Played it on a Univac 1110 4x4 computer sometime after 1972.

It was in Fortran. I spent many man-hours of work time turning it into a bootable Uniservo 16 tape so you could play it from the Uniscope 100 console while I was on nights.

I claim the biggest misuse of company money to implement Startrek. The official monthly rental for this configuration was over $200,000 per month.

Visiting the punch room.

That was an experience which would make your day. Junior programmers in the 1960s were not encouraged to just drop into this paradise where dozens of nubile young ladies were typing away on their IBM 029s.

But sometimes you would be invited down by the woman of formidable aspect who guarded access to the room to clarify something you had written on one of your coding forms. Oh joy!

She was no fool, however. She noticed that my handwriting was steadily getting worse and after the third visit told me that I was disrupting their workflow and that in future the coding forms would be sent back and I would lose my place in the queue.

Another thing from the video: whatever happened to Stentophones? We used to have them everywhere in 1969 but I don't think I've seen one in 20 years.

The odd thing about the swiss railway clocks...

...is not the design, which is very clean and distinctive. Instead the odd thing is the way they act when the second hand reaches the 12 o'clock mark.

See here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fGRJWl48b7w&feature=related

Is the case made of real Kevlar?

...Which is rather difficult to manufacture in bulk to precise tolerances. Or is it some other material with 'kevlar effect' finishing?

There's an awful lot of faux-kevlar around in travel bags, watchbands (I need to have a bulletproof wrist), etc. Few of the manufacturers have the machinery to actually deal with it.

First Experience of a Spreadsheet...

..was around 1983/4. The engineering group I moved into was tasked with an array processor design. For the company, this was a bit of a sideshow and they wouldn't spring for some decent software for analyzing signal timing. So some bright spark did it all on his brand new IBM-compatible PC in Lotus 1-2-3 or whatever was current around that time. Pages of horizontal lines popping up and down in sympathy and heading off right towards ZZ territory as he simulated a matrix add.

Some years later, "What, you can use spreadsheets for business planning?"

I think we only sold two or three processors so perhaps a more rigorous use of Lotus by the Program Managers might have saved a lot of profitless effort.

Can't these large adapters use a stub cable to a normal-sized plug?

These large units block all the holes on a multi-outlet (I'm in Euro-land). Would the addition of a 1-foot cable and a normal plug cause signal problems? Would plugging it in via a non-switched outlet bar cause problems?

Who's got the oldest?...

...I have 3 HP 16Cs, the oldest from 1983 (as best I remember). The instruction book has a 1982 copyright.

It replaced a TI LCD Programmer, which my wife had pretty much taken over anyway. And that replaced a TI LED Programmer, which is still around somewhere. The red LEDs are still the coolest.

I programmed my first HP 16C to help me disentangle the various fields in the long microcode word used by the embedded controller I was working on then, which used AMD 2900 series chips, as far as I remember.

Doesn't seem like it was so long ago. I grow old, I grow old, I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled.

The courts are the final arbiters...

...and in the USA I can't believe that increasing the credibility of the USPTO will do anything to reduce the dependency on the legal system to sort out the validity and real ownership of patents.

Perhaps better just to accept the fact and ackowledge that the Patent Office merely serves as a simple registrar of (claimed) first instance. The whole job can be performed by a roomful of clerks, or perhaps even a web site.

Sorting out the farcical patent tourism industry might be a better thing to concentrate on.

Abomination...

"At least the world agrees that the slot screw is an abomination that deserves to go the same way as surgery without anaesthetic and public hangings."

Funny that some of the most precise miniaturised mechanical machines, ie: watch movements, are put together exclusively with slot screws. I suspect the skill of the artificer has a lot to do with whether they're considered and abomination.

Malware on Univac, Vax & IBM???

Somehow I doubt that. During 35 years with the company (under its various names) the only malware I heard of on Univac machines was some of the officially supported software we delivered to the 1100-series machines during the 1970s.

I did once write an ASM program which put a phony Exec 8 login sequence on Uniscope 100 screens and left it running. In those days interactive terminals were a common resource we all had to share. But it didn't do anything with the supplied passwords, just wrote rude messages back to the user, specially tailored to his userid.

Also a theatre, a general store and a rifle range in the basement...

...at least when I worked there back in the early 1970s. I whiled away many evenings during transport strikes burning up the ammunition they paid for until the crowds on the suburban lines had died down. They also had a full medical and dental service in the Upstream building which was useful on occasion. However, the crowning glory was the Lensbury employee club in Teddington. Once you had been there you could have no doubt the oil companies were making money hand over fist.

At that time the computers (Univac 1108s, IBM 360s) were in the Downstream building on the first floor, but I believe that building was sold off and converted to appartments.

Quite takes me back...haven't lived in Blighty since 1978.

"Apple as a religion"...

...Is primarily pushed by media such as the Register who hope to boost their hit count, attracting both enthusiasts and detractors by publishing inflammatory 'news' items.

I and my IT colleagues where I work use Windows, Unix, Linux at work because we have to. We use Windows, Unix, Linux or an Apple OS at home for various reasons, not least being financial. I haven't come across anyone using an OS for reasons of blind faith.

Friends who are enthusiasts of Ford or Dodge cars, for example, are not considered as cultists, even if we consider them mistaken. There is no reason to extend the religious analogy to OS enthusiasts of any preference unless the purpose is merely to imflame.

Anyone who believes...

...that the Swiss are too polite to make a fuss when you bend the rules hasn't spent much time there. They will (reasonably politely) tell you when you are doing something which is verboten.

Reminds me of the 1930's...

...when it was said that if the poorer housholds had baths they would just use them to store coal.

No need to be so smug ...

...about iPads. Many of us can't see the video because Youtube and external Flash sites are blocked at work anyway. And my life isn't so sad that I read theRegister other than at work.