wrote:
It did if you lived in Doggerland, or used to walk from Australia
to Indonesia.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stone_Spring
The rest of the trilogy, 'Bronze Summer' and 'Iron Winter', are
okay but the focus moves from Doggerland.
When Doggerland is submerged and the people have to leave it it
seems totally logical that the focus would change to ancientry.
Remember Doggerland was prehistoric so I cannot even say ancienty
history but whatever the author according to his education can
imagine of those times.
Worthwhile book in 'Stone Spring' in my ever so humble opinion
Bliss
Odd how that didn't 'destroy the planet'...Apples are not equal to oranges.
Don't worry about the planet. With or without life on it Earth will take care of itself just as does Venus or Mercury. The risk is
to the last few hundred years of human progress(?). We might
manage to revert to barbarism if the temperature does not go too
high for our systems by which I mean the whole means by which
your body maintains homeostasis which includes food systems,
medical systems, transport systems. I suspect without clear
evidence that we may hit another bottleneck and suffer large
losses of population and genetic diversity human and otherwise.
bliss - always the cheery optimist...
The global climate has never gone "too hot" over
the past BILLION years.
However the "warm zone" has sometimes expanded to
reach the poles.
And sometimes contracted so there's icebergs at
the equator.
On 2026-01-09, c186282 <c186282@nnada.net> wrote:
'C' has added a few nicey-nice things, but not TOO much.
You can (I do) stick pretty much to K&R and everything
still works fine.
I think of my style as "K&R plus prototypes". In fact, to
work both ways, my code is still full of constructs like this:
#ifdef PROTOTYPE
int foo(char *bar, BOOL baz)
#else
int foo(bar, baz) char *bar; BOOL baz;
#endif
Stick to my estimation that England perhaps ranks
as the "most invaded" country ever 🙂
He tells a plausible story. In 'Collapse' Jared Diamond claims that one of the reasons for the abandonment of Greenland along with climate change was
an irrational reluctance of the Norse to eat fish. Excuse me? He bases
that on the lack of fish bones in the middens. I've never had it but I
think the process of producing hákarl might dissolve the bones.
From what I've read, even the Neanderthals knew how
to build at least crude boats - pushed out onto some
of the Greek islands.
So yea, modern humans carried on the practice. It got
them to England and beyond. Well, SOME of them ...
the death rate would have been rather high for any
long voyage.
Building GOOD, large-ish, properly steerable boats ...
THAT took much longer than expected. Seems easy now,
but for whatever reasons the ancients had a hard time
of it.
England ... NOT too far. Even crap boats would do it.
The Beaker People completely infiltrated the existing
English pop about 4400bc - but they'd HAVE to have
floated there. Clearly their boats were 'adequate',
and there'd have been a LOT of them.
On Sat, 10 Jan 2026 20:03:27 -0700, Peter Flass wrote:
On 1/10/26 18:51, c186282 wrote:
On 1/9/26 15:32, rbowman wrote:People just kept heading west, and when they got to England they had to
On Fri, 9 Jan 2026 10:00:20 +0000, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
On 09/01/2026 04:13, John Ames wrote:
They do now - but they had a different character once upon a time. >>>>>> England used to be a bunch of Celts and a handful of Roman expats 't >>>>> It was other people before that. too. Celts are late invaders fromthe broinze age.
Before Doggerland sank anybody could wander over without having to
build a coracle.
Correct. However it mostly sank about 12,000 years ago when all the >>> ice melted. Even the Beaker People had to float over to England.
Stick to my estimation that England perhaps ranks as the "most
invaded" country ever :-)
Original pop ? Who the fuck knows ?
stop.
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2150867.Westviking https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Farfarers
No, you just build a boat. Mowat has been accused of having a vivid imagination particularly for 'Never Cry Wolf' but he does point out that
by island hopping in the Hebrides and Faroes before heading for Iceland
you are only out if sight of land for a couple of days, assuming you don't get blown off course.
He tells a plausible story. In 'Collapse' Jared Diamond claims that one of the reasons for the abandonment of Greenland along with climate change was
an irrational reluctance of the Norse to eat fish. Excuse me? He bases
that on the lack of fish bones in the middens. I've never had it but I
think the process of producing hákarl might dissolve the bones.
On Sat, 10 Jan 2026 20:03:27 -0700, Peter Flass wrote:
People just kept heading west, and when they got to England they had to
stop.
He tells a plausible story. In 'Collapse' Jared Diamond claims that one of >the reasons for the abandonment of Greenland along with climate change was >an irrational reluctance of the Norse to eat fish. Excuse me? He bases
that on the lack of fish bones in the middens. I've never had it but I
think the process of producing hákarl might dissolve the bones.
On 10/01/2026 18:23, Scott Lurndal wrote:
Odd how that didn't 'destroy the planet'...Apples are not equal to oranges.
What a meaningless statement.
FORTRAN ... it remains 'important', esp in academic
and professional circles. Can NOT beat all the
engineering/physics libs/functions writ for FORTRAN
over the years ... a solution for EVERYTHING complex.
It's not "popular" like Python ... but it's NOT going
to go away anytime soon. A 'niche' lang, but it's an
important niche.
On 11/01/2026 05:39, rbowman wrote:
He tells a plausible story. In 'Collapse' Jared Diamond claims that one of >> the reasons for the abandonment of Greenland along with climate change was >> an irrational reluctance of the Norse to eat fish. Excuse me? He bases
that on the lack of fish bones in the middens. I've never had it but I
think the process of producing hákarl might dissolve the bones.
They are probably so hungry they ate the bones as well..
The 'Norse' grew up on fish. One visit to sweden or Denmark will show
1001 ways to prepare 'herring'
A lot less pork chicken and beef on the menu.
The Natural Philosopher <tnp@invalid.invalid> writes:
On 10/01/2026 18:23, Scott Lurndal wrote:
Odd how that didn't 'destroy the planet'...Apples are not equal to oranges.
What a meaningless statement.
Not in the context of the portion of the post you
so conveniently deleted.
On 2026-01-11, The Natural Philosopher <tnp@invalid.invalid> wrote:
On 11/01/2026 05:39, rbowman wrote:
He tells a plausible story. In 'Collapse' Jared Diamond claims that one of >>> the reasons for the abandonment of Greenland along with climate change was >>> an irrational reluctance of the Norse to eat fish. Excuse me? He bases
that on the lack of fish bones in the middens. I've never had it but I
think the process of producing hákarl might dissolve the bones.
They are probably so hungry they ate the bones as well..
The 'Norse' grew up on fish. One visit to sweden or Denmark will show
1001 ways to prepare 'herring'
A lot less pork chicken and beef on the menu.
You exaggerate. Sure, fish is _a_ cornerstone in our cuisine, but only
one. I would not say there is a _lot_ less pork, chicken and beef.
Personally I don't eat fish very often, and neither do most people I
know.
Niklas
On 11/01/2026 17:44, Niklas Karlsson wrote:
On 2026-01-11, The Natural Philosopher <tnp@invalid.invalid> wrote:
On 11/01/2026 05:39, rbowman wrote:
He tells a plausible story. In 'Collapse' Jared Diamond claims that one of >>>> the reasons for the abandonment of Greenland along with climate change was >>>> an irrational reluctance of the Norse to eat fish. Excuse me? He bases >>>> that on the lack of fish bones in the middens. I've never had it but I >>>> think the process of producing hákarl might dissolve the bones.
They are probably so hungry they ate the bones as well..
The 'Norse' grew up on fish. One visit to sweden or Denmark will show
1001 ways to prepare 'herring'
A lot less pork chicken and beef on the menu.
You exaggerate. Sure, fish is _a_ cornerstone in our cuisine, but only
one. I would not say there is a _lot_ less pork, chicken and beef.
Personally I don't eat fish very often, and neither do most people I
know.
Niklas
Well the point being that Norse nations are well able to survive on fish
if they have to.
On 2026-01-11, The Natural Philosopher <tnp@invalid.invalid> wrote:The Norse greenlanders were never huge in number and the natives knew
On 11/01/2026 17:44, Niklas Karlsson wrote:
On 2026-01-11, The Natural Philosopher <tnp@invalid.invalid> wrote:
On 11/01/2026 05:39, rbowman wrote:
He tells a plausible story. In 'Collapse' Jared Diamond claims that one of
the reasons for the abandonment of Greenland along with climate change was
an irrational reluctance of the Norse to eat fish. Excuse me? He bases >>>>> that on the lack of fish bones in the middens. I've never had it but I >>>>> think the process of producing hákarl might dissolve the bones.
They are probably so hungry they ate the bones as well..
The 'Norse' grew up on fish. One visit to sweden or Denmark will show
1001 ways to prepare 'herring'
A lot less pork chicken and beef on the menu.
You exaggerate. Sure, fish is _a_ cornerstone in our cuisine, but only
one. I would not say there is a _lot_ less pork, chicken and beef.
Personally I don't eat fish very often, and neither do most people I
know.
Niklas
Well the point being that Norse nations are well able to survive on fish
if they have to.
That I'll agree with... though I'm not sure how sustainable the level of fishing would be that we'd have to do if fish and maybe shellfish were
our only protein.
Niklas--
On 11/01/2026 05:39, rbowman wrote:
He tells a plausible story. In 'Collapse' Jared Diamond claims that one
of the reasons for the abandonment of Greenland along with climate
change was an irrational reluctance of the Norse to eat fish. Excuse
me? He bases that on the lack of fish bones in the middens. I've never
had it but I think the process of producing hákarl might dissolve the
bones.
They are probably so hungry they ate the bones as well..
On 11/01/2026 20:23, Niklas Karlsson wrote:
On 2026-01-11, The Natural Philosopher <tnp@invalid.invalid> wrote:The Norse greenlanders were never huge in number and the natives knew
Well the point being that Norse nations are well able to survive on fish >>> if they have to.
That I'll agree with... though I'm not sure how sustainable the level of
fishing would be that we'd have to do if fish and maybe shellfish were
our only protein.
how to fish.
I suspect the Norse said 'fuck this lets go home' and abandoned
greenland as being not worth the effort.
FORTRAN ... it remains 'important', esp in academic and professional
circles. Can NOT beat all the engineering/physics libs/functions writ
for FORTRAN over the years ... a solution for EVERYTHING complex.
It's not "popular" like Python ... but it's NOT going to go away
anytime soon. A 'niche' lang, but it's an important niche.
rbowman <bowman@montana.com> writes:
On Sat, 10 Jan 2026 20:03:27 -0700, Peter Flass wrote:
People just kept heading west, and when they got to England they had
to stop.
He tells a plausible story. In 'Collapse' Jared Diamond claims that one
of the reasons for the abandonment of Greenland along with climate
change was an irrational reluctance of the Norse to eat fish. Excuse me?
He bases that on the lack of fish bones in the middens. I've never had
it but I think the process of producing hákarl might dissolve the bones.
One word. Lutefisk.
On 11/01/2026 01:51, c186282 wrote:
Stick to my estimation that England perhaps ranks
as the "most invaded" country ever 🙂
Yes, until 1066, after which it became the least.
Nothing like having a navy comprised of pirates.
On Sun, 11 Jan 2026 16:44:55 GMT, Scott Lurndal wrote:
rbowman <bowman@montana.com> writes:
On Sat, 10 Jan 2026 20:03:27 -0700, Peter Flass wrote:
People just kept heading west, and when they got to England they had
to stop.
He tells a plausible story. In 'Collapse' Jared Diamond claims that one >>>of the reasons for the abandonment of Greenland along with climate
change was an irrational reluctance of the Norse to eat fish. Excuse me? >>>He bases that on the lack of fish bones in the middens. I've never had
it but I think the process of producing hákarl might dissolve the bones.
One word. Lutefisk.
Butter, lots of butter. Big problem if the cows died off and there was no butter. It shows up around here at Christmas time. I've been told by knowledgeable people Norwegians in the US eat lutefisk and Norwegians in Norway eat frozen pizza.
Archaelogy has brought mots of human 'prehistory' into the class of
'fairly well known history'
On 2026-01-11, The Natural Philosopher <tnp@invalid.invalid> wrote:
On 11/01/2026 17:44, Niklas Karlsson wrote:
On 2026-01-11, The Natural Philosopher <tnp@invalid.invalid> wrote:
On 11/01/2026 05:39, rbowman wrote:
He tells a plausible story. In 'Collapse' Jared Diamond claims that one of
the reasons for the abandonment of Greenland along with climate change was
an irrational reluctance of the Norse to eat fish. Excuse me? He bases >>>>> that on the lack of fish bones in the middens. I've never had it but I >>>>> think the process of producing hákarl might dissolve the bones.
They are probably so hungry they ate the bones as well..
The 'Norse' grew up on fish. One visit to sweden or Denmark will show
1001 ways to prepare 'herring'
A lot less pork chicken and beef on the menu.
You exaggerate. Sure, fish is _a_ cornerstone in our cuisine, but only
one. I would not say there is a _lot_ less pork, chicken and beef.
Personally I don't eat fish very often, and neither do most people I
know.
Niklas
Well the point being that Norse nations are well able to survive on fish
if they have to.
That I'll agree with... though I'm not sure how sustainable the level of fishing would be that we'd have to do if fish and maybe shellfish were
our only protein.
On 11/01/2026 20:23, Niklas Karlsson wrote:
On 2026-01-11, The Natural Philosopher <tnp@invalid.invalid> wrote:The Norse greenlanders were never huge in number and the natives knew
On 11/01/2026 17:44, Niklas Karlsson wrote:
On 2026-01-11, The Natural Philosopher <tnp@invalid.invalid> wrote:
On 11/01/2026 05:39, rbowman wrote:
He tells a plausible story. In 'Collapse' Jared Diamond claims
that one of
the reasons for the abandonment of Greenland along with climate
change was
an irrational reluctance of the Norse to eat fish. Excuse me? He
bases
that on the lack of fish bones in the middens. I've never had it
but I
think the process of producing hákarl might dissolve the bones.
They are probably so hungry they ate the bones as well..
The 'Norse' grew up on fish. One visit to sweden or Denmark will show >>>>> 1001 ways to prepare 'herring'
A lot less pork chicken and beef on the menu.
You exaggerate. Sure, fish is _a_ cornerstone in our cuisine, but only >>>> one. I would not say there is a _lot_ less pork, chicken and beef.
Personally I don't eat fish very often, and neither do most people I
know.
Niklas
Well the point being that Norse nations are well able to survive on fish >>> if they have to.
That I'll agree with... though I'm not sure how sustainable the level of
fishing would be that we'd have to do if fish and maybe shellfish were
our only protein.
how to fish.
I suspect the Norse said 'fuck this lets go home' and abandoned
greenland as being not worth the effort.
On Sun, 11 Jan 2026 16:44:55 GMT, Scott Lurndal wrote:
rbowman <bowman@montana.com> writes:
On Sat, 10 Jan 2026 20:03:27 -0700, Peter Flass wrote:
People just kept heading west, and when they got to England they had
to stop.
He tells a plausible story. In 'Collapse' Jared Diamond claims that one >>>of the reasons for the abandonment of Greenland along with climate
change was an irrational reluctance of the Norse to eat fish. Excuse me? >>>He bases that on the lack of fish bones in the middens. I've never had
it but I think the process of producing hákarl might dissolve the bones.
One word. Lutefisk.
Butter, lots of butter. Big problem if the cows died off and there was no >butter. It shows up around here at Christmas time. I've been told by >knowledgeable people Norwegians in the US eat lutefisk and Norwegians in >Norway eat frozen pizza.
On Sun, 11 Jan 2026 11:05:32 +0000, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
Archaelogy has brought mots of human 'prehistory' into the class of
'fairly well known history'
With caveats. There have been many moments of 'oops, that stuff is a hell
of a lot older than we thought it was.' Even Chris Stringer had to change
his story although the popular conception is lagging.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milford_H._Wolpoff
Many stocks of fish are already depleted or nearly so,
and that's just at CURRENT levels of consumption. The "bounty of the
sea" is NOT unlimited, not at all.
http://linuxmafia.com/humour/power-of-lutefisk.html
The only good thing about lutefisk is that it is generally accompanied
by meatballs and mashed potatoes (and lefse).
On Sun, 11 Jan 2026 11:29:53 +0000, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
On 11/01/2026 05:39, rbowman wrote:
He tells a plausible story. In 'Collapse' Jared Diamond claims that one
of the reasons for the abandonment of Greenland along with climate
change was an irrational reluctance of the Norse to eat fish. Excuse
me? He bases that on the lack of fish bones in the middens. I've never
had it but I think the process of producing hákarl might dissolve the
bones.
They are probably so hungry they ate the bones as well..
We used to have fried smelts, fins, tail, and scales, usually without the head. This isn't the best area for seafood but the only ones I've seen in the market lately were marked as bait.
On Sun, 11 Jan 2026 11:26:50 +0000, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
On 11/01/2026 01:51, c186282 wrote:
Stick to my estimation that England perhaps ranks
as the "most invaded" country ever 🙂
Yes, until 1066, after which it became the least.
Nothing like having a navy comprised of pirates.
And a merchant class comprised of pirates... Wasn't there a Monty Python sketch about that?
Alas without detailed records we may find old THINGS,
but what they MEANT, their context, is forever lost.
That's just half a view of 'history'.
On Mon, 12 Jan 2026 00:47:29 GMT, Scott Lurndal wrote:
http://linuxmafia.com/humour/power-of-lutefisk.html
The only good thing about lutefisk is that it is generally accompanied
by meatballs and mashed potatoes (and lefse).
Is isn't that bad. That's not to say it's good.
It's blandly neutral.
Butter, lots of butter. Big problem if the cows died off and there
was no butter. It shows up around here at Christmas time. I've
been told by knowledgeable people Norwegians in the US eat lutefisk
and Norwegians in Norway eat frozen pizza.
I am not that familiar with that aspect of our neighbors, but I can
believe it. We have lutfisk (yes, we spell it without the E) and I
certainly don't care for it. Fortunately, very rarely has anyone
attempted to serve it to me.
They did have gjetost, which makes up for it. The stuff is dangerous though.
https://www.newsinenglish.no/2013/01/22/burning-brown-cheese-closes-
tunnel/
The Ski Queen brand must not be the real thing. It doesn't burn.
On 12 Jan 2026 04:10:10 GMT rbowman <bowman@montana.com> wrote:
They did have gjetost, which makes up for it. The stuff is dangerous
though.
https://www.newsinenglish.no/2013/01/22/burning-brown-cheese-closes-
tunnel/
The Ski Queen brand must not be the real thing. It doesn't burn.
Gosh, I'd forgotten about gjetost. Need to get some of that again.
On 11/01/2026 20:57, rbowman wrote:
On Sun, 11 Jan 2026 11:29:53 +0000, The Natural Philosopher wrote:In the UK 'whitebait' are fried fish eaten whole...
On 11/01/2026 05:39, rbowman wrote:
He tells a plausible story. In 'Collapse' Jared Diamond claims that
one of the reasons for the abandonment of Greenland along with
climate change was an irrational reluctance of the Norse to eat fish.
Excuse me? He bases that on the lack of fish bones in the middens.
I've never had it but I think the process of producing hákarl might
dissolve the bones.
They are probably so hungry they ate the bones as well..
We used to have fried smelts, fins, tail, and scales, usually without
the head. This isn't the best area for seafood but the only ones I've
seen in the market lately were marked as bait.
On 1/11/26 19:19, c186282 wrote:
Alas without detailed records we may find old THINGS,"It's a ritual object."
but what they MEANT, their context, is forever lost. That's just
half a view of 'history'.
On 11 Jan 2026 21:38:00 GMT Niklas Karlsson <nikke.karlsson@gmail.com>
wrote:
Butter, lots of butter. Big problem if the cows died off and there
was no butter. It shows up around here at Christmas time. I've been
told by knowledgeable people Norwegians in the US eat lutefisk and
Norwegians in Norway eat frozen pizza.
I am not that familiar with that aspect of our neighbors, but I can
believe it. We have lutfisk (yes, we spell it without the E) and I
certainly don't care for it. Fortunately, very rarely has anyone
attempted to serve it to me.
It's Considered Traditional among the older generations of Norwegian- Americans, to the point where you can find it in the grocery store in
the northern Midwest. Have never tried it myself, but I've seen (and
smelled) it at family gatherings.
Now krumkake, *that's* a slice of the Ol d Country I can get behind.
rbowman <bowman@montana.com> writes:pudding/
On Mon, 12 Jan 2026 00:47:29 GMT, Scott Lurndal wrote:
http://linuxmafia.com/humour/power-of-lutefisk.html
The only good thing about lutefisk is that it is generally accompanied
by meatballs and mashed potatoes (and lefse).
Is isn't that bad. That's not to say it's good.
It's blandly neutral.
He says as the gelatinous fishy slime slides down his throat :-)
We had it twice a year for decades. Yes, butter helps to mask
the the flavor, but nothing masks the consistency (or lack thereof).
Desert (Rommegrot) was good, if not particularly healthy:
https://www.cheaprecipeblog.com/2015/04/rommegrot-norwegian-cream-
On Mon, 12 Jan 2026 08:11:36 -0800, John Ames wrote:
A friend who was active in a Norway based church told me a lot of the Sons >are really German. It's a nice clubhouse so why build your own when you
can invade Norway?
On Mon, 12 Jan 2026 08:11:36 -0800, John Ames wrote:
On 11 Jan 2026 21:38:00 GMT Niklas Karlsson <nikke.karlsson@gmail.com>
wrote:
Butter, lots of butter. Big problem if the cows died off and there
was no butter. It shows up around here at Christmas time. I've been
told by knowledgeable people Norwegians in the US eat lutefisk and
Norwegians in Norway eat frozen pizza.
I am not that familiar with that aspect of our neighbors, but I can
believe it. We have lutfisk (yes, we spell it without the E) and I
certainly don't care for it. Fortunately, very rarely has anyone
attempted to serve it to me.
It's Considered Traditional among the older generations of Norwegian-
Americans, to the point where you can find it in the grocery store in
the northern Midwest. Have never tried it myself, but I've seen (and
smelled) it at family gatherings.
Now krumkake, *that's* a slice of the Ol d Country I can get behind.
It appears in the grocery stores here around Christmas.
https://www.sofn.com/norwegian_culture/recipe_box/ baked_goods_breads_and_desserts/rosettes/
The local Sons of Norway lodge has a booth at the fair where they sell 'vikings' and rosettes. The rosettes are good. The vikings are deep fried mystery meat on a stick sort of like a corndog. They're okay. The problem
is there is usually a long line.
https://www.sofnmissoula.com/
A friend who was active in a Norway based church told me a lot of the Sons are really German. It's a nice clubhouse so why build your own when you
can invade Norway?
He says as the gelatinous fishy slime slides down his throat 🙂
We had it twice a year for decades. Yes, butter helps to mask
the the flavor, but nothing masks the consistency (or lack thereof).
On Mon, 12 Jan 2026 07:45:11 -0700, Peter Flass wrote:
On 1/11/26 19:19, c186282 wrote:
Alas without detailed records we may find old THINGS,"It's a ritual object."
but what they MEANT, their context, is forever lost. That's just
half a view of 'history'.
I've heard some fascinating explanations for the petroglyphs in the US
west. My personal explanation is the tribe sent bored teenagers up to a lookout where lacking cellphones they chipped away at the rocks.
rbowman <bowman@montana.com> writes:
On Mon, 12 Jan 2026 07:45:11 -0700, Peter Flass wrote:
On 1/11/26 19:19, c186282 wrote:
Alas without detailed records we may find old THINGS,"It's a ritual object."
but what they MEANT, their context, is forever lost. That's just
half a view of 'history'.
I've heard some fascinating explanations for the petroglyphs in the US
west. My personal explanation is the tribe sent bored teenagers up to a
lookout where lacking cellphones they chipped away at the rocks.
You may not be that far off. Have a read of _The Nature Of Paelolithic
Art_ (R. Dale Guthrie) - it’s not short but if you’re interested in that sort of thing, it’d be time well spent.
https://press.uchicago.edu/Misc/Chicago/311260.html has a copy of the introduction.
Oh, now *that* looks like a good read. Many thanks, will definitelyAlas without detailed records we may find old THINGS, but what
they MEANT, their context, is forever lost. That's just half a
view of 'history'.
"It's a ritual object."
I've heard some fascinating explanations for the petroglyphs in the
US west. My personal explanation is the tribe sent bored teenagers
up to a lookout where lacking cellphones they chipped away at the
rocks.
You may not be that far off. Have a read of _The Nature Of Paelolithic
Art_ (R. Dale Guthrie) - it’s not short but if you’re interested in
that sort of thing, it’d be time well spent.
On 1/12/26 11:45, rbowman wrote:
On Mon, 12 Jan 2026 08:11:36 -0800, John Ames wrote:
On 11 Jan 2026 21:38:00 GMT Niklas Karlsson <nikke.karlsson@gmail.com>
wrote:
Butter, lots of butter. Big problem if the cows died off and there >>>>> was no butter. It shows up around here at Christmas time. I've been >>>>> told by knowledgeable people Norwegians in the US eat lutefisk and
Norwegians in Norway eat frozen pizza.
I am not that familiar with that aspect of our neighbors, but I can
believe it. We have lutfisk (yes, we spell it without the E) and I
certainly don't care for it. Fortunately, very rarely has anyone
attempted to serve it to me.
It's Considered Traditional among the older generations of Norwegian-
Americans, to the point where you can find it in the grocery store in
the northern Midwest. Have never tried it myself, but I've seen (and
smelled) it at family gatherings.
Now krumkake, *that's* a slice of the Ol d Country I can get behind.
It appears in the grocery stores here around Christmas.
https://www.sofn.com/norwegian_culture/recipe_box/
baked_goods_breads_and_desserts/rosettes/
The local Sons of Norway lodge has a booth at the fair where they sell
'vikings' and rosettes. The rosettes are good. The vikings are deep fried
mystery meat on a stick sort of like a corndog. They're okay. The problem
is there is usually a long line.
https://www.sofnmissoula.com/
A friend who was active in a Norway based church told me a lot of the
Sons
are really German. It's a nice clubhouse so why build your own when you
can invade Norway?
Garrison Keillor had a nice take on Norwegians vs. Germans in Lake
Woebegone
On 12/01/2026 15:44, Scott Lurndal wrote:
He says as the gelatinous fishy slime slides down his throat 🙂
We had it twice a year for decades. Yes, butter helps to mask
the the flavor, but nothing masks the consistency (or lack thereof).
Oysters: "like swallowing someone else's cold snot"
rbowman <bowman@montana.com> writes:
On Mon, 12 Jan 2026 07:45:11 -0700, Peter Flass wrote:
On 1/11/26 19:19, c186282 wrote:
Alas without detailed records we may find old THINGS,"It's a ritual object."
but what they MEANT, their context, is forever lost. That's just
half a view of 'history'.
I've heard some fascinating explanations for the petroglyphs in the US
west. My personal explanation is the tribe sent bored teenagers up to a
lookout where lacking cellphones they chipped away at the rocks.
You may not be that far off. Have a read of _The Nature Of Paelolithic
Art_ (R. Dale Guthrie) - it’s not short but if you’re interested in that sort of thing, it’d be time well spent.
https://press.uchicago.edu/Misc/Chicago/311260.html has a copy of the introduction.
On Sun, 11 Jan 2026 17:58:31 -0500, c186282 wrote:
Many stocks of fish are already depleted or nearly so,
and that's just at CURRENT levels of consumption. The "bounty of the
sea" is NOT unlimited, not at all.
Some of the species I see in the market would have been classified as cat food 60 years ago.
On 11/01/2026 21:35, rbowman wrote:
On Sun, 11 Jan 2026 11:26:50 +0000, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
On 11/01/2026 01:51, c186282 wrote:
Stick to my estimation that England perhaps ranks
as the "most invaded" country ever 🙂
Yes, until 1066, after which it became the least.
Nothing like having a navy comprised of pirates.
And a merchant class comprised of pirates... Wasn't there a Monty Python
sketch about that?
Dunno. There is a Trumpian experiment ongoing to see exactly where that leads, of course...
In the end, we developed democracy. The amount of loot the war winners gained was always less than they spent on defeating the opposition.
Probably the USA will end up doing the same.
After having explored all the other alternatives.
Elizabeth I is quoted as saying 'war is such a chancy thing' or similar.
On 2026-01-12, rbowman <bowman@montana.com> wrote:
On Sun, 11 Jan 2026 17:58:31 -0500, c186282 wrote:
Many stocks of fish are already depleted or nearly so,
and that's just at CURRENT levels of consumption. The "bounty of the >>> sea" is NOT unlimited, not at all.
Some of the species I see in the market would have been classified as cat
food 60 years ago.
I've heard this described as "eating our way down the food chain".
rbowman <bowman@montana.com> writes:
On Mon, 12 Jan 2026 08:11:36 -0800, John Ames wrote:
A friend who was active in a Norway based church told me a lot of the
Sons are really German. It's a nice clubhouse so why build your own when >>you can invade Norway?
Small village where my father grew up had two churches. A norwegian lutheran church and a german lutheran church (ALC and Wisconson Synod,
IIRC). Never the twain shall meet.
On Mon, 12 Jan 2026 19:52:39 GMT, Scott Lurndal wrote:
rbowman <bowman@montana.com> writes:
On Mon, 12 Jan 2026 08:11:36 -0800, John Ames wrote:
A friend who was active in a Norway based church told me a lot of the
Sons are really German. It's a nice clubhouse so why build your own when >>> you can invade Norway?
Small village where my father grew up had two churches. A norwegian
lutheran church and a german lutheran church (ALC and Wisconson Synod,
IIRC). Never the twain shall meet.
No kidding. I was interested in the food, not the theology, but Immanuel Lutheran is ECLA. First Lutheran, about a mile away, is Missouri Synod. I think the Missouri folks consider the ELCA folks to be baby-raping, communistic, apostates. Both the pastor and assistant pastor at Immanuel
are women and that's a non-starter for LCMS.
Put it into the trash - it'd attract ten species of roving animals
... that fish smell is infinitely attractive. Don't think the garbage
service would be very friendly to a 50 pound concrete brick on top of
my trash bin .........
Oh, are nothing but slimy nasty fish to be found in the North Sea ???
rbowman <bowman@montana.com> writes:
On Mon, 12 Jan 2026 07:45:11 -0700, Peter Flass wrote:
On 1/11/26 19:19, c186282 wrote:
Alas without detailed records we may find old THINGS,"It's a ritual object."
but what they MEANT, their context, is forever lost. That's just
half a view of 'history'.
I've heard some fascinating explanations for the petroglyphs in the US
west. My personal explanation is the tribe sent bored teenagers up to a
lookout where lacking cellphones they chipped away at the rocks.
You may not be that far off. Have a read of _The Nature Of Paelolithic
Art_ (R. Dale Guthrie) - it’s not short but if you’re interested in that sort of thing, it’d be time well spent.
https://press.uchicago.edu/Misc/Chicago/311260.html has a copy of the introduction.
Like the Norse graffiti at Maes Howe that says something like 'Hagars
wife is a good fuck'
Concerning graffiti, nothing changes...
I tend to agree ... most petroglyphs DO look like things bored
kiddies would scrawl. Lacking spray-paint, well, you use what you
have.
On the other hand, this coming July 4 sounds like an appropriate time to
wind up the Great Experiment. Two hundred and fifty years to the day...
AMAZING how TINY ideological diffs can be turned into MAJOR, kill 'em
all, rifts
On 1/12/26 15:46, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
On 12/01/2026 15:44, Scott Lurndal wrote:
He says as the gelatinous fishy slime slides down his throat 🙂
We had it twice a year for decades. Yes, butter helps to mask
the the flavor, but nothing masks the consistency (or lack thereof).
Oysters: "like swallowing someone else's cold snot"
They're awful .....
Oh, are nothing but slimy nasty fish to be found
in the North Sea ???
On Mon, 12 Jan 2026 18:17:25 -0500, c186282 wrote:
I tend to agree ... most petroglyphs DO look like things bored
kiddies would scrawl. Lacking spray-paint, well, you use what you
have.
https://www.ancientartarchive.org/handprints-universal-symbol-humanity/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4I49uteH-EA
I've had an informal interest in experimental archaeology. If you say to yourself "I'm here in this environment, how do I make a living?" some of
the theories of armchair archaeologists don't make sense.
The hard part is viewing the scene with fresh eyes. I know how to make a figure 4 trap or deadfall. Do I have to assume Ogg never figured it out?
I've ground corn with a mano and metate. Can I assume an early human
wouldn't have figured out rubbing hard seeds between two rocks didn't make them easier to eat?
Perhaps, but it's so much _fun_ (if you're into that sort of thing).
On Mon, 12 Jan 2026 22:58:32 -0500, c186282 wrote:
Put it into the trash - it'd attract ten species of roving animals
... that fish smell is infinitely attractive. Don't think the garbage
service would be very friendly to a 50 pound concrete brick on top of
my trash bin .........
You do realize there is water packed tuna?
and it's gone long before the trash panda gets wind of it. I do get
sardines in oil and after I get the fish out the can goes on the deck. Not
as popular as tuna juice but community cats will eat almost anything.
Except Blue Buffalo. The cats wouldn't eat it. The raccoon wouldn't eat
it. The skunk managed to choke it down.
On Mon, 12 Jan 2026 22:58:32 -0500, c186282 wrote:Yes, and I have some. It's all I used to eat. Then
Put it into the trash - it'd attract ten species of roving animals
... that fish smell is infinitely attractive. Don't think the garbage
service would be very friendly to a 50 pound concrete brick on top of
my trash bin .........
You do realize there is water packed tuna?
I drain it into the cat's bowl
and it's gone long before the trash panda gets wind of it. I do get
sardines in oil and after I get the fish out the can goes on the deck. Not
as popular as tuna juice but community cats will eat almost anything.
Except Blue Buffalo. The cats wouldn't eat it. The raccoon wouldn't eat
it. The skunk managed to choke it down.
On Mon, 12 Jan 2026 18:12:38 -0500, c186282 wrote:
Oh, are nothing but slimy nasty fish to be found in the North Sea ???
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_fishes_of_the_North_Sea
Anything edible is vulnerable or endangered, even the eels.
On Mon, 12 Jan 2026 20:58:16 +0000, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
Like the Norse graffiti at Maes Howe that says something like 'Hagars
wife is a good fuck'
Concerning graffiti, nothing changes...
Then there is the one at the Hagia Sophia in Istanbul 'Halfdan was here'
Except Blue Buffalo. The cats wouldn't eat it. The raccoon wouldn't eat
it. The skunk managed to choke it down.
I haven't seen the 'raccoon test' mentioned in their ads ... I wonder
why ?
On 1/13/26 00:50, rbowman wrote:
On Mon, 12 Jan 2026 18:12:38 -0500, c186282 wrote:
Oh, are nothing but slimy nasty fish to be found in the North Sea
???
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_fishes_of_the_North_Sea
Anything edible is vulnerable or endangered, even the eels.
Clearly somebody really REALLY liked fish there in the past :-)
I wonder if they can transplant some N.Atlantic species ?
Assuming there's anything for THEM to eat ...
On Tue, 13 Jan 2026 12:38:24 -0500, c186282 wrote:
Except Blue Buffalo. The cats wouldn't eat it. The raccoon wouldn't eat
it. The skunk managed to choke it down.
I haven't seen the 'raccoon test' mentioned in their ads ... I wonder
why ?
I see their ads, I think on Netflix, with dogs. I get a chuckle but then >dogs like to roll in shit.
On Tue, 13 Jan 2026 12:41:52 -0500, c186282 wrote:
On 1/13/26 00:50, rbowman wrote:
On Mon, 12 Jan 2026 18:12:38 -0500, c186282 wrote:
Oh, are nothing but slimy nasty fish to be found in the North Sea
???
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_fishes_of_the_North_Sea
Anything edible is vulnerable or endangered, even the eels.
Clearly somebody really REALLY liked fish there in the past :-)
I wonder if they can transplant some N.Atlantic species ?
Assuming there's anything for THEM to eat ...
I think cod, flounder, haddock, and halibut are about fished out in the >North Atlantic too. Maybe even sardines.
https://www.islandinstitute.org/working-waterfront/27423/
'Maine' sardines come from Latvia. I visited a sardine factory in the
rbowman <bowman@montana.com> writes:
On Tue, 13 Jan 2026 12:38:24 -0500, c186282 wrote:
Except Blue Buffalo. The cats wouldn't eat it. The raccoon wouldn't
eat it. The skunk managed to choke it down.
I haven't seen the 'raccoon test' mentioned in their ads ... I
wonder why ?
I see their ads, I think on Netflix, with dogs. I get a chuckle but then >>dogs like to roll in shit.
I wouldn't say that they like it. It's more of a hunting instinct to
mask their scent when upwind of prey.
I still visit a Sardine factory occasionally.
<https://www.sardinefactory.com/>
Unfortunately, the west coast actual sardine stocks were rather famously exhausted in the late 1950's. As documented in _Cannery Row_.
50 years later, they had mostly returned, but even absent commercial
fishing, the numbers started to decrease in 2019.
On Tue, 13 Jan 2026 22:41:07 GMT, Scott Lurndal wrote:
I still visit a Sardine factory occasionally.
<https://www.sardinefactory.com/>
Trust me, the one I went to didn't look like that.
Unfortunately, the west coast actual sardine stocks were rather famously
exhausted in the late 1950's. As documented in _Cannery Row_.
50 years later, they had mostly returned, but even absent commercial
fishing, the numbers started to decrease in 2019.
I liked Steinbeck's novels. When I finally made it to Monterey I wasn't
all that impressed.
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