M$ drops support for security essentials in xp

[philo]

What did he program in 1948? There were very few computers then.

He worked for Oscar Meyer

I don't know the details but he told me that they used a pickup truck to
transfer the data (punch cards) from the Milwaukee to their main
location in Madison, WI


He also said that he'd run a pencil across the stacks of cards and make
a diagonal line in case someone dropped a stack...to facilitate
re-ordering them.


Probably their daily production and possibly payroll records.
(just guessing)

 

[Paul]

He worked for Oscar Meyer

I don't know the details but he told me that they used a pickup truck to transfer the data (punch cards) from the Milwaukee to their main location in Madison, WI


He also said that he'd run a pencil across the stacks of cards and make a diagonal line in case someone dropped a stack...to facilitate re-ordering them.


Probably their daily production and possibly payroll records.
(just guessing)

Punched cards have existed for a long time

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

"Herman Hollerith took the idea of using punched cards to store
information a step further when he created a punched card
tabulating machine which was used in the 1890 U.S. Census."

So even if they don't store a computer program, they
can be used for "data analysis".

Paul

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

He worked for Oscar Meyer

I should have been clearer; I meant what *computer* did he program?
Very few computers had been released that far back.

I don't know the details but he told me that they used a pickup truck to
transfer the data (punch cards) from the Milwaukee to their main
location in Madison, WI

OK. If you don't know, no big deal; I was just curious.

He also said that he'd run a pencil across the stacks of cards and make
a diagonal line in case someone dropped a stack...to facilitate
re-ordering them.

Yes, that was standard practice, not just with him and with Oscar
Meyer, but with almost everybody using punched cards. And a magic
marker was more common than a pencil.

And by the way, that diagonal line didn't really facilitate reordering
them; more than anything else it simply showed you whether the deck
was still in sequence or needed fixing. If only a few cards were out
of sequence that break in the diagonal might help you reorder them
manually, but if the deck had been dropped, the way to reorder them
was to run them through a card sorter.

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

Punched cards have existed for a long time

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

"Herman Hollerith took the idea of using punched cards to store
information a step further when he created a punched card
tabulating machine which was used in the 1890 U.S. Census."

So even if they don't store a computer program, they
can be used for "data analysis".

Yes, as you say, they contained data well before they were used for
computer programs.


As I said earlier, I started programming on an IBM 1401 in 1962.
Around the time I started, the company I worked for got its first
computer. But they already had *tons* of punched cards. The cards were
used to contain data that was processed by EAM machines (IBM 402, 407,
etc.)

 

[philo]

I should have been clearer; I meant what *computer* did he program?
Very few computers had been released that far back.




OK. If you don't know, no big deal; I was just curious.

There is no way I'd remember what it was.

He started with the company I worked for right after they got rid of the
PDP-11 and got a Nixdorf . That was somewhere around 1980

Yes, that was standard practice, not just with him and with Oscar
Meyer, but with almost everybody using punched cards. And a magic
marker was more common than a pencil.

And by the way, that diagonal line didn't really facilitate reordering
them; more than anything else it simply showed you whether the deck
was still in sequence or needed fixing. If only a few cards were out
of sequence that break in the diagonal might help you reorder them
manually, but if the deck had been dropped, the way to reorder them
was to run them through a card sorter.

OK.

 

[philo]

X

I recall taking Fortran in college in the mid 1960's, and we only had
limited access to one computer on campus - the University's IBM 1620
mainframe.
By "limited access", I mean that you wrote your Fortran assignments on punch
cards, turned it your assignment to the mainframe room, and, if you were
lucky, you got it back *a week later* (since the administration stuff had
precedence). But if you made a single programming error, it was tough
nuggies for your grade on that assignment. Can you even imagine something
like that today for our kids?? If they don't get their results back
instantly, they're upset!

Yep. I had a similar experience in the late 60's when I started college.

Wait in line to use the keypunch.

Wait in line to submit your cards.

Wait several hours to get the printout.

If you were missing as much as one unambiguous parentheses the program
was spit out and not even run.

Though we did not have to wait a week to get our program back...
it did take a full week of constant work , waiting in line etc
to actually get it working.



Those dot matrix printers were fast though!

 

[Bob Willard]

Todd replied:
I remember those days too. I hated the things

Rode the punch card wave from 1961 to 2008. Loved it. Got to work on all
sorts of weird stuff.
Was supposed to become 7070 trained but another CE got crosstrained and
I hit the first UR account, 51 column cards, high speed skip, mod10
selfcheck, then a year later the 2nd, add Friden adding machine to the
keypunches and all sorts of other equipment processing cards.

I thought IBM cards (OK, Hollerith cards) were a great improvement over
paper tape -- until I saw one of my colleagues drop the semi-sequenced
one-and-only copy of the OS, 5 (or so) full trays of cards, onto the
hall floor. We blocked all traffic through that main hall of the lab
for hours, while working on the punch-card jigsaw puzzle ("Hey, this
pile looks like the disk driver").

Anybody can manually punch an extra hole into an IBM card, but only
the pro's know how to glue chad back and produce a readable card.

IBM cards were sensitive to handling, dirt, temperature, humidity,
and (probably) the phase of the moon; and, some card colors worked
better than others. But IBM's intelligent card readers and card punches
only jammed on rush jobs; how ever did they know?

When people tell you about the good old days, you can bet that they
never used IBM cards or outhouses.

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

Anybody can manually punch an extra hole into an IBM card, but only
the pro's know how to glue chad back and produce a readable card.

Glue was never used, as far as I know. You simply pressed it in place
and it would usually be held in place by friction (at least for a
while).

But if you wanted a permanent fix, you would just punch a new card, or
copy the card on a keypunch and fix the erroneous column.

 

[philo]

I thought IBM cards (OK, Hollerith cards) were a great improvement over
paper tape -- until I saw one of my colleagues drop the semi-sequenced
one-and-only copy of the OS, 5 (or so) full trays of cards, onto the
hall floor. We blocked all traffic through that main hall of the lab
for hours, while working on the punch-card jigsaw puzzle ("Hey, this
pile looks like the disk driver").

Anybody can manually punch an extra hole into an IBM card, but only
the pro's know how to glue chad back and produce a readable card.

IBM cards were sensitive to handling, dirt, temperature, humidity,
and (probably) the phase of the moon; and, some card colors worked
better than others. But IBM's intelligent card readers and card punches
only jammed on rush jobs; how ever did they know?

When people tell you about the good old days, you can bet that they
never used IBM cards or outhouses.

That was old technology of course. No one then could have predicted that
in the future how trouble-free that was all to become. Florida would use
voting machines completely free of any chad problems. <G>

 

[Bob Willard]

Glue was never used, as far as I know. You simply pressed it in place
and it would usually be held in place by friction (at least for a
while).

Not actual glue; we used fingernail polish to glue the chad back in
place. Other glue-like stuff we tried let the chad fall out, or
jammed the reader.

But if you wanted a permanent fix, you would just punch a new card, or
copy the card on a keypunch and fix the erroneous column.

Easy enough to punch a new non-binary card; nobody would bother with
the chad-glue process except for binary cards. (ISTR that IBM 026
card punches would not copy some binary cards.)

 

[Bob Willard]

I'm wondering how it would be possible to put them back in order. How was
that even done?

Very carefully

When a card deck is dropped from a few feet, some bunches of the
cards will stay together - and that helps a lot. Next, many
of the cards had sequence numbers (columns 72-80?), and many
had the instruction printed ("Hey, this pile looks like the
disk driver"). Finally, after re-ordering the cards as much as
possible, we re-assembled and started debugging.

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

On 1/12/2014 2:09 PM, Bill in Co wrote:

Very carefully

When a card deck is dropped from a few feet, some bunches of the
cards will stay together - and that helps a lot. Next, many
of the cards had sequence numbers (columns 72-80?),

You're talking about a deck of program cards. Yes, they normally had
sequence numbers (except when they were left out). But most decks of
cards, and the biggest decks of cards, were normally data, not program
cards. And data almost never had sequence numbers (nor did they
normally need to be in any particular sequence).

 

[Bruce Hagen]

http://www.infoworld.com/t/microsof...-233721?source=IFWNLE_nlt_daily_pm_2014-01-08

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/end-support-help

end-of-support Web page now states, "Microsoft will
also stop providing Microsoft Security Essentials
for download on Windows XP on this date."

Hmmm. No more support for the worst AV in the business.
Go figure.

End date for MSE A/V on XP


Microsoft antimalware support for Windows XP - Microsoft Malware Protection
Center - Site Home - TechNet Blogs:
http://blogs.technet.com/b/mmpc/archive/2014/01/15/microsoft-antimalware-support-for-windows-xp.aspx

Microsoft has announced the Windows XP end of support date of April 8, 2014.
After this date, Windows XP will no longer be a supported operating system.
To help organizations complete their migrations, Microsoft will continue to
provide updates to our antimalware signatures and engine for Windows XP
users through July 14, 2015.

This does not affect the end-of-support date of Windows XP, or the
supportability of Windows XP for other Microsoft products, which deliver and
apply those signatures.

For enterprise customers, this applies to System Center Endpoint Protection,
Forefront Client Security, Forefront Endpoint Protection and Windows Intune
running on Windows XP. For consumers, this applies to Microsoft Security
Essentials.

Our research shows that the effectiveness of antimalware solutions on
out-of-support operating systems is limited. Running a well-protected
solution starts with using modern software and hardware designed to help
protect against today's threat landscape.

Microsoft recommends best practices to protect your PC such as:

* Using modern software that has advanced security technologies and is
supported with regular security updates,
* Regularly applying security updates for all software installed,
* Running up-to-date anti-virus software.

Our goal is to provide great antimalware solutions for our consumer and
business customers. We will continue to work with our customers and partners
in doing so, and help our customers complete their migrations as Windows XP
end of life approaches.