Collective memory

[Giles Todd]

On Tue, 22 Jul 2003 08:29:14 GMT, Brian Inglis
<Brian.Inglis at SystematicSw.ab.ca> wrote:

> That's a lousy printer operator: the ribbon should have been
> flipped end around long before it got to that stage. 
> (That's the old equivalent of shaking a laser toner cartridge.) 
> You also wouldn't be able to differentiate between commas and
> dots, some apostrophes and quotes, maybe bars and bangs, possibly
> parens brackets and braces, if you had and used them. 

On Sunday last, having finally fixed my bike after two years of
non-use, I wandered off to Amsterdam's Stedelijk Museum, where there
was (and still is) an exhibition of items from its collection of
purchases from the 1960s and early 1970s.

In the last room (of 32, or thereabouts) there were many May 1968 and
anti-Vietnam-war posters, some of them strikingly apt given current
events, plus some others dedicated to apparently 'minor' issues. 

Among the latter were two posters printed on [now I have forgotten the
English word for this type of paper, but it has tractor holes along
both sides, and is flimsy, and has horizontal perforations every now
and then] paper, with a silk-screeened slogan advocating recycling on
the supposedly blank side.

The posters were under glass, but I could still see the FORTRAN
listings on the other side of them.  Nice (from both of my points of
view).

Anyway, to return to the post I am commenting to, the commas on the
listings I saw (viewed from the back, from the viewpoint of the person
who originally instructed the computer to print them) lacked tails.  I
expect that this is probably cause for a law suit nowadays, where
everything is perfect and, if something turns out not to be perfect
then it must be the fault of someone who is LIABLE!

Impact ribbons cost money, you know.  Whether you replace them or not.

The exhibition to which I refer is scheduled to carry on until the end
of the year, should anyone else wish to view it.  My favourite exhibit
was the TV Buddha.  Made me giggle for at least five minutes, in spite
of it being nearly thirty years old and part of it being in
monochrome.

Giles.