On 06/04/2017 02:43 PM, jim stephens via cctalk wrote: > Note as a side story, they had been doing something similar to a > source control program, so though the above sounds like a fantastic > amount of software, some times one or two card drawer racks contained > dozens of revisions of the same program. From a practical > standpoint, I had to determine the last version and save them. Of > course I could now have had the largest 80 column card collection > left (probably) if I'd saved the lot.
It probably wouldn't have helped to preserve the code. At CDC, source code control started rather early in the 1960s, so there was lots of tape with millions of lines of source code hanging about in rack after rack of tapes. Other than the stuff in private collections, I doubt that much of any of it has survived. When I left CDC, I was told to turn in any tapes or copies of software that I had in my possession, as much of the work was classified. Other than the stuff that made its way to university collections (nothing that I ever worked on, obviously), it's all gone as far as I know. Even the documentation for much of it, since that also was classified. But I keep wondering if after someone sheds his mortal coil, his relatives won't turn up a copy of, aay, the ROVER software. One can hope, I suppose. --Chuck
