XPost: alt.folklore.computers   
   From: djatechNOSPAM@comcast.net.invalid   
      
   Peter Flass  writes:   
      
   > On 1/3/26 13:12, rbowman wrote:   
   >> On Sat, 3 Jan 2026 08:31:33 +0000, The Natural Philosopher wrote:   
   >>   
   >>>       No Low-Level Access: The language lacked a way to override its   
   >>> strict type system, making it impossible to write its own I/O systems or   
   >>> memory allocators *within the language itself*.   
   >> The University of Maine used Pascal as a didactic language and most   
   >> of the   
   >> engineers at Sprague Electric were from UM. I can't remember the term but   
   >> I wrote several dlls, module, or whatever they were called that allowed   
   >> Pascal to do stuff like gather process data from HP instrumentation,   
   >> control robotic arms, and other real world activities. Hey, it was   
   >> money...   
   >> It is depressing that many companies I either worked for directly or   
   >> as a   
   >> hired gun have wiki articles starting with   
   >> "Sprague Electric Company was an electronic component maker"   
   >> "Sylvania Electric Products Inc. was an East Coast American   
   >> manufacturer   
   >> of electrical and electronic equipment,"   
   >> "General Electric Company (GE) was an American multinational   
   >> conglomerate"   
   >> It isn't even the usual X was bought by Y was bought by Z. They're   
   >> gone   
   >> completely although the GE trademark does live on in GE Aerospace. Also   
   >> gone are all the jobs the companies provided.   
   >>   
   >   
   > I thought GE was still going. Besides aerospace, is GE Porwer Systems   
   > still running (turbines, generators, and such)? I lived in the general   
   > vicinity of Schenectady for many years and had family that worked   
   > there. I know GE Plastics in Pittsfield and Waterford was sold off (I   
   > had a gig there for a while, GE-400 system). MAO had something to do   
   > with nuclear subs. I know the appliance division left a long time ago,   
   > and I'm not even going to mention the Computer Division here in   
   > Phoenix.   
   >   
   GE sold off their mainframe computer business (GE-600 series) sometime   
   in the early 1970s while I was in the Air Force at Griffiss AFB in Rome   
   NY. After leaving the service in 1973 I went to work as site support for   
   Honeywell at the Washington Navy Yard, then at Kennedy Space Center for   
   the Space Shuttle project, and finally to the mainframe computer factory   
   on Thunderbird road in Phoenix. By the time I retired in 2012, the   
   manufacturing was long gone and the "GCOS 8" software support was under   
   Groupe Bull from France. I don't know if there is anything left at all   
   in Phoenix now.   
   --   
   -Don_from_AZ-   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)