It’s the early 1980s, and students at this university are still running their programs on a mainframe, reports a grad student pilot fish working in the computer center.

“All jobs were identified by a three-character user ID and a three-character job name on a line of Job Control Language at the beginning of the program,” says fish.

“To check on the status of a submitted job, you would use the three character name and a LOCATE command. To check the status of a queue, you would QUERY.

“Being easily amused at 3 a.m., some of us liked to get theological answers from the computer. LOCATE GOD was usually answered with GOD not found. QUERY GOD returned GOD illegal.

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