16.07.2008 18:12 - Crap Moments In Movies No.1
1984. The first Terminator movie comes out. Arnold Schwarzeneggar rampages about, killing people right, left and centre, and leaving me in fits of laughter.
Why?
Because, if you look carefully at the "Terminator Vision" the computer code that scrolls past is largely from a book about COBOL 8X, the not-quite-yet defined new standard for 1980s.
Why is this so funny?
Because COBOL, even then, was largely an antique dinosaur of a programming language used by businesses for doing the payroll. It has practically no structure, and if you were wanting to write a program to control an artificially-intelligent killing machine, it would be the last language you would ever think of using, or want to use.
Even if you were the US Department of Defense.
It was an even bigger pain in the arse to program in than Fortran 77.
Admittedly programming in it made me want to design an artificially-intelligent killing machine. But the relevant Lego technik set had yet to come out.
