The year 1975, when the Kingston chapter of the Class of 79 started their four years at RMC, was a LONG time ago! The proof of that statement can be weighed by the fact that we had classes in FORTRAN IV computer language – yes, long before desk-top computers, i-Phones, smart TVs, and laptops; even before the first Apple.  Why, we were using data cards in which we had to punch holes to feed large main frame computers in a language that these machines could digest and understand. It was, at that time, the upcoming new thing for society – computer science.

To instruct us in this very new science was an unlikely relic from the RCN, a retired Naval LCdr named Mr. Hicks.  From our first class, we knew that this new thinking was going to lead us to weird places.  When Mr. Hicks first entered the very large classroom in the Mackenzie Building, he bellowed at us to stop talking, to sit rigidly to attention, and to fold our arms in front of us.  His second broadside came rapidly:  if you chose to disobey these orders, he would charge you and end your career!  He had our attention.

 Due to this draconian manner of imparting knowledge, cadets had, over the years, dubbed him with the nickname “Captain Crunch”!  He certainly earned it.  Once we were given permission to cease sitting at attention with our arms crossed, Captain Crunch would walk us through the basic statements of FORTRAN IV that we would eventually have to knit together into rudimentary programs in order to pass the course.  My memory dredges up statements like: “If statements” and “Do loops” and “Go To statements.”  Not only was this dude kinda scary – but the language he was teaching was Greek to most of us.

But not Goons (Al Lounsbury).  From the first day, he sat forward (once he relaxed his arms) and let the wave of FORTRAN language wash over his receptive mind.  Most of us were petrified - but Goons always seemed to be like a fish in warm waters!  Further into the term, Captain Crunch handed out assignments with glee knowing that his class would have to work hard to create language out of holes in cards! However, with Goons, we had a life preserver – many beleaguered cadets from our class and even more senior years slipped into Fort Champlain’s dimly lighted hallways during study hours for assistance with their FORTRAN IV homework!  Goons was a Guru!

In the new Sawyer Building there were pristine rooms full of big electronic gismos with IBM logos on them – they were called the “computer rooms.” This was Goons’ domain.

Many second and third years came to him for help as well. Running decks of FORTRAN cards through the large and noisy card readers was how success was achieved.

Of course, when multiple course assignments were due on the same day, the lines for the computer room and after-hours use were prodigious!  Farley, whose name plate was appropriately emblazoned with “Slow Down, You’re Moving Too Fast” one day arrived to find the doors locked shut. His had been a very simple assignment, involving maybe only a half dozen cards at the most, so he was clearly about to face the wrath of one Mr Hicks. However, back in the dorm hallway, he could barely believe his luck when he overheard a nearby fourth year saying to another senior that he needed to pop over to the computer room to run his thesis program. Some fourth years had access to the keys for the room so Farley implored him to let him go with him and remarkably, he not only agreed but insisted Farley run his very short program first. Here’s the thing … turns out even a very minor typographical or syntax error could be catastrophic, and there was no such thing as an Esc key back then. Sure enough, the whole computer system crashed running his dinky little program, leaving a very unimpressed fourth year without the ability to run his massive stack of cards for his thesis.

When we look at our phones and laptops and tablets of today, it is hard to imagine that this is how it all started!

From Jim - I have this vivid memory of a math professor, Mr Hicks, who was strict to the point of telling the class senior one time to charge a first year cadet for being late to class. While being late sounds like egregious conduct, the facts of the matter were somewhat different. The first year cadet had arrived at the class door prior to the professor, but seeing Mr Hicks in hallway, he courteously held the door for him so he could enter the classroom and was promptly charged, leaving him to wonder whether it might have been better to slam the door in the face of the professor rather than to be polite and enter the room after the professor. Note: Al Raymond confirms he was that cadet and that was the only time he was ever charged. Apparently he was the Wing Runner that day and was coming back from the WOR after completing his duties and therefore was the last man to the room.

I was fortunate enough to be in Al Lounsbury's squadron so I had ready access to after hours assistance and tutoring in Fortran programing….. he was patient enough to at least get us through the Hicks-driven assignments relatively unscathed. I was certainly conscious of the draconian ethos of Captain Crunch but I was petrified of the steely stare and sad shaking of the head of Mrs Allan, the lady who took your set of punch cards and placed them into her precious computer. She would first look at you to sense your level of confidence, remove the rubber band from the stack, flip through them with a practiced eye, and if you were lucky, she would let the computer have a go. But God help you, if you had a loop or a print loop error that required an abort or wasted a sheaf of tractor paper before she could get it stopped. Better to be rejected by Mrs Allan before the cards ran, than incur the wrath of her displeasure with a deck full of bad logic! I could handle Captain Crunch but I was terrified of Mrs Allan!

From Dwight - I too had serious flashbacks with the Capt Crunch/Fortran anecdote, but for different reasons.  The first is that, while Al got serious mention for his prowess with the cards, I was surprised that his attempts to create a computer dating program went without notice...I seem to recall that he actually got to the start of the data collection phase, but did not actually get it off the ground....

The second story puts me in much less laudatory light, I have to confess to being a computer hacker!  Yup, could not resist creating short "do loops" of cards that would cycle a few times every time that stretch of code executed...and each cycle would do something like command the printer to print a single line "XXXX has a big nose!".  These 4 simple cards would then be surreptitiously inserted in a random place in one of those 2 foot stacks of cards that someone had carefully placed in the windows for the operators to run when time was avail.  As for all of the programs, the output was a long, continuous pinfeed paper printout that the operators would neatly wrap around the program card deck, and in the hacked version, the printout would be somewhat longer....   I think a lifetime of trying to protect myself from hackers is reasonable payback!