Re: old power, Short Vectors Versus Long Vectors

John Levine wrote:

It appears that Lawrence D'Oliveiro  <ldo@nz.invalid> said:

On Tue, 30 Apr 2024 19:38:54 -0000 (UTC), John Levine wrote:
>

The 650s at least ran all night. Alan Perlis told me some amusing stories
of tripping in the dark over sleeping grad student wives who were
holding their husbands' place in line for the 650 in the middle of the
night. They soon made the scheduling more humane.

>
How did they do that, though? Other than by hiring operators to work those shifts, so the users could submit their jobs in a queue and go home?

Rather than just queueing up, they arranged it so the student could
sign up ahead of time, and then show up whenever to do his work, and
the wives could get some sleep.

I also think he tried to round up some money to get another computer.

I remember getting up at 3:00 AM to get exclusive access to the IBM 360/67
to run various student programs with much better response time than when
30 other people were trying to do the same. {Every body else, except the system operator had left by then::at least statistically.}