Reflections on Early Computing and Education

Shelton Signet CP/M machine costing £3000 in the 1980s, discussion about the CP/M operating system which started in 1972, Maurice's early career teaching programming at Wolverhampton Polytechnic (now University), teaching Pascal programming language, creating a membership system for a political campaign using his first computer, Maurice's background as a chemist studying nuclear magnetic resonance (which later became MRI), learning fortran to process data using Fast Fourier Transforms, discussion about the NAG Library and challenges with array indices between C and Fortran, programming in the early days using punch cards and waiting hours for compilation results, the evolution from punch cards to paper tape which was more fragile, the role of punch operators who would type programs onto cards, Maurice's experience programming in assembler after learning Fortran, working at British Steel on an eccentric project to create a new programming language, moving to ICL (International Computers Limited) to work on the VMEB operating system with 15-16 protection rings, using traffic lights mounted on walls to indicate system status (red for down, amber for booting, green for operational), Maurice's interest in formal methods and the Vienna Development Method (VDM), working at Sterling University on formal specification and stepwise refinement, programming in HyperTalk for HyperCard in the 1990s, the Post Office Horizon scandal where a flawed computer system led to false fraud accusations against hundreds of sub-postmasters, Maurice's early Java programming creating a local information service distributed on CDs in the mid-1990s, discussion about offline-first principles and caching data that are still relevant today, Maurice being a "singleton" as the only Maurice Naftalin on the internet

Maurice Naftalin on twitter: @mauricenaftalin