[quote=483317:@Dave S]Ah… So you are “old like Norm” then …
I can say this as I got you both beat[/quote]
Thanks Dave, I feel like a spring chicken now 
I was older than Rick in 81 
yes, but are you older than him NOW? 
And how can you call COBOL an ancient language? After all, the CO part stands for Common (for those who don’t know, it is COmmon Business Oriented Language). It was way too verbose for my taste.
You mean common for elderly people 
No !
he’s way older than I am
Hey, I resemble that remark!
it runs a great deal of things still
we might all be surprised how much of it is still around
[quote=483329:@Norman Palardy]it runs a great deal of things still
we might all be surprised how much of it is still around[/quote]
Yes I hear it still runs many important back ends, also FORTRAN
THIS… is an ancient programming language!
Ad i = 0 et C
i this print
deinde ego(ie. Latin)
hmmm I think theres another one we all know - BASIC 
COBOL -designed in 1959
BASIC - 1964
Note the wikipedia entry says about COBOL “At a time when new programming languages were proliferating at an ever-increasing rate, …” HA !!!
speaking of COBOL… How many of you know who Grace Hopper was?
and how many of you ever had the honor of having lunch with her (not once, but twice) [opps. bragging ]
the admiral ?
never met her or had lunch with her
now I’m damned jealous
closest I ever came to someone famous in computing was meeting james gosling at an event at my alma mater
and a dev on the newton team was one of my TA’s at university
yes the Admiral . It was quite a long time ago… She was a guest speaker at some seminar I went to, and somehow I was invited to have lunch at her table. The next time was a year or so later, and I managed to get in a conversation with her, and mentioned the previous seminar, and she invited me once again … Wish I could remember what the events were, or even where for that matter
still thats something you cant ever replace
what little I know of her makes it darned jealous
its not often you get the chance to meet someone who is a SOMEONE from the early days of this industry
Ive been reminiscing with Norman and Dave about this on another forum.
I used to quite like programming in COBOL. Yes it was verbose but it was some of the most readable code around.
Even if youve never used the language youd pick up the meaning of source code really quickly.
I miss those days of computing.
just it wasnt always clear to new readers why the period was where it was
Was just reading about Adm. Hopper… When I met her, she was designated a Commodore (later changed, to Read Adm)
I used to like how your grammar skills were important in your programming.
Im probably misremembering but didnt NASA have a rocket blow up on the launchpad because a comma was put where a period should have been?
Just figured it out… at the time I was in the market to buy a new DEC for the company I work for, and she worked for DEC at that time