The Amateur

Computerist

Winter/Spring 1992 Volume 4 No. 2-3

“Any society that is alive is a society with a history.”

Vaclav Havel

WELCOME TO THE WONDERFUL

WORLD

OF COMPUTERS vs

PLANT CLOSURES GM STYLE

4 Years of Amateur Computerist

(Editor's Note: With this issue the Amateur Computerist begins its 5

th

year of publication. Also, we are including in this issue, a complete

index of back issues.)

February 11, 1988 was the first issue of the Amateur Computerist.

The issue was “dedicated to the Flint Sit Down pioneers on the victory

of their battle to win industrial unionism 51 years ago.” (“Dedication,”

vol 1, no 1)

In our first issue, we wrote: “There was an effort by administrators

of the UAW-Ford program at the Dearborn Engine Plant to kill interest

in computers and computer programming. We want to keep interest alive

because computers are the future.” (“Introduction,” vol 1, no 1)

One UAW pioneer, Jack Palmer, in summing up the heritage the

sitdowners were passing on, wrote:

“Each generation has to solve its own problems. The sit-down

Webpage: http://www.ais.org/~jrh/acn/

Page 1

generation solved the problem of organization. The postwar (WWII -ed)

generation solved the problem of pensions and inflation. Not entirely,

but a good start was begun. The present generation is faced with the

greatest problems of all.

Table of Contents

Computers Vs Plant Closures.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Page 1

Amateur Computerist Index (5 year). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Page 8

Problem Corner. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Page 12

Union Forever. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Page 12

Letter To The Editor. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Page 13

Letters to Amateur Computerist. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Page 14

Open Letter to Editor of Utne Reader. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Page 16

Review from the µPERIPHERAL.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Page 17

Tribute to a Modern Computer Pioneer. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Page 18

Interview with Staff Member. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Page 21

One Line Program. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Page 28

Computers For The People.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Page 29

Pascal Program.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Page 33

They are Automation, Peace and Politics.” (from the Searchlight,

newspaper of UAW Local 659, Flint, MI, April 21, 1960, p. 2, quoted

in “Dedication,” vol. 1, no. 1). The Amateur Computerist is an effort to

carry forward the torch passed on by the sitdowners – the need to solve

the problem of automation.

The welcoming of this newsletter by Floyd Hoke-Miller, a pioneer

of the Flint Sitdown Strike, demonstrated that there was a continuum

between the Sitdown generation and the current generation. In his

article, “Dawn of A New Era,” Floyd wrote, “From the Great Wall to the

Great Pyramid, from the hieroglyphics to the screen of the computer,

mankind is still progressing. So make the new born science, that has

given us the computer for the amateur and not as a prerogative of the

professional to be shrouded in secrecy from humanity, the choice of the

individual, not an election of a minority. (vol 1, No. 1)

But what has happened in the past 4 years? Has automation in the

Page 2

auto industry made any headway? Has the use of computers and

computer education gone forward?

In February, 1992, GM announced plans for massive layoffs and

plant closings in North America. The high price of automobiles in the

U.S. shows that the problem of automation in the auto industry has not

been solved. Instead there have been disincentives to the introduction of

new technology in the U. S. auto industry similar to those that led to the

unraveling of the Soviet Union’s so called “command economy.” A

recent article in Fortune Magazine (vol. 125, no. 1 January 13, 1992

“Can GM Remodel Itself?” by Alex Taylor III) describes GM’s inability

to utilize new technology. “For example,” Taylor writes, “GM put $77

billion into new plants and equipment to reduce labor costs.... Some

robots it acquired in the mid-1980s stand unused today. The highly

automated equipment never delivered the promised savings because GM

did not train workers properly to use it, and...failed to design new

models for easy robot assembly.”(p. 34)

As articles in previous issues of the Amateur Computerist have

shown, investment in the U.S. auto industry in the 1980's was not in

automation that would result in less labor being needed to produce an

automobile. No effort was made to reduce the price of a car so more

people could afford to buy cars.

Instead, U.S. autos were downsized and redesigned, and some of

auto company profits were used to set up so called “joint” labor-

management labor relations programs or to invest in other companies or

abroad. (See for example, “Labor Relations Hoax,” vol 2, no. 4) U.S.

auto companies instituted a plethora of cost cutting initiatives which

removed the incentive for investment in new technology. For a company

to invest in modern technology, labor saving devices must cost less than

the labor they are replacing. (See “Shorter Hours Are Needed....”, vol 2,

no. 3)

Record profits had been reported in the industry in the 1980s. Yet

Wall Street analysts like Maryann Keller sharply criticized new

technology being introduced into companies like GM. Instead GM

adopted the model of Japanese labor relations introduced into Toyota in

the 1950s. This model had been developed based on research that GM

conducted during a 1947 labor relations experiment which they called

Page 3

the “My Jobs Contest.” (See “When Will Their Walls Come Tumbling

Down,” vol 3 no. 1) Once again in the 1980s and now in the 1990s such

labor relations schemes are being heralded as the savior of a “failing

General Motors” and as a model for the rest of U.S. industry. For

example, the design for GM’s new Saturn plant was premised on GM’s

commitment to making labor more intense rather than introducing labor

saving technology. A spokesperson explains Saturn’s philosophy:

“In Saturn, we believe that to automate...does not make good

business sense. When you consider the capital investment required for

robots or other automated systems, you have to look at the variable labor

cost as an alternative. Automated equipment is limited! On the other

hand, people, if properly trained, can and have taken costs out of an

operation when given the opportunity.” (Joseph F. Malotke, Labor Law

Journal, Aug. 1985, p. 568)

GM’s Saturn model is a reversal of lessons learned over the past 50

years about the social benefits of new machinery. As Howard Foster, a

UAW pioneer in Flint, describing the benefits of modern machinery,

explained: “When mass production methods were introduced in the

automobile industry, the price of cars went down. This was because the

labor time on each car was greatly reduced. Yet we auto workers got

higher wages through our union.” (See “Technology: To Develop or

Stagnate,” vol 1, no 2)

In opposition to similar labor relations experiments, GM auto

workers in Flint, MI, in 1947-48, successfully campaigned for wage

increases that would match inflation. Their battle against GM manage-

ment and the UAW International Union officialdom who opposed such

wage increases, was victorious. Thus pattern setting wage increases

known as COLA (Cost of Living Adjustment) and AIF (Annual

Improvement Factor) were introduced into the UAW-GM contract in

1948. These wage increases made it profitable for GM to introduce new

machinery and update production methods in GM plants.(See “Technol-

ogy, to Develop or Stagnate,” vol 1, no 2)

By 1950, contract language describing the AIF affirmed the social

desirability of using new technology to decrease the labor needed to

produce an auto. The 1950 GM-UAW contract granted workers a wage

increase based “on technological progress, better tools, methods,

Page 4

processes and equipment and a cooperative attitude on the part of all

parties in such progress. It further recognizes the principle that to

produce more with the same amount of human effort is a sound and

economic and social objective.” (See “Upcoming Elections and Comput-

ers,” vol. 1, no.3)

Union-management jointness experiments of the 1980s are a

violation of the principle “that to produce more is a sound and economi-

cal objective.” The UAW-Ford National Development and Training

Center founded in 1982, and similar experiments at GM and Chrysler,

are labor relations experiments. Their aim is to “promote training,

retraining and development activities,” instead of “technological

progress, better tools, processes and equipment,” (See “Labor Relations

Hoax,” vol. 2, no. 4)

Because their aim is not education in high technology, there was a

battle at the Dearborn Engine Plant over the cancellation of computer

programming classes. UAW members wrote: “How can UAW members

be trained in high technology by cutting computer classes out...we sent

letters everywhere. We are tired of being denied benefits we’re entitled

to. We are tired of being shuffled from one person to another to cover up

who we’re fighting...we can’t sit back and let happen at the Rouge what

has happened at GM – the wholesale closing of plants...WE NEED AN

INVESTIGATION INTO WHAT IS GOING ON IN THE UAW FORD

PROGRAM at the Dearborn Engine Plant.” (See “When Will Their

Walls Come Down,” vol. 3, no. 1)

In a subsequent issue of the Amateur Computerist, Floyd Hoke-

Miller contributed articles explaining why there is more thinking needed

among those who do the work of the society. “We, as the working

class,” he wrote, “are the ‘low men on the totem pole’ or like Atlas

‘bearing the world on our shoulders’.” (See “Pass the Profits, Please,”

vol. 1, no. 2) He championed the need for fewer hours of work to have

any benefit from new technology and reminded workers that they are

still working at least the same 8 hour day “gained by a hard struggle of

the transportation unions prior to WWI.” (Ibid., See also “Shorter Hours

are Needed for Computers to Benefit Labor”, vol 2, no. 3)

The problem of the 1990s is similar to the problem of the early post

WWII years – how to utilize significant new technological developments

Page 5

to make life better for the people of the society. Large scale industry

needs to be under some form of social control and strict regulation for

technological progress to serve the society.

The birth of the personal computer in 1974 and its development and

evolution into the 1990s has put the promise of a better world on the

horizon for people in the U.S. and around the world. At the computer

classes at the Ford Rouge Plant, before the programming classes were

cancelled to make way for the labor relations experiments that replaced

them, one auto worker wrote: “Welcome to the Wonderful World of the

Computer.” The cancelling of those classes in 1987 has made clear that

that wonderful world cannot be gained by going backward to ever more

labor intensive production, (i.e. speed up), less and less manufacturing

capacity (shortages), and ever increasing prices. This is the economic

program that U.S. corporations and the U.S. government are promoting

in Eastern Europe and the result is massive human hardship and

economic dislocation. This economic program will result in the same

economic dislocations in the U.S. economy as are currently plaguing

Eastern Europe.

Thus once again, as in the immediate post WWII period, there are

serious economic problems in the U.S. and the world. There is a need to

have auto workers and others, particularly those who work in large scale

industry, consider and debate the economic problems of our times.

History has shown that this is the only way that solutions which lead the

society forward can be found. Prohibitions against workers writing in

their local union newspapers to prevent public criticisms of trade union

officials or policies, as exist in the UAW, need to be overturned. (See for

example, Convention Proceedings of 1951 UAW Convention and UAW

Public Review decisions like No. 888, Bier vs Local Union 2500

Executive Board, UAW, and No. 238, Plyer vs Local 599 (1961))

As Carl Johnson, a UAW pioneer explained, auto workers are

capable of solving the problems facing them if they have access to

organs of free discussion. Johnson wrote: “If local union publica-

tions...provide the ranks with a freer discussion which alone can prepare

the ranks for the fight which is sure to be plenty tough, then we need not

worry too much, for American labor proved in ‘36 and ‘37 that it can

move fast and furiously when it knows where to go.” (Carl Johnson,

Page 6

“Only More Democracy Can Save Democracy,” Feb. 1, 1945, The

Searchlight, UAW Local 659, Flint)

Describing the important role to be filled by an uncensored labor

press, he wrote, “If the Labor press does not try to give Labor the whole

truth, where will Labor get it? This, of course, raises the question: Who

is right about Labor’s destiny? Certainly we can’t rely on the capitalist

press to tell us, for it is obvious that their interest is the opposite of

Labor’s interest. But who, from the ranks of Labor? Let them all speak

– that’s what Free Speech was intended for! Let them all present their

view in a forum. From that the reader will have a fair chance to decide.”

(Ibid., Oct. 29, 1949)

Once again, in 1992, there is the need for access to the uncensored

local union newspaper. This tradition was pioneered by auto workers in

Flint in the 1940's to carry on the militant Spirit of the Sit Down Strike,

the “Spirit of ‘37.” This press made it possible for those who do the

work of the society to be able to analyze the current problems and debate

the way forward. This uncensored labor press no longer exists, but

computer bulletin boards across the U.S. and the world are providing

access to uncensored discussion so the momentous problems of our

times can be debated and analyzed. On computer bulletin boards like

Usenet News, MNET (Ann Arbor, MI), etc., such discussion is now

taking place. (We plan to include articles describing this important

development in future issues.) Also, there is a need for education,

independent of large corporate employers like GM or Ford, and for a

press to express a working class voice, independent, as well, of any

censorship from union officials. To this end the Amateur Computerist is

dedicated and we need and welcome your participation in helping to

create this independent voice so as to be able to gain the fruits of the

computer revolution for those who do the work of this society.

Floyd Hoke-Miller, a pioneer of the Flint Sitdown Strike wrote the

following poem as part of his commitment to the need for an uncensored

press:

Page 7

Voice of the Chevrolet Worker

by Floyd Hoke-Miller

It matters not what bossman say,

How much they rant and rave

Their Sunday suit and higher pay,

Do not exclude the grave.

***

The wage-slaves toil at their behest,

Producing only by their word

There’s no denying one request,

Their voices must be heard.

***

They know quite well that banker men,

And owners of the tools

Connive with pie cards when they can,

To treat the laborers as fools.

***

Their language may not stand all tests,

But let them have their say

For on their backs the burden rests,

They MAKE the Chevrolet.

AMATEUR COMPUTERIST INDEX

(5 Year)

Volume 1 No 1 Feb. 1988

INTRODUCTION

DAWN OF A NEW ERA

DEDICATION

THE WORLD OF TELECOMMUNICATIONS

TRY THIS (GRAPHICS)

THE FUTURE BELONGS TO PROGRAMMERS

THE FIRST PROGRAMMER (PICTURE)

Page 8

WHY LEARN PROGRAMMING

COVER OF PERSONAL COMPUTING (PICTURE)

COMMODORE TIPS & TRICKS

Volume 1 No 2 Jun. 1988

THE BIG MACHINE

PASS THE PROFITS, PLEASE

TECHNOLOGY: TO DEVELOP OR STAGNATE?

CARTOON BY “DOC” WILSON

SAMPLE BASIC GRAPHIC PROGRAM

TRY THIS (IBM)

THE WORLD OF TELECOM... CORRECTIONS

GERMAN VOCABULARY HELPER

PROGRAMMING IN BASIC OR C?

CONFIGURING YOUR SYSTEM

LETTER TO THE EDITOR

Volume 1 No 3 Oct 1988

LETTER PUBLISHED IN RADIO-ELECTRONICS

RESPONSES FROM AROUND THE COUNTRY

EDITORIAL: SAVIOR IN WAITING

HOW TO USE THE MERIT NETWORK?

VIRTUAL DRIVES & BATCH FILES

TRY THIS (EQUATION OF A STRAIGHT LINE)

AS I WAS SAYING... (WHY COMPUTERISM?)

COMPUTERS AND FREE SPEECH

LETTER TO THE EDITOR

PLANT LIFE (PICTURE)

Volume 2 No 1 Jan. 1989

RETURN TO SANITY WITH THE AMATEUR & THE PRO

LETTERS FROM READERS

PROBLEM CORNER

TRY THIS FOR IBM (INPUT NUMBER FROM 20-150)

SYSTEM DIAGRAM FOR QUADRAPHONIC SOUND SYS.)

RESPONSE TO OCTOBER EDITORIAL

CARTOONS (COMMODORE COUNTY)

WELCOME TO COMMODORE COUNTY USA

COMPUTER HACKING, A CRIME?

IBM KEY ASSIGNMENTS USING THE “PROMPT”...

HISTORY OF COMPUTERS... PART I

Page 9

Volume 2 No 2 Apr. 1989

WHY LEARN TO PROGRAM? (DISCUSSION)

LETTERS

TRY THIS (MESSAGE)

“SE Q” FOR IBM

AS I WAS SAYING (JOBS: HOURS AND SENSE...)

OVERTIME AND UNDER PAY

MAY DAY

SAMPLE BATCH FILE

HISTORY OF COMPUTERS PART II

Volume 2 No 3 Summer 1989

IMPACT OF COMPUTERS ON SOCIETY: A DEBATE

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

COCO CORNER (GRAIL QUEST-PIP)

COMMODORE COUNTY USA (CURSOR COLOR CHANGE)

OUT OF THE HEART OF THE ABACUS...

HISTORY OF THE COMPUTER PART III

Volume 2 No 4 Fall 1989

LETTER FROM PROSECUTOR

OPPOSING VIEWPOINT...

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

WANTED ALIVE (AD)

COCO CORNER (EQUATION GRAPHING PRG.)

TRUE HEROES

TRIGONOMETRY LESSON FOR IBM

HISTORY OF THE COMPUTER PART IV

Volume 3 No 1 Winter 1989

LETTER FROM EDITOR OF DETROIT NEWS

DON’T REPLICATE UAW-FORD SCHOOL

LETTERS TO EDITOR

COMMODORE COUNTY USA (CARTOON)

THE SPIRIT OF BABBAGE

COCO CORNER (POKE & PEAK)

CAD/CAM/CIM

HISTORY OF COMPUTERS PART V

Volume 3 No 2 Spring 1990

THE LABORER, YES

FLOYD HOKE-MILLER (1898-1990)

THE PICKET

Page 10

IN HONOR OF LABOR’S POET LAUREATE

COMPUTER EDUCATION AND GOVERNMENT REG.

LETTER FROM SUPERINTENDENT

OPEN LETTER TO SUPERINTENDENT BEMIS

LETTER TO GOVERNOR

COMMODORE COUNTY U.S.A. (SHIMMERING TEXT)

C64 MUSIC DIGITIZER

IBM LABEL PROGRAM

COCO CORNER (CALORIE COUNTER)

BULLETIN BOARD NUMBERS

Volume 3 No 3 Fall 1990

WHAT CRITICISMS HAVE YOU OF THE A.C.?

TIPS AND TRICKS (IBM BOOT PROBLEM)

LETTER TO EDITOR

EDITORIAL

A COMMON MAN OF GREATNESS

COCO CORNER (CORRECTION)

EXCERPTS FORM BBS (DISCUSSION-TRADE UNIONS)

COMMODORE C64 RESET SWITCH

DIAGRAM #1 (FOR RESET SWITCH)

Volume 3 No 4 Winter 1990

HATS OFF TO PATRIOT

AMATEURS ARE NEEDED MORE THAN EVER

COCO CORNER (MORE POKE & PEAK)

BRINGING AUTOMATION HOME

COMPUTER BBS DISCUSSION ON THE WAR

COMPUTERS FOR THE PEOPLE: PART I

Volume 4 No 1 Fall 1991

COMPUTERS FOR THE PEOPLE - A HISTORY PART II

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

TEN COMMANDMENTS OF GOOD NETWORKING

TRY THIS PROGRAM (GRAPHIC “HI”)

THE USSR AND THE COMPUTER

COMMAND LINE CALCULATOR

THE QUESTION OF CENSORSHIP

Page 11

PROBLEM CORNER

I have a problem and I’m hoping that somebody can help. I

upgraded my XT compatible by installing high density floppy drives and

they work just fine, but when I put a 360K or a 720K diskette in, it will

not read it unless I reboot. After using the low density diskettes I must

reboot again before I can use high density diskettes. Is there something

I can do to make the computer read the floppy whatever the diskette is?

PUZZLED

UNION FOREVER

by Floyd Hoke-Miller

Tho’ politicians come and politicians go

Let Unionism go on forever.

But vote for him whose records show

He kept the workers’ cause his first endeavor.

Now has he fought for higher wages

And the thirty-hour week;

The dream through the ages

Of the lowly and the weak.

Because machines are taking powers

That were our jobs of yesterday

But it’s the same old tedious hours

With the same old lousy pay.

Page 12

Letter To The Editor

(Editor’s Note: The following letter by a staff member of this newsletter

was recently published in the Columbia Daily Spectator in N.Y.C.)

To the Editor,

Probably unbeknownst to many students, the rally and entering of

Low Memorial Library on Tuesday, February 11, 1992, was in the

tradition of a glorious victory that took place 55 years ago. On February

Page 13

11, 1937, General Motors auto workers in Flint, Michigan emerged from

the factories they had occupied, victorious. As part of a long series of

strikes nationwide, this forty-four day long Sit-Down Strike won GM

auto workers the right to have the United Auto Workers (UAW)

represent them as their bargaining agent to GM. This was the beginning

of the official recognition of the UAW by auto manufacturers.

The sit-in at Columbia to achieve more of a student voice in

University decision making is a poignant reminder of the similar fight

that occurred 55 years ago in Flint, Michigan. Just as those workers

fought the auto industry for a voice, the students of Columbia are

likewise fighting to have their voice heard. By learning more of the

tradition behind the battle for democratic rights, we shall be stronger.

Michael Hauben

Letters to Amateur Computerist

Dear Editor:

Along with your history of computers, there is one bit of govern-

ment action your readers might find interesting. In the late ‘50s the U.S.

government had at least three competitors in the running for a contract

to design a computer utility. The phone, the electric, the gas, and the

computer were all to be durable and available for Americans.

The names that took part in the design competition were Dartmouth

with its DTSS time-sharing system, Bell Labs with the forerunner of the

now popular Unix, and MIT with Multics.

Unix, you are all familiar with now. Dartmouth time-sharing, last

I knew, was still a basic entry level operating system running at least at

GM Tech Center on a dual big box Honeywell system.

MIT won the contract with its Multics operating system. General

Electric won the contract to build the iron to fit the then existing

software. The GE645 computer hit the field in 1962 with absolutely no

fanfare whatever. (The government’s support evaporated somewhere

around this time.) Multics languished around the military and institu-

Page 14

tions for the next twenty years. Honeywell entered the picture when the

government refused to allow GE to buy out Honeywell’s computer

department. So instead they sold out to Honeywell. Honeywell Info

Systems was a poor company. The development money was non-

existent. With the financial crisis of the ‘70s many attempts were made

to terminate Multics. The necessary iron to run the system was more

complicated than Honeywell was willing to spend the money to speed

up, so the generation of vlsi was never developed. Honeywell Info

Systems was in big trouble in the ‘80s, the French bought the company

and it is now _Bull.

As to software, Multics is still the undisputed king of security,

flexibility, purity of design, and ease of use (after learning). Near what

appeared to me to be the end of its troubled history, Multics had earned

the B2 level of security from the National Security Administration. If

anyone listened to them, Multics is the only machine any government

entity is allowed to use. The main problem with selling or describing

Multics is that no outsider has any frame of reference to it. Ford

Research Center is the largest user of Multics. Management made a

determined effort to stop development and get off Multics when the

product was scraped by Honeywell in 1985. To this day no replacement

has been found to even approximate the most basic functionality

inherent in Multics from its early days.

The system is fully paged and segmented, gated, ring bracketed

protected and written 99.96% in PL/1. Even most of the PL/1 compiler

is written in an escalating style of PL/1. Most big box operating systems

have a known errors file a foot thick. Multics had no known errors. Ford

did run into an upper limit in that no single array could be larger than 1

megabyte and you could have no more than 256K segments (programs,

objects) open at one time to a single process (the program in control of

the job flow). Locally they moved those limits up a ways.

When I left, two systems were in use by Ford world wide and were

as large as the iron would allow. Six processors, 64 megabytes of

memory, a sea of disk drives and every known style of communications

device and protocol. A system, new in 1985, had cast the ultimate

computer for the world, that of, Multics hooked at 50 megabaud to a

Cray XMP.

Page 15

Rick Strome

Dearborn

Multics hardware repair till 1986

Dear Sir,

I have read in Hacktic that you make the magazine THE AMATEUR

COMPUTERIST. I don’t know the price of your magazine or what the

magazine contains therefore I have a question. What is the price of your

magazine and how can I be a member? I hope you would answer my

questions and I would appreciate it when you send me a sample issue.

I am looking forward to receiving your reply, meanwhile hearty thanks.

Yours Truly

R. H. SMIT

THE NETHERLANDS

Open Letter to Editor of Utne Reader

(Editor’s Note: This letter was sent to the editor of the Utne Reader. It

was not published.)

Dear Editor,

Instead of pointing to important articles in the ‘zine press in “Notes

from Underground” (Nov/Dec issue), your article mis-characterizes this

section of the alternative press as ‘unconventional’ and ‘obscure.’ For

example, you write:

“There are few ‘zines coming from minority or working-class

communities... proportionally fewer women publish ‘zines than men,

and when they do, they tend to be feminist or Pagan-oriented.”

I am one of the editors of a ‘zine that comes from a working class

community and this ‘zine is neither ‘feminist’ nor ‘Pagan-oriented.’ A

recently published book, Technoculture, by Andrew Ross and Constance

Page 16

Pawley, (University of Minnesota Press, 1991, p. 125) describes our

newsletter:

“When worker education classes in computer programming were

discontinued by management at the Ford Rouge Plant in Dearborn,

Michigan, United Auto Workers members began to publish a newsletter

called the Amateur Computerist to fill the gap. Among the columnists

and correspondents in the magazine have been veterans of the Flint

sit-down strikes who see a clear historical continuity between the

problem of labor organization in the thirties and the problem of

automation and deskilling today. Workers’ computer literacy is seen as

essential not only to the demystification of the computer and the

reskilling of workers, but also to labor’s capacity to intervene in

decisions about new technologies that might result in shorter hours and

thus in ‘work efficiency’ rather than worker efficiency.”

It would be good to have Utne Reader include worthy reprints from

‘zines like the Amateur Computerist as this is a part of the alternative

press which provides a rarely heard voice in American society.

Sincerely, Ronda Hauben

Review from the µPERIPHERAL

ISSUE 20 FEBRUARY 1992

(Editor’s Note: This review of the Amateur Computerist appeared in an

Australian computer newsletter. We are reprinting it because of the

interesting historical coincidence it points out regarding the appearance

of the first Australian kit computer distributed in a popular electronics

magazine.)

THE AMATEUR COMPUTERIST

We received an exchange copy of Vol 4, No 1, for Fall 1991, from

Ronda Hauben, P.O. Box 4344, Dearborn, Mi. 48126 USA. A twelve

page double column issue, featuring how hackers gave birth to the

Page 17

personal computer (second part of a four part series) covering ENIAC,

David Ahl and Creative Computing, the Dartmouth Basic of Kemeny

and Kurtz, Ted Nelson’s wonderful book Computer Lib, and Jonathan

Titus’ Mark 8 computer in Radio Electronics. Incidently, Jim Rowe’s all

TTL EDUC-8 in Electronics Australia missed out by one month in being

the first kit computer circuit distributed in a popular electronics

magazine, and it was the Mark 8 which appeared first.

OK, other articles include ten commandments on networking

(mostly Novell on PCs), a short on USSR computers, a command line

calculator in Quick C which does trig, powers and root (about 300 lines)

plus letters.

Ronda asked by e-mail whether anyone knows of other computer

magazine editors who can be reached by e-mail? Her address is:

[email protected]

( µPeripheral is available from Eric Lindsay, 6 Hillcrest Avenue,

Faulconbridge, NSW, 2776, Australia. Electronic Mail Address:

[email protected]. )

Tribute to a Modern Computer Pioneer:

Grace Hopper (1906-1992)

A New York Times headline on January 3, 1992 read: “Rear Adm.

Grace M. Hopper Dies; Innovator in Computers was 85.” She had died

at home New Year’s Day after a recent illness. Until then, Grace Hopper

had been involved with computers and computer programming since

1944. As one of the pioneers of modern computing, her life exemplifies

the activities and goals that propelled computing forward.

Hopper joined the U.S. Navy during World War II. Having a Ph.D.

in mathematics, after Midshipman’s school, she was assigned to the

Bureau of Ships Computational Project at Harvard University. Her first

day at the Project, she met Howard Aiken and his new calculating

apparatus. The Mark I, as it was called, was 51 feet long, 8 feet high, 2

Page 18

feet thick, weighing 4 tons. It had three quarters of a million parts, 500

miles of wiring and three million wire connectors. In order to operate

this first operational program controlled computer made in America,

rotary knob-like switches had to be set manually. Hopper was fascinated

by the challenge of such a gadget having been a tinkerer when she was

a kid. One story is told of how as a girl she dismantled and reassembled

all the family’s alarm clocks. Aiken handed her a code book and asked

her to work out the coefficients for the interpolation of the arc tangent

function to be entered into the Mark I. It was a sudden but exciting

introduction to her first computer. She was 37 years old at the time.

Aiken helped all his colleagues deal with their new tasks by

suggesting that they read portions of Charles Babbage’s writings.

Hopper appreciated the importance of such reading. She recalled that

when she was growing up, “Each summer we had to read 20 books and

write reports on them. You were educated and had some background

when you were through then. It gave us an interest in reading and in

history.” Aiken also assigned Hopper to write the first operation manual

for the Mark I which she did as well as eventually writing over 50

articles, especially on programming.

The Mark I was the first computer to be sequentially programmed

and Hopper was at it from its beginning. Since at the time programming

essentially meant writing out strings of numbers as switch settings,

coding, operating and plugging instructions, etc., errors could easily be

made. Also many strings of numbers had to be repeated frequently. So

the habit arose of writing out pieces of code that were already checked

out in notebooks and passing the notebooks around to be copied from

when needed.

During the summer of 1947 there was trouble with the Mark II

computer (successor to Mark I.) The trouble was traced to a mechanical

relay in which a moth had been trapped and beaten to death. The body

of the moth was removed with tweezers and taped into the log book as

the cause of the problem. Grace Hopper is given credit for coining the

term “bug” for computer problems and for the explanation to Aiken

when he asked what’s holding up the numbers, that she and others were

“debugging” the machine.

Hopper left Harvard in 1949 and joined the Eckert-Mauchly

Page 19

Corporation which was working on building its UNIVAC I. Program-

ming for computers like Mark I, II, III and UNIVAC I was necessarily

in full detail including at times the specification of individual bit

patterns and number strings. But many programs contained identical

subroutines or sub-programs even though the total objective of such

programs may have differed. Hopper energetically encouraged the

gathering of such subroutines into permanent subroutine libraries. She

also spearheaded an effort to program computers to utilize such sub-

routines. The idea was to create a program that could receive as input a

set of high level spoken language-like commands and produce as output

an integrated program made up of appropriate subroutines. In order to

create such a program, Hopper had to overcome the prevailing prejudice

that computers could do wonders at arithmetic but could not do analytic

work like programming. She and her team at Rand Corporation

succeeded at creating the A-O and other compilers that showed the

cynics were too limited in their expectations of what computers would

be able to do.

Also in her quest to show that the new machines were more than

number crunchers, Hopper sought to demonstrate their analytic

capabilities. One such program she wrote was designed to take as input

mathematical functions and gave as output the derivative of such

functions. Upon seeing the program perform, one researcher who had

spent months finding the first 15 derivatives of a complicated function,

insisted that Hopper must have had some hidden person feeding the

derivatives into the computer. He felt no machine could do in eighteen

minutes what it had taken him six months to do. (from Robert Slater,

Portraits in Silicon, Cambridge Mass, 1987)

Hopper had succeeded in demonstrating that the computer was

basically a symbol manipulator: whether the symbols were numbers,

letters, words or other data structures, was a detail for the programmer,

not a complication for the computer. She drove this home by writing a

compiler that could receive high level code written in English, French

or German. Again, someone who saw this program in operation could

not believe a computer made in the U.S. could understand European

languages and wondered what the trick was. Based on this work, by

1957, Hopper and her staff had created “Flow-matic,” the first computer

Page 20

language employing words. (Ibid., p. 225)

Hopper’s work on “Flow-matic” was seminal and was followed by

other achievements such as Commercial Translator by IBM. But Hopper

and others saw a danger in the prospect of having many different

languages. She was, therefore, part of the process of creating COBOL,

an easy to read machine-independent language not identified with any

specific computer manufacturer. There were those who denounced

COBOL because of its flaws and a rumor spread that it was dead. But

COBOL has in fact, like BASIC, opened the door to a significantly large

universe of users and it is still in use today 30 years after its introduc-

tion. Her work in support of COBOL was part of Hopper’s campaign for

standards for languages, architectures, data structures and networks,

standards set for the use of all and not by any dominant firm.

From 1944 until her death New Year’s Day 1992, Grace Hopper

spent her life pushing the use of computers forward and also spreading

that use. She especially enjoyed the opportunity to challenge young

people to explore and develop the most infinite possibilities she saw

inherent in computer technology. Her understanding was that we are

today just “at the very beginning of the mass use of the computer. We

haven’t even begun to exploit its potential.” (Marguerite Zientara, The

History of Computing, A Biographical Portrait of the Visionaries Who

Shaped the Destiny of the Computer Industry, Framingham, 1981, p. 53)

Interview with Staff Member Michael

Hauben on the Occasion of the 10

th

Anniversary of the Personal Computer

Part I

(Editor’s Note: This interview was conducted on August 11, 1991. It has

been edited.)

Ronda: Tomorrow is the 10

th

anniversary of the introduction of the

Page 21

IBM personal computer on August 12, 1981. Also, one of our staff

members, Michael Hauben, is leaving Michigan to go to college in N.Y.

Therefore, it seemed an appropriate time to look back on the past 10

years and to review how the introduction of the personal computer has

affected our lives. Michael is now 18. In 1981 he was 8 years old and

already involved with computers. Michael is not only one of the

beneficiaries of the computer revolution. The computer revolution was

carried out, not so much by companies like IBM, but more importantly,

by computer hobbyists like Michael Hauben. Thus in honor of the

computer hobbyists, who gave birth to and developed the personal

computer, we would like to review some of your experiences, Michael,

with the computer.

Bill: How did you get started with computers?

Michael: The first place I really saw computers was at an exhibit in

Toronto over 10 years ago. There was a robot that was like the 4 axes

machine that auto workers use. They also had a computer exhibit. I don’t

remember what kind of computer was on display but they were just a

bunch of computers running different kinds of programs set up there at

the Canadian National Exhibit. That really peaked my interest somehow.

When I was 8 (in 1981), I took a computer class at Schoolcraft

Community College, in what was called the Kids College. It was part of

what they called the TAG (Talented and Gifted) Program. The teacher’s

name was Mrs. Brown. We learned on the Apple II+’s. The first day of

class, Mrs. Brown lifted the top of the APPLE and said, “There, that’s

all there is to it, There’s nothing to be afraid of.” That was a very good

introduction to the computer because it showed there was nothing to be

afraid of. That we could completely control it. I learned BASIC there.

I took several other classes in that program. I think I took three. I didn’t

take all the BASIC language classes offered. But I took a test that they

had for their normal BASIC college level classes and I wound up getting

three college credits for the BASIC language class. And I didn’t do so

good because I ended up only getting a B on the test. But the experience

was interesting and from then on whenever there was a computer

available I tried to use it.

After the trip to Toronto, I always wanted to buy a computer. There

was the Texas Instruments 99/4a (TI 99/4a) and I don’t remember how

Page 22

much it cost, but it was expensive. There was the Timex Sinclair 1000

(TS 1000) and that was much cheaper. My family and I had seen

Sinclair computers in England when we visited. These computers could

be hooked up to a normal TV set. I saved up my money and bought a

TS-1000. Using it I more thoroughly learned BASIC. My father and I

programmed a lot in BASIC with only 2K memory. We never seemed

to run out of memory. We just played around and tried to do lots of

different things, tried writing little games, graphics and we dabbled a

little in machine language, not a lot however. Whenever I had the

chance, whether it was summer camp or in a computer store, I’d try to

do something with the computer. I learned BASIC, I learned LOGO on

the TI-99/4a in Camp, and I played around with APPLES and with

Commodore PETS. In my elementary school, there was a terminal

hooked in with the mainframe of the Dearborn Schools. At that time

there were many programs on the mainframe. They had BASIC. They

had games like the OREGON TRAIL, etc. I subscribed to two or three

magazines for the TS-1000. I bought books, did all the TRY THIS type

of small programs. Those were always fun because there would always

be problems with the programs. There would always be ‘bugs.’ The

books and sample programs were exciting somehow. I haven’t found

many books similar for programming on the IBM PCs today, books that

I have found exciting for a hobbyist. And this is sad.

Soon after I bought the TS-1000, it couldn’t have been more than

a couple of years, I was trying to choose between the TS-2068 and the

Commodore 64. I think the Commodore was more expensive. The

TS-2068 had better color, and a more developed version of BASIC. The

Commodore 64 was better in that it had a disk drive and the TS-1000

only had a tape drive you could use. The Commodore also had a real

keyboard, while the Timex utilized raised chicklets. I bought the

TS-2068. Then I had my first real lesson in the computer world. Three

months after I bought the TS-2068, Timex stopped selling it and

supporting it. Timex made a deal with Commodore. There was an

agreement to sell the Sinclair in England and Europe and Commodore

in the United States. That was a shock because I thought I made a better

choice, but it turned out the better deal is not always the best choice.

And my father and I did programming on that, but not really as

Page 23

much as we did on the TS-1000. It was a lot less, even though there was

the added attraction of the color and the sound and the joystick port. And

so I still did things and I tried to pick up on things whenever I could.

Christmas of 1984, we bought a Sanyo MBC-550-2 which was a

MS-DOS compatible, but not an IBM compatible, machine. The

operating system was IBM compatible, but the graphics were different,

the sound was different, and the BASIC was different. The Sanyo was

a better machine for graphics, I think 640 x 400 with 4 colors if not 16.

And WordStar worked. That’s why my family got it – as a

wordprocessor. I learned MS-DOS. I got more into the PC world. We

subscribed to a Sanyo magazine for a while. We went to the Sanyo

Users’ Group for a while. We occasionally went to SEMCO (Southeast

Michigan Computer Organization), but somehow that was already

oriented toward business and they weren’t very interested in helping us.

Then in 1985, through INACOMP, my mother won a Compaq Portable.

It was one of the earliest to come out that was fully IBM compatible. It

was a luggable portable, and it weighed about 20 pounds, if not more.

And that’s how I really got into IBM. We had a choice between a

modem and a hard drive. We got a modem. It was a breakthrough. The

hard drive seemed important but the modem was more important. We

wound up getting a hard drive later on. With the modem, it lets you

connect to the outside world. With your own little system you’d be like

a hermit, but in connecting with the rest of the world, it’s other people’s

opinions, different discussions about computers, about current events,

debates about what’s going on in the world and just general BS also.

And you came into contact with people, you came into contact with

different files to use with your computer, with what was going on with

the computer scene and so somehow it was like a replacement for a user

group. And depending upon the time, there was either a lot going on or

a little going on.

Ronda: What do you mean?

Michael: Well right now not many boards I know have much debate

on them. There are two that I am on. Both of them have debates on-

going. I’m sure there are others, but I just haven’t had time to look. But

for a while I was on many of the boards and at one point many of the

boards were silly contests to see who could post the most numerous

Page 24

messages.

Ronda: Do you have a sense what you were looking for on the

BBS’s? You used to spend a lot of time on them.

Michael: Well at first I wasn’t on local BBS’s. Originally, I was on

CompuServe.

Bill: Free time?

Michael: Well, the first two hours were free. I almost became a Beta

Tester for InfoCom through CompuServe. I sent in the application

forms. I then received a congratulations letter, but InfoCom never sent

me any games to test. The only response was a Christmas card. That was

a soured CompuServe memory. I found some local BBS numbers listed

on CompuServe and from my father and some friends of his from work.

For a while I was mostly on Commodore BBS’s and not many IBM

boards. But then I started calling the IBM boards. It was new for me

when I started. Modeming was a connection to the outside world to other

people with similar interests. It was interesting – the debates about

current events. Somehow there was the possibility for intellectual

discussion which I couldn’t find elsewhere besides my parents and a few

friends like Floyd Hoke-Miller. But among my friends at school or

neighbors, there wasn’t much of a possibility.

When we lived in East Dearborn, our next door neighbor, Tom, had

an Atari and a Commodore 64. He shared an interest in computers with

me. He was my friend, even though there was a large age gap, because

we were both interested in computers. He let me come over and try some

things on his computer and I’d go with him to computer stores.

Bill: Another thing about modems you can’t tell the age. Treats you

more like an equal.

Michael: There’s an anonymity. You don’t know anything about the

other users. So you are more willing to accept them. There are still first

impressions. If you act like a real idiot, people won’t like you. But the

full element of first impressions is left out. And people tend to rank you

or be friends with you on how you act online, what you speak about. It

does help. You tend to get to know the people and there isn’t as much

blocking. And my first handle was Wizkid. I changed my handle 2 or 3

years ago to Sentinel. And there was one person who signed on and said

it was great knowing you. He was one of the people who knew me as

Page 25

Wizkid. There was a “Remembering the OLD Days” theme area on one

of the BBS’s and someone said, “remember that Wizkid.” And I said,

“that was me.” And he said he didn’t know that. When people change

their handles, it’s public but somehow people don’t always realize it.

When I changed my handle, I decreased my activity. When I decreased

my activity it was because there were just silly messages that didn’t

mean anything, or they just seemed juvenile, and I don’t know if that’s

because the people calling were younger or they were more juvenile.

The way people accept you is based on your maturity online and your

maturity showed through more than your age. And there was one debate

where someone said you are just a kid. And I used to have the handle

Wizkid. But it didn’t matter what your age was, it was more how mature

you were. He was trying to say “Well you’re just a kid, you can’t know

anything.” But he was wrong. So there is less age discrimination on the

boards.

Ronda: Why did you decrease the time you spent on the boards?

Michael: I had to spend more time with school, with friends, with

my job. Whenever I used to come home from school, I used to spend

two or three hours, but then my mom said, “We need the phone.” So I

didn’t spend my free time before homework on the modem. And then

with work, I wasn’t even home on certain days to use the modem.

Ronda: But it seemed you were also a little disappointed. There

were user parties, but it seemed the computer world didn’t extend

outside of the modem.

Michael: It did to a certain extent, but it didn’t include everyone.

Like some people were friends before. There were modem parties where

people from the boards got together, whether it was a software swap or

a party.

Ronda: There weren’t many, were there?

Michael: Well, what happened was the main person who had the

parties was from a TAG board in Taylor. He had his computer stolen

after the 2

nd

or 3

rd

party. So he stopped holding them. Then there were

multi-user boards. There was MNET which was a multi-user. The

general age of the users on MNet was older than on the other single-user

BBS’s. And it was more serious. It was more a UNIX board. It was a

different bunch. It was not the home but the people in school, in Ann

Page 26

Arbor. It seemed like the multi-user boards made it easier to hold parties

because users could chat live one-on-one. And when AMUSERS (a

multi-user board) closed down, I didn’t get on other multi-users that

were like AMUSERS. Some people already were friends but you didn’t

end up doing much so it was a little disappointing. Cause it didn’t seem

like there was any – it didn’t get anywhere – it was just online so that

was a little disconcerting. It was disappointing because that was where

I had found more intellectual people but it didn’t go anywhere. And

things like CompuServe cost a lot of money. There’s CompuServe,

there’s Delphi, there’s Geni, there’s PC Link, there’s Q-link, there’s a

couple of services but they all cost money, so that’s hard to deal with.

And then there are bigger boards that exist. But they all cost money.

There’s the WELL. That’s in California. You also pay per hour like

CompuServe. So it’s harder to be on. It’s like MNet. It’s the same

software as MNet. And maybe I did find it disappointing. It used to be

there would be lots of new BBS’s popping up. But they were interesting.

And now there still are lots of new BBS’s popping up. But they’re silly.

So it’s gone downhill a little bit. And also BBS’s are similar to the CB

or the Ham radio in that people voice their opinions, or have discussions

or chat or there used to be DDial’s – all they were were multi-user,

people chatting, but they were 300 baud so they were super slow. Some

of those you had to acquire membership. But they were linked up across

the country. There were things called LINKS that would connect you to

other DDials around the country. So that way you could talk to people.

Somehow the thing about BBS’s was it was the ultimate vehicle of

Free Speech, uncensored speech. For the most part things were not

censored. What you posted was left alone. It was like everyone’s Letter

to the Editor was allowed to be printed. There would be letters debating

other previous letters. Different Sys-Ops had different rules and some

would delete messages that contained profanity or were only personal

attacks or something. BBS’s are the greatest form of free speech. The

problem was you needed a modem and a computer to get into it. So it’s

not as free as it might be, but compared to the newspapers, the newspa-

pers print what they choose, whereas on BBS’s everything is printed,

everything is published. It’s more of a dynamic medium than a static

medium because depending on the board there’s different forms of

Page 27

dealing with messages. For example, some boards after the first 50

messages go by, the first message is deleted, so it’s a dynamic thing.

Unless somebody prints out a copy or saves it to disk, it doesn’t stay

static. Like on MNet, things aren’t deleted. They are deleted when the

message sys-op of the area decides no one is interested anymore. That’s

more of a choice method of deletion, than where it deletes messages or

the new one pops in, the old one pops out and it’s deleted. And even

depending on what happens, it’s still an important medium.

There was, for example, just a debate about the war against IRAQ

on BBS’s. Usually you didn’t see where there was dissent. Whereas on

the computer, if people wanted to, they could debate it and there was

debate about it. A free medium. It’s open access. Not closed. It’s also a

field where the hobbyist still exists. There are people who develop ways

of using the modem, whether it’s different compression techniques

where you can send more and larger files quicker, or whether it’s

different file protocols that send them faster over phone lines. Those are

constantly developing. That is a hobbyist frontier now. Maybe there are

less people than when the computer started out. But it still exists. It’s a

frontier that’s not closed up yet. It’s not definite yet. New things are

continuing to come out. For example, higher speed chips for the serial

ports in the computer so that the computer can talk to the modem at a

higher speed and everything.

(To be continued in next issue)

One Line Program In BASIC

10 FOR I=38 TO 255:PRINT"CHR$(";I;") = ";CHR$(I);" ";:NEXT

(Editor’s Note: We welcome other one line programs from readers.)

Page 28

Computers For The People A History

Part III

And it was indeed. “In January, 1975, six months after the introduc-

tion of [Titus’ computer-ed] the Mark-8, Popular Electronics published

the first installment of a two-part article on a much more sophisticated

computer, the Altair 8800,” writes Stan Augarten (in Bit by Bit, NY,

1984). “The Altair was the first... full fledged personal computer on the

market.” And it was available in kit form for $395,or in assembled form

for $650. “Thousands of orders poured into MITS,” the manufacturer of

the Altair, after the article was published. The article was featured on the

front cover of the magazine: “Project Breakthrough: World’s First

Minicomputer Kit to Rival Commercial Models Altair 8800. Save over

$1000.” ( p.270-273)

The firm was overwhelmed with orders. Augarten explains, “If you

wanted to get the Altair to do something...you had to write a program in

machine code and enter it, bit by bit, via the toggle switches on the front

panel.” It only had a 256-byte memory, too small to do much with. “As

a result,” writes Augarten, “all you could really do with the Altair was

play with it, and one of its first programs was a game that generated

increasingly complicated patterns of lights on the front panel to be

duplicated by the players.” ( p. 274)

What the Altair needed was an interpreter – a program that would

allow the machine’s users to write programs in a simple computer

language like BASIC. Paul Allen, was a programmer working in the

Boston area. He had been a computer hacker during his teen years. He

was strolling through Harvard Square one day when he noticed the

January, 1975 issue of Popular Electronics on the newsstand. He bought

the magazine and went to visit his friend and fellow hacker, William

Gates, who was a freshman at Harvard. Allen is reported to have greeted

Gates waving the article in front of Gates’ face and saying “Look, it’s

going to happen! I told you this was going to happen! And we’re going

to miss it.!” ( Paul Freiberger and Michael Swaine, Fire in the Valley,

Berkeley, 1984, p. 141) Freiberger and Swaine, describe what followed:

“Gates had to admit that his friend was right; it sure looked as

Page 29

though the `something’ they had been looking for had found them. He

immediately phoned MITS [producer of the Altair-ed ], and claimed that

he and his partner had a BASIC language usable on the Altair. When Ed

Roberts [owner of MITS - ed] who had heard a lot of such promises

asked Gates when he could come to Albuquerque to demonstrate it,

Gates looked at his childhood friend, took a deep breath, and said, ‘Oh,

in two or three weeks.’ Gates put down the receiver, turned to Allen and

said: ‘I guess we should go buy a manual.’ They went straight to an

electronics shop and purchased Adam Osborne’s manual on the 8080.”

(Ibid., p. 141)

Allen and Gates had committed themselves to producing a BASIC

language for a machine they had not yet even seen. But they were both

computer hackers from their junior high school days when they had

worked for companies looking for bugs in commercial programs.

Freiberger and Swine describe what happened next:

“For the next few weeks, Gates and Allen worked day and night on

the BASIC. As they wrote the program, they tried to determine the

minimal features of an acceptable BASIC.... There was no established

industry standard for BASIC or for any other software. There was no

industry. By deciding themselves what BASIC required, Gates and Allen

set a pattern for future software development that lasted for about six

years. Instead of researching the market, the programmers simply

decided, at the outset, what to put in.” ( pp. 141 - 142)

Freiberger and Swaine continue their description of those significant

days:

“Both men threw themselves completely into the project, staying up

late every night programming.... They were programming half-asleep

sometimes. Once when Gates nodded off, head on the keys, he woke up

suddenly, glanced at the screen, and immediately began typing. Paul

Allen decided Bill must have been programming in his sleep and kept

right on when he awoke.” (p. 142)

Six weeks later, Allen flew to Albuquerque with their BASIC

interpreter. On the plane, he realized they hadn’t written a program to

load the language into the computer. He quickly made up a program on

some scrap paper. Roberts met him at the airport and drove him to his

workplace. He loaded the program into the Altair and it worked. Allen

Page 30

became MITS’s software director. Gates soon dropped out of Harvard

and became a freelance software writer. Gates and Allen later set up the

Microsoft Corporation in Bellevue, Washington, now one of the largest

software companies in the world.

“The Altair inspired many hobbyists to design their own comput-

ers,” writes Augarten, p. 276. One of these was Stephen Wozniak. The

ferment from the introduction of the Altair had led to the formation of

computer clubs all over the country, including one in California’s

Silicon Valley. The atmosphere generated by the clubs inspired

hobbyists and hackers like Stephen Wozniak and Steve Jobs to create

and then market computers like the Apple. Woz, as Steve Wozniak is

known, explains how the Apple was created. He bought an 8-bit

microprocessor, the 6502 from MOS technology (now part of Commo-

dore), and he wrote a BASIC interpreter for it. The device wasn’t as

powerful as the Altair, but it was cheaper and less complicated. Then he

built a circuit board and he and Steve Jobs set out to market it as the

Apple Computer. Later in 1977 they introduced the Apple II with 16K

of Ram for $1,195. Woz who loved to play games had designed the

computer with that purpose in mind. The Apple II provided a commer-

cial personal computer that people and schools could begin to afford.

But crucial to the development of the Apple computer and to all the

other advances made during this fruitful period in the development of

the personal computer was the role played by the Homebrew Computer

Club. Woz went to the first meeting, in March, 1975. About 30 people

showed up. But fueled by the excitement generated by the Altair, the

club expanded rapidly. Soon the Club had 500 members. Meetings

divided into a “random-access” period during which the floor was

thrown open to anyone who had anything to say, and a “mapping”

period when the audience broke up into small groups devoted to

common concerns.

Lee Felsenstein is the person credited with making the club the

important gathering it became. Felsenstein had been active in the Free

Speech Movement at the University of California at Berkeley. He had

been arrested in 1964 along with 755 other students for sitting in at the

University. He had worked on the Berkeley Barb and the Berkeley Tribe,

two newspapers of the student anti-war movement of the 1960's.

Page 31

Lee Felsenstein, like Ted Nelson whose book Computer Lib became

known as the Common Sense (a la Tom Paine) of the Technological

Revolution, was one of a group of technological revolutionaries who

were products of the radical 1960s. “A surprising number of them,”

write the authors of Fire in the Valley, “held political views that would

have shocked the local Rotary Club and almost all had no love for IBM

and the computer establishment.” (Freiberger and Swaine, p. 108)

Keith Britton, another early member of the Homebrew Club, recalls

the atmosphere prevalent during the early days of the personal computer

movement. “There was a strong feeling,” he writes, “that we were

subversives. We were subverting the way the giant corporations had run

things. We were upsetting the establishment forcing our mores into the

industry. I was amazed that we could continue to meet without people

arriving with bayonets to arrest the lot of us.” (Ibid., p. 104)

Britton saw himself and the other members of the Homebrew Club

as “pivotal in an equivalent of the industrial revolution but more

profoundly important to the human race.” (Ibid., p. 108)

(To be continued)

Page 32

Pascal Program

Bridge_opening_bid_simulator

Uses Printer

(*******************************************************)

(* Author : Ian Carsten *)

(* *)

(* Last Modified : 11-18-90 *)

(* *)

(* Input: menu choices 1-8 (integer), number or letter *)

(* of card (char) and first letter of suit (char) *)

(* *)

(* Output: menu of options, 13-card hand, total points *)

(* of hand, and opening bid based on points and *)

(* distribution of cards in hand *)

(* *)

(* Purpose: To simulate the opening bid in the card *)

(* game of bridge as an aid in learning the strategy *)

(* of assigning points and giving the opening bid *)

(* *)

(* Features: In the change card option, if the user *)

(* tries to remove a card which is not in the hand or *)

(* tries to add a card which is already in the hand, *)

(* then an appropriate error message is printed and the *)

(* particular add or delete routine is repeated-until *)

(* a valid card change is input. Further, at start-up, *)

(* since the handarray is empty, if the user selects *)

(* menu options 2,4,5,6, or 7 an empty hand message is *)

(* printed and the menu is presented to prevent mean- *)

(* ingless execution and/or output. Although this *)

(* program prevents copying an empty hand (52 ' 0 ' *)

(* --string3) to a file, nonetheless, an empty hand has *)

(* been stored under 'hand0.dat' to demonstrate what *)

(* would happen if an empty hand were stored using DOS *)

(* commands and someone then tried to read the empty *)

(* hand into the handarray. In bidding the case *)

(* 13 <= points <= 18 and at least 5 cards in 1 or two *)

(* suits, the bid is: 1 of the 5-card suit with the *)

(* greatest number of points. If each of 2 5-card suits *)

Page 33

(* have the same number of points, then the bid is 1 *)

(* of the first 5-card suit in the order Spade, Heart, *)

(* Diamond, Club. Since Givopeningbid calls *)

(* Showpointsofhand, the bid can be used without first *)

(* getting the points. *)

(*******************************************************)

{Declaration of global variables} type

string3 = string[3];

stringarray = array[1..4, 1..13] of string3;

var

choice : integer; {user's choice from menu}

emptyhand : boolean; {emptyhand = true

prevents meaningless output}

card : string3; {representation of card

in handarray}

handarray : stringarray; {4 x 13 array

representation of card hand}

points : integer; {points of hand, used

to determine bid}

cardsinsuit : array [1..4] of integer;

{number of cards in suit}

pointsinsuit : array [1..4] of integer;

{number of points in suit}

(*******************************************************)

(* Name : Initializearray *)

(* *)

(* Purpose : Initialize all elements of handarray to *)

(* the placeholder ' 0 ' (string3) *)

(* *)

(* Preconditions : none *)

(* *)

(* Postconditions : all 52 elements of handarray are *)

(* ' 0 ' (string3) *)

(*******************************************************)

procedure Initializearray(var

handarray{input/output} :stringarray);

var

row : integer;

col : integer;

begin {Initializearray}

for row := 1 to 4 do {set each element of

handarray to 0 (string3)}

begin {row-loop}

for col := 1 to 13 do

Page 34

begin {col-loop}

handarray[row, col]

:= ' 0 ';

end; {col-loop}

end; {row-loop}

end; {Initializearray}

(*******************************************************)

(* Name : Testforemptyhand *)

(* *)

(* Purpose : Determines if handarray is empty *)

(* *)

(* Preconditions : handarray is either empty (all *)

(* elements are ' 0 ' ) or it contains 13 cards and *)

(* 39 placeholding ' 0 ' *)

(* *)

(* Postconditions : emptyhand (boolean) is true if *)

(* hand empty otherwise emptyhand is false *)

(*******************************************************)

procedure Testforemptyhand(handarray{input} :

stringarray;

var emptyhand{output} :boolean);

var

row : integer;

col : integer;

begin

emptyhand := true; {initialize} for row := 1 to 4

do

begin {row-loop}

for col := 1 to 13 do

begin {col-loop}

if handarray[row, col] <> ' 0 ' then

emptyhand := false

end; {col-loop}

end; {row-loop}

end; {Testforemptyhand}

(*******************************************************)

(* Name : Readcardandsuit *)

(* *)

(* Purpose : reads the two characters of user-input *)

(* card and suit which user wishes to delete/add *)

(* *)

(* Preconditions : user has input card (1 or, in the *)

(* case of a '10', 2 characters ), a space, and the *)

(* first letter of the suit, each of type char *)

Page 35

(* *)

(* Postconditions : charcard and charsuit have been *)

(* assigned the upper case of user-input card and *)

(* suit respectively *)

(*******************************************************)

procedure Readcardandsuit(var

charcard{input/output} : char;

var charsuit{input/output} :char); var

space : char; charzero : char;

begin

read(charcard); if charcard <> '1' then

readln(space, charsuit);

if charcard = '1' then {userinput card is a '10'}

readln(charzero, space, charsuit);

charcard := upcase(charcard);

charsuit := upcase(charsuit);

end;

(********************************************************)

(* Name : Displayhand *)

(* *)

(* Purpose : To print the hand currently stored in *)

(* handarray, with rows right-justified, lowest card to *)

(* highest from left to right (reverse order of array), *)

(* row 1 = Spades, row 2 = Hearts, row 3 = Diamonds, *)

(* and row 4 = Clubs *)

(* *)

(* Preconditions : handarray has a nonempty hand of 13 *)

(* unique cards and 39 placeholders (' 0 ') each *)

(* of type string3 *)

(* *)

(* Postconditions : the hand has been printed *)

(*******************************************************)

procedure Displayhand(handarray

{input} : stringarray);

type

string10 = string[10];

var

row : integer; col : integer; suit : string10;

begin {Displayhand}

Testforemptyhand(handarray

{input}, emptyhand{output});

if (not emptyhand) then

begin {execute Displayhand--

nonempty hand}

Page 36

for row := 1 to 4 do

begin {row-loop}

case row of {assign suit

based on its row number}

1 : suit := 'Spades ';

2 : suit := 'Hearts ';

3 : suit := 'Diamonds ';

4 : suit := 'Clubs ';

end; {case}

write(suit);

write(Lst, suit);

for col := 13 downto 1 do

begin

if handarray[row, col] <> ' 0 ' then

begin {if}

write(hand array [row, col]);

write(Lst, hand array[row, col]);

end; {if}

end; {col-loop} writeln; writeln(Lst);

end; {row-loop}

writeln; writeln(Lst);

end {execute Displayhand--nonempty hand} else

begin {else}

writeln('Current hand is empty. Choose 1) or 3)

from menu to '); writeln('get a nonempty hand.');

writeln; writeln(Lst, 'Current hand is empty.

Choose 1) or 3) from menu to ');

writeln(Lst, 'get a nonempty hand.');

writeln(Lst);

end; {else}

end; {Displayhand}

(*******************************************************)

(* Name : Convertcard *)

(* *)

(* Purpose : Converts card and suit (char)input by user *)

(* into their string equivalents. Also, it assigns the *)

(* row and col (integer) of the card (string3) in hand array *)

(* *)

(* Preconditions : charcard and charsuit have been *)

(* assigned values (char) *)

(* *)

(* Postconditions : row, col (integer), and card *)

(* (string3) have been assigned values *)

(*******************************************************)

Page 37

procedure Convertcard( charcard

{input} : char;

charsuit{input} : char;

var row{output} : integer;

var col{output} : integer;

var card{output} : string3);

begin {Convertcard}

if upcase(charsuit) = 'S'

then {assign row number based

on suit input }

row := 1; {by user}

if upcase(charsuit) = 'H' then

row := 2;

if upcase(charsuit) = 'D' then

row := 3;

if upcase(charsuit) = 'C' then

row := 4;

if charcard = 'A' then {assign

col number and card based on

charcard}

begin {input by user}

card := ' A ';

col := 1;

end;

if charcard ='K' then

begin

card := ' K ';

col := 2;

end;

if charcard = 'Q'then

begin

card := ' Q ';

col := 3;

end;

if charcard = 'J' then

begin

card := ' J ';

col := 4;

end;

if charcard = '1' then

begin

card := '10 ';

col := 5;

end;

Page 38

if charcard = '9' then

begin

card := ' 9 ';

col := 6;

end;

if charcard = '8' then

begin

card := ' 8 ';

col := 7;

end;

if charcard = '7' then

begin

card := ' 7 ';

col := 8;

end;

if charcard = '6' then

begin

card := ' 6 ';

col := 9;

end;

if charcard = '5' then

begin

card := ' 5 ';

col := 10;

end;

if charcard = '4' then

begin

card := ' 4 ';

col := 11;

end;

if charcard = '3' then

begin

card := ' 3 ';

col := 12;

end;

if charcard = '2' then

begin

card := ' 2 ';

col := 13;

end;

end; {Convertcard}

(*******************************************************)

(* Name : Translate *)

(* *)

Page 39

(* Purpose : Translates cardnum (integer) into its *)

(* equivalent card (string3) and assigns row (integer) *)

(* and col (integer) which determines its appropriate *)

(* location in handarray *)

(* *)

(* Preconditions : cardnum has been *)

(* assigned an integer value from 1-52 *)

(* *)

(* Postconditions : row has been assigned an integer *)

(* value from 1-4 and col has been assigned an integer *)

(* value from 1-13 and card (string3) has been *)

(* assigned a value *)

(*******************************************************)

procedure Translate(cardnum :

integer;

var row : integer;

var col : integer);

begin {Translate}

case cardnum of {assign row

based on cardnum}

1..13 : row := 1;

14..26 : row := 2;

27..39 : row := 3;

40..52 : row := 4;

end; {case-assign row}

case cardnum of {assign col and

card based on cardnum}

1,14,27,40 : begin

col := 1;

card := ' A '

end;

2,15,28,41 : begin

col := 2;

card := ' K '

end;

3,16,29,42 : begin

col := 3;

card := ' Q '

end;

4,17,30,43 : begin

col := 4;

card := ' J '

end;

5,18,31,44 : begin

Page 40

col := 5;

card := '10 '

end;

6,19,32,45 : begin

col := 6;

card := ' 9 '

end;

7,20,33,46 : begin

col := 7;

card := ' 8 '

end;

8,21,34,47 : begin

col := 8;

card := ' 7 '

end;

9,22,35,48 : begin

col := 9;

card := ' 6 '

end;

10,23,36,49 : begin

col := 10;

card := ' 5 '

end;

11,24,37,50 : begin

col := 11;

card := ' 4 '

end;

12,25,38,51 : begin

col := 12;

card := ' 3 '

end;

13,26,39,52 : begin

col := 13;

card := ' 2 '

end;

end; {case-assign col and

card}

end; {Translate}

(******************************************)

(* Name : Showmenu *)

(* *)

(* Purpose : To print a menu of options *)

(* and prompt the user for his choice *)

(* *)

Page 41

(* Preconditions : none *)

(* *)

(* Postconditions : menu and prompt *)

(* have been printed *)

(******************************************)

procedure Showmenu;

begin {Showmenu}

writeln('1) Generate a random

hand');

writeln('2) Save the current

hand (to a text file)');

writeln('3) Read a hand (from a

text file)');

writeln('4) Change a card in

the current hand');

writeln('5) Display the current

hand');

writeln('6) Show total points

of the hand');

writeln('7) Give the opening

bid with the current hand');

writeln('8) Quit');

writeln;

write('Enter your choice ');

writeln(Lst,'1) Generate a

random hand');

writeln(Lst,'2) Save the cur-

rent hand (to a text file)');

writeln(Lst,'3) Read a hand

(from a text file)');

writeln(Lst,'4) Change a card

in the current hand');

writeln(Lst,'5) Display the

current hand');

writeln(Lst,'6) Show total

points of the hand');

writeln(Lst,'7) Give the open-

ing bid with the current

hand');

writeln(Lst,'8) Quit');

writeln(Lst);

write(Lst,'Enter your choice

');

end; {Showmenu}

Page 42

(********************************************************)

(* Name : Generatehand *)

(* *)

(* Purpose : To generate 13 unique random integers from *)

(* 1 to 52, translate them into string3 representing a *)

(* hand of cards in the game of bridge and store the *)

(* strings in in a 4 x 13 array representing the card *)

(* hand according to the following scheme: top to *)

(* bottom: row 1 = Spades, row 2 = Hearts, row 3 = *)

(* Diamonds, row 4 = Clubs left to right: col 1 = ' A ', *)

(* col 2 = ' K ',..., col 13 = ' 2 '. Also, all positions *)

(* not holding card will have the string ' 0 ' (string3)*)

(* as a placeholder *)

(* *)

(* Preconditions : handarray either holds 52 ' 0 ' *)

(* placeholders or it holds 13 cards and 39 ' 0 ' *)

(* placeholders, each of type string3 *)

(* *)

(* Postconditions : handarray has 13 unique cards *)

(*(string3) and 39 ' 0 ' placeholders, each of type string3 *)

(*******************************************************)

procedure Generatehand(var hand-

array : stringarray);

type

string10 = string[10];

var

colindex : integer;

cardsinhand : integer; {number

of cards in hand}

inhand : boolean; {true if card

being checked is already in

hand}

cardnum : integer; {random

number of card}

row : integer;

col : integer;

suit : string10;

begin {Generatehand}

Initializearray(handarray);

{to ' 0 '}

cardsinhand := 0; {initialize

number of cards in hand}

while cardsinhand < 13 do

begin {while}

Page 43

inhand := false; {reset to

test next cardnum}

cardnum := random(52) + 1;

Translate(cardnum, row,

col); {determines row, col}

for colindex := 1 to 13 do

begin {colindex-loop}

if handarray[row, col-

index] = card then

inhand := true;

end; {colindex-loop}

if (not inhand) then

begin {if-then}

handarray[row,col] :=

card; {add card to

handarray}

cardsinhand := cards

inhand + 1;

end; {if-then}

end; {while}

end; {Generatehand}

(******************************************)

(* Name : Savehandtofile *)

(* *)

(* Purpose : saves cardhand to filename *)

(* which user specifies just prior to save*)

(* *)

(* Preconditions : card hand exists and *)

(* may be empty or nonempty *)

(* *)

(* Postconditions : nonempty card hand in *)

(* handarray has been saved to user-input *)

(* filename *)

(******************************************)

procedure Savehandtofile(handarray

: stringarray);

type

string20 = string[20];

var

row : integer;

col : integer;

outfile : text;

cardfile : string20;

begin {Savehandtofile}

Page 44

Testforemptyhand(handarray

{input}, emptyhand{output});

if (not emptyhand) then

begin {execute Savehandtofile-

-nonempty hand}

write('What is the name of

the card file? ');

write(Lst, 'What is the name

of the card file? ');

readln(cardfile);

writeln(Lst, ' ', cardfile);

assign(outfile, cardfile);

rewrite(outfile);

for row := 1 to 4 do

begin

for col := 1 to 13 do

begin {col-loop}

write(outfile, hand-

array[row, col]);

end; {col-loop}

writeln(outfile);

end; {row-loop}

close(outfile);

end {execute Savehandtofile--

nonempty hand}

else

begin

writeln('Current hand is

empty. Choose 1) or 3) from

menu to ');

writeln('get a nonempty

hand.');

writeln;

writeln(Lst, 'Current hand is

empty. Choose 1) or 3) from

menu to ');

writeln(Lst, 'get a nonempty

hand.');

writeln(Lst);

end;

end; {Savehandtofile}

(******************************************)

(* Name : Readhandfromfile *)

(* *)

(* Purpose : reads hand from user-input *)

(* filename to handarray *)

(* *)

(* Preconditions : user-input filename *)

Page 45

(* exists and holds a card hand *)

(* *)

(* Postconditions : cardhand in filename *)

(* has been copied to handarray *)

(******************************************)

procedure Readhandfromfile(var

handarray : stringarray);

type

string20 = string[20];

var

row : integer;

col : integer;

outfile : text;

cardfile : string20;

begin {Readhandfromfile}

write('What is the name of

the file? ');

write(Lst, 'What is the name

of the file? ');

readln(cardfile);

write(Lst, ' ', cardfile);

assign(outfile, cardfile);

reset(outfile);

for row := 1 to 4 do

begin {row-loop}

for col := 1 to 13 do

begin {col-loop}

read(outfile, hand-

array[row, col]);

end; {col-loop}

readln(outfile);

end; {row-loop}

writeln(Lst);

close(outfile);

Testforemptyhand(handarray

{input}, emptyhand{output});

if (emptyhand) then

begin {if-emptyhand}

writeln('File ',cardfile,

' is empty. Choose 1) or

3) (with');

writeln('a nonempty file)

from menu to get a non-

empty hand.');

writeln;

writeln(Lst, 'File ',

cardfile, ' is empty.

Choose 1) or 3) (with');

writeln(Lst, 'a nonempty

Page 46

file) from menu to get a

nonempty hand.');

writeln(Lst);

end; {if-emptyhand}

end; {Readhandfromfile}

(********************************************************)

(* Name : Changecard *)

(* *)

(* Purpose : first deletes a userspecified card from *)

(* handarray, then adds one to the array *)

(* *)

(* Preconditions : handarray exists and may be empty or *)

(* nonempty (but Changecard will not execute *)

(* if handarray empty) *)

(* *)

(* Postconditions : handarray has a unique nonempty *)

(* hand (if Changecard executed) *)

(*******************************************************)

procedure Changecard(var handarray

: stringarray);

type

string8 = string[8];

var

charcard : char;

space : char;

charzero : char;

charsuit : char;

row : integer;

col : integer;

inhand : boolean;

suit : string8;

begin {Changecard}

Testforemptyhand(handarray

{input}, emptyhand{output});

if (not emptyhand) then

begin {execute Changecard--

nonempty hand}

{delete chosen card provided it is in hand}

inhand := false;

while (not inhand) do

begin {while-not inhand}

inhand := false;

write('What card do you

want to remove(card-

<space>suit) ? ');

write(Lst, 'What card do

you want to remove(card-

<space>suit) ? ');

Readcardandsuit(charcard,

Page 47

charsuit);

Convertcard(charcard,

charsuit, row, col,

card);

case row of

1 : suit := 'Spades';

2 : suit := 'Hearts';

3 : suit := 'Diamonds';

4 : suit := 'Clubs';

end; {case}

writeln(Lst, card, ' ',

charsuit);

if (handarray[row, col] =

card) then

inhand := true;

if (inhand) then

begin {if-inhand}

handarray[row, col]

:= ' 0 '; {delete

card from hand}

end {if-inhand}

else

begin {else}

writeln(card, 'of ', suit,

' is not in hand');

writeln(Lst, card, 'of ',

suit, ' is not in hand');

end; {else}

end; {while-not inhand}

{add chosen card if not already in hand}

inhand := true;

while inhand do

begin {while-inhand}

inhand := true;

write('What card do you want

to add(card<space>suit) ? ');

write(Lst, 'What card do you

want to add(card<space>suit)

? ');

Readcardandsuit(charcard,

charsuit);

Convertcard(charcard, char-

suit, row, col, card);

case row of

1 : suit := 'Spades';

2 : suit := 'Hearts';

3 : suit := 'Diamonds';

4 : suit := 'Clubs';

end; {case}

Page 48

writeln(Lst, card, ' ', char-

suit);

if (handarray[row, col] <>

card) then

inhand := false;

if (not inhand) then

begin {if}

handarray[row, col] :=

card; {add card to hand}

end {if}

else

begin {else}

writeln(card, 'of ', suit,

' is already in hand');

writeln(Lst, card, 'of ',

suit, ' is already in

hand');

end; {else}

end; {while-inhand}

end {execute Changecard--non-

empty hand}

else

begin {else}

writeln('Current hand is

empty. Choose 1) or 3) from

menu to ');

writeln('get a nonempty

hand.');

writeln;

writeln(Lst, 'Current hand is

empty. Choose 1) or 3) from

menu to ');

writeln(Lst, 'get a nonempty

hand.');

writeln(Lst);

end; {else}

end; {Changecard}

(*******************************************************)

(* Name : Showpointsofhand *)

(* *)

(* Purpose : calculates and prints the points of the hand *)

(* *)

(* Preconditions : handarray has a unique nonempty hand of *)

(* card (this procedure will not execute with an empty hand)*)

(* *)

(* Postconditions : points (integer) have been assigned *)

(*******************************************************)

procedure Showpointsofhand(handarray

{input} : stringarray; var points-

Page 49

{output} : integer );

var

row : integer;

col : integer;

prevpoints : integer;

begin {Showpointsofhand}

Testforemptyhand(handarray-

{input}, emptyhand{output});

if (not emptyhand) then

begin {execute Showpoints-

ofhand--nonempty hand}

points := 0;

prevpoints := 0;

for row := 1 to 4 do

begin {row-loop}

cardsinsuit[row] := 0;

for col := 1 to 13 do

begin {col-loop}

if handarray[row,

col] = ' A ' then

points := points

+ 4;

if handarray[row,

col] = ' K ' then

points := points

+ 3;

if handarray[row,

col] = ' Q ' then

points := points

+ 2;

if handarray[row,

col] = ' J ' then

points := points

+1;

if handarray[row,

col] <> ' 0 ' then

cardsinsuit[row]

:= cardsinsuit-

[row] + 1;

end; {col-loop}

case cardsinsuit[row]

of

0 : points := points

+ 2;

1 : points := points

+ 1;

end; {case}

pointsinsuit[row] :=

points - prevpoints;

Page 50

prevpoints := points;

end; {row-loop}

if choice <> 7 then {choice

= 7, points passed to

Giveopeningbid}

begin {if-choice <> 7}

if points = 1 then

begin {if-points = 1}

writeln(points, '

point');

writeln(Lst,

points, ' point');

end {if-points = 1}

else

begin {else}

writeln(points, '

points');

writeln(Lst, points,

' points');

end; {else}

end; {if--choice <> 7}

end {execute Showpointsof-

hand--nonempty hand}

else

begin {else}

writeln('Current hand is

empty. Choose 1) or 3) from

menu to ');

writeln('get a nonempty

hand.');

writeln;

writeln(Lst, 'Current hand

is empty. Choose 1) or 3)

from menu to ');

writeln(Lst, 'get a

nonempty hand.');

writeln(Lst);

end; {else}

end; {Showpointsofhand}

(*******************************************************)

(* Name : Giveopeningbid *)

(* *)

(* Purpose : computes and prints the opening bid *)

(* *)

(* Preconditions : handarray has a unique nonempty hand *)

(* (will not execute with an empty hand) *)

(* *)

(* Postconditions : opening bid has been computed and *)

(* printed *)

Page 51

(*******************************************************)

procedure Giveopeningbid(var

points : integer);

type

string10 = string[10];

var

bid : string10;

suit : string10;

row : integer;

col : integer;

rowindex : integer;

cardsinrow : integer;

mostcardsinsuit : integer;

max : integer;

begin {Giveopeningbid}

Testforemptyhand(handarray-

{input}, emptyhand{output});

if (not emptyhand) then

begin {execute Giveopening-

bid--nonempty hand}

Showpointsofhand(hand-

array{input}, points-

{output});

mostcardsinsuit := 0;

cardsinrow := 0;

for row := 1 to 4 do

begin {row-loop}

for col := 1 to 13 do

begin {col-loop}

if handarray[row,

col] <> ' 0 '

then

cardsinrow :=

cardsinrow + 1

end; {col-loop}

if cardsinrow > most-

cardsinsuit then

begin

mostcardsinsuit :=

cardsinrow;

rowindex := row

end; {if}

cardsinrow := 0

end; {row-loop}

{case: causes bid to be 1 of which- }

{ever 5-card suit has highest number}

{of points. If 2 5-card suits have }

{same number of points, then suit of}

{lowest number rowindex will be bid }

Page 52

case rowindex of

1 : suit := 'Spade';

2 : suit := 'Heart';

3 : suit := 'Diamond';

4 : suit := 'Club';

end; {case}

if points < 13 then

begin {bid-case 1}

writeln('pass');

writeln(Lst, 'pass');

end; {bid-case 1}

if (13 <= points) and

(points <= 18) and (most-

cardsinsuit >= 5) then

begin {bid-case 2}

max := 0;

for row := 1 to 4 do

begin {row-loop}

if (cardsinsuit[row] >= 5)

then

begin {if}

if pointsinsuit[row] >

max then

begin {if}

max := pointsin-

suit[row];

rowindex := row;

end; {if}

case rowindex of

1 : suit := ' Spade ';

2 : suit := ' Heart ';

3 : suit := ' Diamond ';

4 : suit := ' Club ';

end; {case}

end; {if}

end; {row-loop}

writeln('1 ', suit);

writeln(Lst, '1 ', suit);

end; {bid-case 2}

if (13 <= points) and

(points <= 15) and (most-

cardsinsuit < 5) then

begin {bid-case 3}

writeln('1 club');

writeln(Lst, '1 club');

end; {bid-case 3}

if (16 <= points) and (points

<= 18) and (most cardsinsuit < 5)

then begin

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{bid-case4}

writeln('1 no trump');

writeln(Lst, '1 no trump');

end; {bid-case 4}

if 18 < points then

begin {bid-case 5}

writeln('2 clubs');

writeln(Lst, '2 clubs ');

end; {bid-case 5}

end {execute Giveopeningbid--

nonempty hand}

else

begin {else}

writeln('Current hand is empty.

Choose 1) or 3) from menu to ');

writeln('get a nonempty hand.');

writeln;

writeln(Lst, 'Current hand is

empty. Choose 1) or 3) from

menu to ');

writeln(Lst, 'get a nonempty

hand.');

writeln(Lst);

end; {else}

end; {Giveopeningbid}

(******************************************)

begin {main}

randomize;

choice := 0; {initialize to insure entry

into while loop}

Initializearray(handarray); while choice

<> 8 do

begin {while}

Showmenu;

readln(choice);

writeln(Lst,choice);

case choice of

1 : Generatehand(handarray);

2 : Savehandtofile(handarray);

3 : Readhandfromfile(handarray);

4 : Changecard(handarray);

5 : Displayhand(handarray);

6 : Showpointsofhand(handarray{in-

put}, points{output});

7 : Giveopeningbid(points);

else {quit if choice is 8}

end; {case}

end; {while}

end. {main}

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Special Thanks to Tim Henderson for scanning the graphics and helping

to produce this newsletter. (the Editors)

EDITORIAL STAFF

Ronda Hauben

William Rohler

Norman O. Thompson

Michael Hauben (1973-2001)

Jay Hauben

The Amateur Computerist invites submissions.

Articles can be submitted via e-mail:

[email protected]

Permission is given to reprint articles from this issue in a

non profit publication provided credit is given, with name

of author and source of article cited.

The opinions expressed in articles are those of their

authors and not necessarily the opinions of the

Amateur Computerist newsletter. We welcome sub-

missions from a spectrum of viewpoints.

ELECTRONIC EDITION

ACN Webpage:

http://www.ais.org/~jrh/acn/

All issues of the Amateur Computerist are on-line.

Back issues of the Amateur Computerist are available at:

http://www.ais.org/~jrh/acn/Back_Issues/

All issues can be accessed from the Index at:

http://www.ais.org/~jrh/acn/NewIndex.pdf

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