Robert There was a news item I caught recently which dealt with people who were condemned to remember everything in their past life rather than simply where they were and what they were doing when a significant event happened.[1]
I am not one of those thankfully and so I cannot recall - assuming I ever knew just how much detail went along with the submission of the problem. I'm sure that he would have made the situation clear in answer to the puzzled response - and we were well aware that "teething problems" were to be expected. Indeed, the other memory of that time was of some "footsteps on the stairs". Normally customers called the SE number in IBM offices when a supposed "bug" was unearthed. When the "new system" was established, they were instructed to use the CE number instead. One of our favourite customers had mislaid that information and so called the SE number. He was politely informed that the system had changed and he should call the CE number now. My colleague and I sat back in our chairs and waited with conspiratorial smiles on our faces. It's important to know that the person we knew would be assigned the call had a desk near the back stairs one floor down from us who also had a desk (shared in those days because we were nearly always out tending to customers, weren't we?) just by the door to the back stairs. Well, I don't have to say anymore do I, the quoted introduction says it all. We didn't have to wait long! - [1] For example, I was waking up from an autopsy when 9/11 (11/9 in some geographies) was in progress or I was listening to sombre - but inappropriate[2] - music on a BBC radio channel in the college room of a couple of friend while news of the Dallas event was being mulled. [2] Mendelssohn's 5th Symphony, the one with Luther's hymn as the theme for its final movement. - Chris Mason On Tue, 25 Oct 2011 01:01:28 -0400, Robert A. Rosenberg <hal9...@panix.com> wrote: >At 21:12 -0500 on 10/24/2011, Chris Mason wrote about Re: Looking for >clues on a bug in assembler: > >>This reminded me of a program - in Fortran IIRC - where, in order to >>clarify a problem for the newly established IBM system for reporting >>problems (around 1968, SE to CE - or FE in some geographies), a >>colleague put together a trivial program which illustrated the "bug" >>in the original program which, of course was extensive and where the >>code causing the problem was hidden away. >> >>The response was "What are you trying to do with such a ridiculous >>program?" - or something very similar! > >Query - When he submitted the bug-demonstration program did the >submitted documentation explain that the bug had been encountered in >a live program and that the submitted one had been specially written >to demonstrate only the bug without all the rest of the code. If so, >that reply was insulting. If there was no such explanation then while >still insulting it could be at least explained by the teething >problems of a new problem resolution and reporting system (where the >responder was expecting to receive a working program not one hand >tailored just to demonstrate an problem encountered in a live working >program). If such a demo problem were submitted at present, I'd >expect IBM to be more familiar with the idea of sending a >proof-of-concept demonstration as opposed to a full working program. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to lists...@bama.ua.edu with the message: GET IBM-MAIN INFO Search the archives at http://bama.ua.edu/archives/ibm-main.html
