The Arkwright

This story was published in Freelace Informer 17th November 1989. The joke is, that the references to COBOL now feel as dated as the idea of Victorian industrialism around which the story is woven...

Ah were nobbut a lad when Ah first went to work at Eptenstall's as a junior programmer. It were 'ard i' them days, little children no more'n babbies were employed to crawl around inside t'computin' engine with soft 'eaded 'ammers - bangin t'parity bits back into place as thi' came loose, and we all 'ad to work from mornin' til night, slaves to the "program".

Mi dad were t'chief programmer, he'd worked there man an' boy. Ee used to work in t'abacus room, where t'girls calculated all t'payroll and so on. Ee used to sit at a big 'igh desk lookin' out across that sea of bent 'eads, as t'little copper balls shot backwards and forwards on the stainless steel wires, with a noise like a thousand grannies at their knittin'.

Then one day in comes Mr Eptenstall to see me dad. It were either t'day when t'payroll went over 150 employees, or else when all t'girls 'ad to stay back and redo the VAT because Minnie Barraclough 'ad got the wires on 'er abacus crossed, and 'adn't noticed. Anyhow, be that as it may, in comes Mr. Eptenstall with 'is silver 'eaded cane in 'is 'and, and a big spotted hanky in 'is top pocket. And ee says to mi dad, "Herbert, do you want to be a Chief Programmer?". "Yes Mr Eptenstall," says mi dad, quick as a flash, "what is it?", because i' them days, if t'boss offered you something, you took it and touched your cap, even if it were a clip round t'lug. "A'm goin' to replace all these girls," said Mr Eptenstall, waving 'is 'and over their 'eads in a grand gesture, "With one of them new Arkwright Automated Computing Engines. The bloke in charge is called a 'Chief Programmer' and you're going to be it!"

The coming of the computing engine caused a tremendous stir in the village. A special engine shed, or "computer room" as some would have it, was built at the side of the yard. One wall was made entirely of glass, so that people could look in, and at any time of t'day or night a small crowd would be gathered, noses pressed against the windows to marvel at the intricate workings of the Arkwright. But the most excitin' time were on Thursdays, the night of the payroll run. Sometimes there'd be two or three 'undred people gathered at yard gates, and as the enormous double flywheel of the Central Processing Unit began to turn, you could hear a sympathetic murmur rustle through the crowd. "T'payroll's beginnin', t'payroll's beginnin'." And then a silence would fall, as the input and output routines gathered speed. Teams of data entry girls shovelled raw information into the galvanised steel input buffer as it shuttled ever more rapidly to and fro, while operators, their overflow boots tightly laced at the knee, piled the output into neat stacks.

All this were excitin enough, but what the crowd really hoped for were one of them special occasions when the Arkwright would "go down". When, let's say, Elijah Braithwaite had earned three times more overtime than anyone had believed possible Then the overtime subroutine would whirl round faster and faster, little puffs of steam coming from the feedback loop until the whole thing was a blur, and then suddenly the qovernor weights would be hurled into the far corners of the room, and the subroutine would fly to pieces in a shower of cogs springs and altered go to's (Aye we still add a few around i' them days!) Within seconds the whole great machine would have ground to a halt, then the crowd would delight to see the systems programmers really move. They'd be all over t' computin' engine, oily rags hanging from their back pockets, function adjusting torque wrenches grasped in their greasy hands, and mouthfuls of COBOL instruction cogs pushed in their cheeks, in case any patches had to be applied. The crowd would be entranced. And an element of competition would creep in as each member, young or old, tried to spot the moment, which would surely come, when in the hurly-burly of the amendment, one or other of the systems programmers would drop the odd cog or leave an open loop hanging on a label so that in some subsequent run, it would fall into the machinery and cause a failure even more catastrophic and difficult to locate than the one they were now trying to correct.

But A'm getting ahead of myself. To go back to t'beginning, when Ah were a little lad, Ah used to long to be a programmer just like mi dad , and he used to bring home bits of code for me to play with. Ah used to marvel at the glistening intricacies of the "do" loops, or wind the input shafts of square root routines to see what came out the other end. From an early age, Ah had a mobile made of interlocking perform statements hanging from mi bedroom ceiling. One of the things that sticks in mi mind were when mi dad brought me a malfunctioning date routine. lt were a little jewel, No bigger than a loaf of bread. It had input shafts for t' day, month and year, and a series of dials to show the date. Mi dad were amazed when using only the kitchen poker and some old bits of PASCAL that we'd d been using as bookends, Ah managed to get it working. Ah used to sit twirling those shafts to qive dates like 15 August 1972 or 31st February 1986, and watch the little output toggle flick from O.K. to NOT O.K. where it were supposed to interface wit' rest of program. In the mornings Ah'd lie in me little bed long before dawn, and listen to the chatter of the data-entry girls as they scrambled down t'cobbled street. Ah'd imagine them in their colourful overalls, with their check-digit specs on strings around their necks. There's many a grown woman in this town today who can't add two and two together, because she were caught by a spray of check-digits when she were too vain to wear her protective specs while Mr Eptenstall junior were visiting the office.

On the evening of mi twelfth birthday, mi dad said "Son, you're a man now, an tha mun teck a job. An Ah guess Ah know what you'll choose.". "Oh yes dad!" Ah replied "Ah want to be a programmer just like you". ''Aye Ah thought so" he said, and from under the table he produced a suit of brand new coding overalls, and a pair of programmer's antistatic boots. Ah were over t'moon. Ah hardly slept that night and Ah were up wit' lark next morning. Mi mam 'ad got mi snap ready tied up in some old coding sheets and just as me and mi dad were leavin' she ran after us an' said ''Ere y'are Billy, it's yer Uncle Arnold's coding equipment". It were a beautiful mahogany case and inside, all laid out in their own compartments were a chrome-vanadium parameter aligner, a pair of subroutine spanners, and best of all, coiled on a large wooden bobbin, a database broddler. "By eck mam" A said, "A'11 look after 'em" "I know you will son," mi mam smiled "Yer uncle would have wanted you to have them". Ah were that proud, mi uncle 'ad been one of the finest programmers in t'North of England. But e'd met an untimely end, crushed when an enormous occurs clause had fallen off its 01 level and corrupted the program 'e was workin' on.

And so Ah set off down t'street by t'side of mi dad, snap in one hand, coding tools in t'other, off to mi first day at Eptenstalls. Mind you, there was no favours 'cause mi dad were t'chief programmer. "If Th'art goin' to t'top, tha mun start at bottom." he always used to say. Which were good advice except as Ah later found out in the case of Betty Ogden where it were better to observe the revere rule. There were two other junior programmers besides me. On us first day we were shown round t'Arkwright Computing Engine's control routine (as seen through t'glass by many a gawping visitor) but after that we were sent to work in t'subroutine basement. By gum, some of them subroutines. There were one PAYE routine, there were enough metal in it to meck a personal computer these days. And A swear there were gear trains and so on in there that never turned. Mind you, you know why. There were no supervision. T'interface were all they cared about. Set of drives came down through t'ceiling, set of push rods went back up. They'd qive t'job of makin' a subroutine to a junior programmer, and so long as ee could get it to tie up to t'interface. no questions asked. A've seen 'em where the output's were three foot from t'push rods, and there's be a great bundle of tightly packed ''go to's" fastening 'em together. But there were never any time for anyone more senior to check them out, t'bosses were either bangin' out plans for t'next "phase" or else they were 'ead down in t'bowels o't engine trying to realign a nested IF with a club hammer. lt were a long time before Ah got promoted out o' them cellars. But A learnt mi trade there. Mi coding got neater and cleaner, until Ah could get mi subroutine tied up to the interface and not use a ''go to" at all.

It must 'ave been six years later when Ah were 'elping mi dad get the Arkwright ready for the payroll run, when he banged is 'ead on an unstring statement and went flat on is face like a poleaxed ox. Ah bent over 'im, as a couple of junior programmers dashed up with a stretcher, and 'is eyes flickered open, and he muttered "A'll be alright lad, you see to the Arkwright.'' When he heard about the accident Mr Eptenstall were that worried he sent his secretary down with a message to say how he hoped mi dad had managed to get the Arkwright ready before 'e collapsed. Mi dad were that touched when he heard. But now it were all down to me, Ah would be in charge of the payroll run. But then Mr Eptenstall sent down another message. Due to a drive shaft failure the Tuesday VAT run hadn't been done, and that had to be ready by the morning as well! Here was a dilemma - the payroll took twelve hours, and the VAT run fifteen! and both had to be ready by nine o'clock the following morning, just twenty hours away. What was Ah to do??

Perhaps Ah could run the machine at double speed? But no, the risks were too great, t'Linkage Section could be shaken to bits that way. Then as Ah was staring at the Arkwright Ah noticed the PAYE input buffers leaning against the wall. They were smaller than t'VAT buffers that were currently on t'machine. The same went for t'output buffers - different sizes. Part of the job of running the different programs was adjusting the machine's input/output routines and screwing on the different buffers. But if slots were cut in the larger buffers, and the smaller buffers fitted underneath, then the input could be interleaved, and it would sort itself out at the other end. Yes - that was it, and then both programs could run at once. Quickly Ah set the operators on making the necessary adjustments. All night the entire staff shovelled the input for both runs into the input buffers, the Arkwright clanked and rattled, t'central processing unit running white hot. By eight a.m. the payroll and VAT runs were both complete. Mr Eptenstall were that grateful he gave me t'day off. Which were a right nice thought even if it were a Sunday.

When Ah got home Ah told mi dad what A'd done. '' By gum lad," he said, ''That's it. Dual programming! Tha's invented dual programming!". Ah always knew t' input an output routines were much slower than t'CPU, but A could never see a way round it''. And as he rattled on, filled with excitement over t'new idea Ah thought Ah began to see a way that not only Eptenstall's might benefit, but a way that the whole face of computing might be changed. Maybe not just dual programming, but something even more exotic might be just around the comer. Ah felt sure it was possible - and future events were to prove me right.