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Charlie Gibbs

Well the IBM Compilers and buttemblers provided very good Xref output, and you could always turn off the code generation to save machine time. No cross module Xref however for arguments of subroutine calls. The Linkage editor also provided quite good cross reference and mapping output. Though you couldn't check accurately which library from a concatenated set a module had been pulled. Macros were cross referenced but if from a library had the same problems as linked modules from libraries. I never met a JCL xref utility. But there was an option to interpret and 'execute' just the JCL in a job without executing the programs in the job steps. I didn't find that too useful, but can't list its limitations any more. Well I was surprised and annoyed at the poor to non existant cross reference capabilities of non IBM systems that I had opportunities to run on: CDC, DEC, CONVEX, CRAY Well we had a roomful of student keypunches. We had one. But I could see no practical point to it. Where would one need to have-use one. It was easier to put the card in the punch station of a KP space to the desired column and add the missing hole.

Did you play KP games such as holding the card at the read or punch station to skip columns? Or need to use a card saw clear a jammed KP? -- Rostyk