A place to discuss the WSJ Weekly Crossword Contest and other "meta"-style crosswords
https://www.xword-muggles.com/
Oh, I just meant that I say that every week, because I'm always working on the meta late Sunday night.Bob cruise director wrote: ↑Sun Jul 12, 2020 10:09 pmUsually I go back on Monday to add in changes after I go to bed
Ditto. I think that even today, the word "job card" would still give me nightmares.ImOnToo wrote: ↑Sun Jul 12, 2020 9:25 pmBob cruise director wrote: ↑Sun Jul 12, 2020 9:16 pmAnd you would go back and find one of three things
1) one card was in the wrong place and it would not run so you got one page back
2) one card was in the wrong place and it printed out dozens of sheets of paper until the system operator terminated your program
3) they dropped your deck and you have to sort through 100+ cards to get them in the right order
Love itSpot on!
I just had a mini flashback/anxiety attack!
My association to this was literary rather than musical, but still kinda kinky,Geoduck wrote: ↑Sun Jul 12, 2020 7:47 pmI'll post it if I remember (and am up) at midnight -- unless someone else does so first!802puzzler wrote: ↑Sun Jul 12, 2020 7:05 pmYou're killing me! I too found the first step right away, but my second step is NOT bringing to mind a music video! LOL
It seemed that every time I'd get a new computer, it would cost $2000. It would be a big improvement over the previous one (higher, faster, stronger or something like that), but the price was the same. The one I remember was an AST. instead of the standard 10K hard drive, I opted for the big 20K. Yes, K. The monitor and CPU weighed about 80 pounds -- not the sort of thing you want to lug on vacation, which is what I had to do. In later decades, I was thankful for laptops, also $2000.LadyBird wrote: ↑Sun Jul 12, 2020 5:47 pm I bought my first computer in the mid-80's for grad school. I recently found the sales slip in one of my Covid-cleaning forays. Don't remember the specs, but I'm sure it wasn't much. That and B&W monitor and dot matrix printer was almost $2000!
I made it through undergrad with a manual typewriter. Hit the big time senior year when my roommate had an IBM Selectric.
Of course you'd drawn a diagonal line with magic marker across the top of the card deck to make it easier if you did have to resort them.Bob cruise director wrote: ↑Sun Jul 12, 2020 9:16 pmAnd you would go back and find one of three thingsImOnToo wrote: ↑Sun Jul 12, 2020 8:59 pmI’m so old that when I was on the “cutting edge” of punch cards in college, I submitted my cards to the ONE center that could run them. And then I waited, sometimes hours, to go back and find out if the program worked or not!whimsy wrote: ↑Sun Jul 12, 2020 7:38 pm
In another brief and (in retrospect) aberrant life, right after college I was trained and then used Honeywell Easycoder, by/for a government agency in DC. (I think that was a machine language -- that's how limited my time in that field was!) I did meet my husband there and we returned to our roots in New England after a couple of years where I ended up working with little kids, which was much more "me." Mr. Whimsy (it cracks me up to type that because it's so not him!) remained in tech so I had the "luxury" of doing something I loved without us having to live in the poorhouse!
During that short career we also used punch cards, and now when I've had to ask millennial daughter how to do something on the computer, I remind myself that I was once smart enough to go in and change zeroes to ones and vice-versa!
And somewhere in a box of old memorabilia I'm pretty sure I still have a short stack of cards that when "duped" plays "Jingle Bells"!
1) one card was in the wrong place and it would not run so you got one page back
2) one card was in the wrong place and it printed out dozens of sheets of paper until the system operator terminated your program
3) they dropped your deck and you have to sort through 100+ cards to get them in the right order
Love it
BarbaraK wrote: ↑Sun Jul 12, 2020 10:38 pmOf course you'd drawn a diagonal line with magic marker across the top of the card deck to make it easier if you did have to resort them.Bob cruise director wrote: ↑Sun Jul 12, 2020 9:16 pmAnd you would go back and find one of three things
1) one card was in the wrong place and it would not run so you got one page back
2) one card was in the wrong place and it printed out dozens of sheets of paper until the system operator terminated your program
3) they dropped your deck and you have to sort through 100+ cards to get them in the right order
Love it
Where were you when I needed you in 1982?!and hopefully you didn't wrap the rubber band so tight it crimped the card(s).BarbaraK wrote: ↑Sun Jul 12, 2020 10:38 pmOf course you'd drawn a diagonal line with magic marker across the top of the card deck to make it easier if you did have to resort them.Bob cruise director wrote: ↑Sun Jul 12, 2020 9:16 pmAnd you would go back and find one of three things
1) one card was in the wrong place and it would not run so you got one page back
2) one card was in the wrong place and it printed out dozens of sheets of paper until the system operator terminated your program
3) they dropped your deck and you have to sort through 100+ cards to get them in the right order
Love it
OGuyDave wrote: ↑Sun Jul 12, 2020 6:43 pmReversible words seems to be a pretty sparse population. Here's what I got from a perl script I whipped up:MajordomoTom wrote: ↑Sat Jul 11, 2020 11:18 pm stressed/desserts is pretty common, but the rest ... blow my mind that it's all fitted together that neatly.
pupils/slipup and diaper/repaid are just ... wowsers.
90 Three-letter words
102 Four-letter words
42 Five-letter words
And race car is race car....
.
Spot on!