Codes that changed the world

[darmstadt]

It's all part of the dumbing down of society.

Wait until the first person says datas

[alluvial]

BBC Radio 4 - Radio 4 in Four, "The Terminator is an accounting programme run amok"

Sorry, that bloke lost all credilbility with me when he said that COBOL stands for Combined Business Oriented Language and then assumes it must be an accounting programme just because it's COBOL.

[Euler]

Wait until the first person says datas

Data is another one whose usage has changed.
Interestingly people are more correct nowadays.
I recall people saying "this data is ...", nowadays almost everyone uses the correct "these data are ....".
Maybe negating my point about the dumbing down of society ....

[NickFitz]

I always make a point of using "datum" when there's only one of them. That seems to annoy some people

[NickFitz]

It's years since I watched it, but all I can remember of the code shown is that it was written in assembler.

6502 assembler, to be precise - I believe it was from something for the Apple II

[alluvial]

6502 assembler, to be precise - I believe it was from something for the Apple II

From IMDB:

Shots through the Terminator's vision shows a dump of the ROM assembler code for the Apple II operating system. If you own an Apple II, enter at the basic prompt: ] call -151 * p This will give you the terminator view. Other code visible is written in COBOL.

Anyone stillgot one of them?

[expat]

Clearly codes is the plural of code, but in this context code is an abstract noun not having a plural.