The first bit of code defines a storage area of 2816 bytes. The second code redefines that area into two tables of 37 items (starting at 1 not 0) which are declared as compressed numeric (4 bytes each). As to some of the comments regarding COBOL programmers, just remember the odds of your bank running millions of lines of COBOL code are extremely high. As to whether or not the programmers are sophisticated or not, just remember that many of us had to code programs that HAD to run in 64kb or less. Programs that had (have) the same requirements of many programs today. The one piece missing at the time was a graphical user interface. COBOL was and still is a character based language, despite efforts to convert it to something else. COBOL does not react to events. It starts at the top and runs until it encounters a STOP RUN command. With all that said, it does not change the fact that COBOL was and still is a very sophisticated language that after 60+ years is still running and still performing the tasks it was designed to perform. To all of you that think COBOL (or any other language for that matter) does not match up to (fill in the blank) language, I say this: You bore everyone, except (possibly) the other nerds who happen to agree with you, but then again everyone is bored by them as well.

And run the risk of the employee wearing the perfume to sue the city and gain the "right" to wear perfume to the office? Sounds to me like the lawsuit that was filed had the best outcome because the employee who doesn't know when to stop spraying can only yell at the courts.

M is for Magic by Neil Gaiman. Very reminiscent of Ray Bradbury's early works.

Everything you say is true. What you don't mention is the flurry of activity of other vendors who will take Apple's idea and "go to town". They will greatly improve the functionality of the multi touch screen interface, vastly improve the touch, draw and write capability, add to the utilization of the WiFi, USB, BlueTooth and generally make a device that will outshine Apple in every way. Apple will then ignore the field and make their users put up with their innovation for several years, despite the aggressive innovations spawned by Apple. They will succeed in this because Apple users have been led to believe that if they buy the outrageously priced hardware coming from Apple that they actually gain something (besides having to define why they paid the price to begin with). They will complain directly to Apple and Apple will judiciously ignore them, marching to the tune of their own drummer. Yet Apple users will allow Apple to continue on this path simply because they have the Apple logo. When the field of devices becomes huge (with Apple leading the charge) we will find that only Apple has the same interface as previous models and the market for third party addons is counted in the millions. This will then spawn a flurry of innovations directed only to the Apple device, after all why create a third party hardware device with an interface for Samsung, a different interface for HP, a different interface for Dell (who will have an interface totally unknown to the modern world, but that's a totally different story), etc. etc. After a few years of success and consumer choices counted in the hundreds, Microsoft will suddenly announce a new technology which will be nothing more than modification of a device already on the market with features from three years prior, will not run until at least service pack 2, and predict that their device will outsell everyone else. It will take Microsoft several years to figure out that they were wrong. In the meantime, the consumer will be the one that wins. They will have their choice of devices that meet their needs and will purchase devices accordingly. Some will stick with Apple (see previous paragraph) simply because it is built by Apple. Some will choose different devices because they offer better functionality and can be repaired cheaper. Some will become zealots regarding why their (fill in device name here) is better than Apple, but in the long run it will always be compared to Apple. Yet Apple will remain a niche player, always the innovator but never the one to