Word: blackjacking
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...first step is to decide what you want the computer to do-play blackjack, manipulate text, juggle figures? Once the task is clearly defined, the programmer lays out a step-by-step procedure for executing that task. Think of these procedures as roughly akin to cookbook recipes. The recipe for playing blackjack, for example, might go something like this: "Get a deck of cards. Shuffle the cards. Deal two cards to each player. Ask the first player if he wants another card. Did the face value of that third card put his total over...
Thankfully, the programmer does not have to worry about every electron and phosphor dot. He has enough on his hands typing his commands into the computer and testing them to see if they do what he meant them to do. Even a program for playing blackjack can quickly grow to be hundreds of lines long, each line densely packed with convoluted commands and alphanumerical characters. If there is even one character out of place in those hundreds of lines, chances are the program will not work properly. These software "bugs," as programming mishaps are called, can take weeks to find...
When a user slips his brand-new blackjack program into a disc drive and turns on his computer, the drive starts spinning the disc at a rate of hundreds of revolutions per minute. As the disc spins, a record-playback head moves across its surface, picking up the original programmer's typed instructions and loading them into the computer's memory. When the disc stops spinning-presto!-an exact replica of the program will be imprinted on the machine's temporary memory, all debugged and ready to deal the cards. Or, depending on the disc, proofread...
...business people, but the flight is pure pleasure, the complimentary champagne flows and, best of all, the round-trip ticket is free. Thirty-five minutes later, the aircraft touches down near Atlantic City, and after a ten-minute ride into town, the jetting junketers are at the crap and blackjack tables of Resorts International's huge Casino Hotel. Resorts expects each of them to wager at least $1,000 and is privately counting on earning an average of about 18? on each dollar bet before they are whisked back home at the end of the evening...
...HOWARD DOESN'T JUST best you at blackjack," Benita warns Willy in one of the film's more tensely dramatic moments; "he seats you at life!" "I just don't know when I'm at," is Willy's sullen reply. She: "You're at the end of the line!" And so they decide together to murder Howard, trump it up, as an accident, and collect on the insurance...