Worst Screw Up
Writing a COBOL program to send refund cheques. For some unexplicable reason I started the count at 1, incremented by 2, and checked if count=50.

It was never going to equal 50.

So I printed (but thank the fuck didn't send) 30,000 cheques to the same guy.

But it was in the 70's..... You really don't want to know how we had to code back then....


As an aside - what's happened to QOTW? Where are all the trolls? I only look at B3ta once in a blue moon and don't post due to the vitriol and crap I used to get from Badger and the Talk crowd. But, if they've gone, I might start posting again.

Been here in Oz for more than 10 years and have a lot of crazy shit I can write about..

And, as always...

Cheers
( Legless Mister Stabby - shanks for the memory, Fri 20 May 2016, 15:36, 19 replies)

Cheers

( $$ ✅, Fri 20 May 2016, 16:22, closed)

Cheers

(Tupperware Box Full of Angry Bumble Bees , 30p each or three for a quid, Fri 20 May 2016, 17:50, closed)

Cbeers

( drimble he'd been white, he'd been black, Fri 20 May 2016, 17:50, closed)

( drimble he'd been white, he'd been black, Fri 20 May 2016, 19:55, closed)

Please don't start posting again - not sure your mental health could cope.
Nor could anyone reading your posts.
( Fucking hell Jeff I am not a robot, Fri 20 May 2016, 20:36, closed)

I could call you a cunt if it'd make you feel better?

( cumquat may will not be commenting further on the allegations, Sat 21 May 2016, 1:07, closed)

chaise

( Smash Monkey lowering the tone of the whole internet, Sat 21 May 2016, 12:22, closed)

All the crybabies drove the /talk bullies away,
and killed QOTW.
mcchinaman just kicked it when it was down.
( monster munch person, man, woman... camera... TV?, Sat 21 May 2016, 16:25, closed)

Cheers

(dozers, do fuck off ur a nob m8, Sat 21 May 2016, 16:51, closed)

Frasier

(Roger McGough-Pipe, Sat 21 May 2016, 18:20, closed)

Please feel free to post again
Used to like it here before everyone buggered off
(andythepieman Is surfing the waves of indifference on, Sun 22 May 2016, 9:36, closed)

yo

( rachelswipe with a fork, Sun 22 May 2016, 12:23, closed)

sreehC

( Woodkovsky ☹️➝🚻➝🚽➝😣➝💩➝🧻➝😁, Sun 22 May 2016, 13:41, closed)

( tangledupinblue hairy badge with moving eyes, Mon 23 May 2016, 9:19, closed)

it still happens
imgur.com/7VXHCBj
( buffet_the_appetite_slayer ٩(●̮̃•)۶ jacked in to the ICE on, Tue 24 May 2016, 17:04, closed)

How we had to code???
In the early seventies, our year at school was the first to do 'computer studies' - this was back in the day when you learned how to program, rather than just learn how to use MS Office programs.

At school, we didn't have any computers so we sat in a computerless classroom with all of the other usual normal classroom things. However, for one lesson a week, we used to go to the local college which also didn't have a computer (this was 1974) but they did have a teleprinter and a modem (rubber cups jub) so they could phone up the 'Borough Computer' and we could communicate directly with it.

So, writing programs went like this:
1 At our school, write your program down on a coding sheet(s) (80 columns wide by 25 lines high) - this is a sheet of paper by the way;
2 hand it in with everybody else's work;
3 wait a week;
4 in the lesson the following week, we would get back our original coding sheet, a bundle of punched cards and a number of sheets of the wide paper with the green lines on it. On that, we would have a listing of our program (so that we could see that it had been input correctly by the punched card operator) and any program output.

Hence, we learned how to write computer programs without a computer - one was used only when it was needed to run.

Interestingly, I wrote a program that would (sort of 'in theory') do a square root calculation using the Raphson Newton method. I had set the loop to exit when one number equalled the number of the previous itteration so, if it hadn't have failed to run because of a punched card operator error, it would probably have been running for many months.

(Edited for spelling)
(MataChode is investigating substitute activities on, Sun 29 May 2016, 12:39, closed)

Luxury
in my day we just had ones and zeros and sometimes we ran out of ones and had to make do with just zeros. And if you tell that to the young people today, they won't believe you.
( buffet_the_appetite_slayer ٩(●̮̃•)۶ jacked in to the ICE on, Sun 29 May 2016, 23:27, closed)

I peek in once in a while.
Everyone who used to post interesting stuff has long gone as it just wasn't fun anymore. By the time they got around to banning the more egregious fuckwits it was a bit too late and I had also moved on, so I maybe glance around every couple of months out of vague curiosity.
( The Resident Loon Not a demographic. Do not measure., Sun 29 May 2016, 18:11, closed)