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THE COMPUTER STUDIES GROUP (C.S.G.)

This is the first mention in "The Victorian" of Computer Studies as a Friday afternoon activity. The programs in question were typed onto punched tape and fed through the teletype machine - no VDUs or hard disk storage in those days! Channel Data Processing were also using punched tape, but they had the extra sophistication of a fast reading system, where light was shone through the tape as it was read, rather than a mechanical sprocket system!

Last autumn, a group of boys under the supervision vision of Dr. C. Phillips began a computing course after school on Fridays at Highlands. By telephoning 061 273 7171, the teletypewriter there connected to the Honeywell Time-Sharing Computer in Manchester.

Dr. Phillips started by teaching BASIC—Beginners' All Symbolic Instruction Code. This is a type of mathematical pseudo-English, involving the of simple statements, such as IF X= 13, THEN 110 and LET Y=A/4, which together form a PROGRAM. The group progressed on to using an international computer language—FORTRAN, and some fanatics have learnt yet another language - ALGOL.

During the spring term a visit was conducted to Channel Data Processing in order that the commercial aspect of computing might be seen. The 'innards' of part of the computer there were explained to us.

Inevitably there are the occasional mishaps, although fortunately none are too serious. Everyone now is told not to pull the paper-tape puncher as we have learnt from experience that it jams. The "accident-prone" jammer also manages to make tables fall on touch—and even causes the computer to malfunction. Second to him is the practical joker who causes false error messages from the computer which surprise even Dr. Phillips.

Near the end of the spring term the hopefully more-experienced programmers began teaching the fundamentals of programming to some new recruits on Mondays. Now computer studies, useful in both universities and commerce, has earned itself a place with the regular Friday afternoon activities.

J.C.T. Hallam and A. Bellows