On Wed, 20 Dec 2000, John Hendrickx wrote: > > A response from an Older Fart (tm) is sure to follow. >

Glad to oblige--

When I started, cutting edge state of the art was mechanical calculators and counter sorters (and we were glad to have them). I almost cried when Frieden introduced the first solid state version (and got a grant to stock our computer lab with them). Then there were the 401 accounting machines. Anyone else out there who knows how to hand wire a reproducer?

When I started using SPSS, we didn't have any of them new fangled fancy bound guidebooks, just mimeographed instructions (and we were thankful to have them). When I first typed VAROO1 instead of VAR001, there were no fancy little dots inside zeros to distinguish them from O's, and no list serves to go crying to for help. I had to figure out what had gone wrong by myself (and three days later, I succeeded).

I'm older (and fartier) than thou, So happy holidays from Pow.

---- Pow *************************************************************************** Powhatan J. Wooldridge, Assoc. Professor, Nursing, State Univ. NY at Buffalo

> --- "R. Allan Reese" <R.A.Reese@GRI.HULL.AC.UK> wrote: > > On Wed, 20 Dec 2000 <J.Russell@SHEFFIELD.AC.UK> wrote > > >... as an old programmer who > > >started in the days when there were not fancy things like 'do ifs' > > >and macros ... > > > > We are pleased to clarify that Jean's experience started with the > > PC > > version of SPSS and she had overlooked that "DO IF" had been > > present for > > some time in the older mainframe versions. Any implication that > > Jean is > > other than a mere stripling is entirely false and unfounded. > > > > Seasons greetings from a real old-timer and pedantic grouch, > > R Allan Reese > > Humbug. > > A real Old Fart (tm) would have pointed out that macros were > introduced in SPSSX 3.0 and DO IF in SPSSX 1.0 itself -- the true > version 10 of SPSS. In my time (SPSS version 9), we didn't have no > fancy "DO IF"s or macros, didn't have no lowercase letters neither. > Didn't need 'em either (well actually we really did, but no need to > tell the kiddies that).

> John Hendrickx > > __________________________________________________ > Do You Yahoo!? > Yahoo! Shopping - Thousands of Stores. Millions of Products. > http://shopping.yahoo.com/ >