From Punch Cards (and Tapes) to Java

An airhacks.fm conversation with Maurice Naftalin
(@mauricenaftalin) about: 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