LOGIN 102,100
HELLO [announcements....]
READY
OLD GRUB
READY
RUN
GRUB 07:27 AM 20-SEP-78
THIS PROGRAM IS DESIGNED TO HELP PLAN FIELD TRIP MENUS. ANSWER
THE QUESTIONS AND IT WILL DETERMINE THE QUANTITIES OF FOOD
YOU SHOULD ORDER.
Thanks, I was wondering about that. Brushing aside the fact that having the program explain itself was virtually talking to myself since I was the only person who used my program, the above dialogue was the overture to a typical food planning session for a field trip in the late 1970’s. (One called up a pre-existing program using the command “old,” as in “old grub,” to call up the program called “Grub.”) The computer program was a novelty at the time, but also it was a concerted response to the wasted time and food which resulted from faculty and students ordering food for trips without the benefit of enough accumulated experience or the time to study the problem and figure out exactly how much of each type of food is needed for each group. We threw away many heads of lettuce and loaves of bread before we got systematic about food planning.
The program, however, was not spotless during its debut. It was born after several of us from Geology took a week-long workshop in computer programming from Rich Nau in the Math Department one winter break; it must have been in 1977 because the menus from 1978 are the first I can find in my records. You would enter the date and length of the trip, the number of people and your choices from the available menus and it would tell you how much of each ingredient was needed for each meal, with flawless precision which we will explore in a few moments. In 1980 Bonnie Rohr ’81 amended the program to add up all the ingredients and make a shopping list for the trip as a project for her computer programming class. Her additions, along with most of the rest of the program, are still intact today and used for every field trip; in fact they have been carried to a number of other schools with whom we have shared the program. It should have made us rich.
Along the way it was good for a few laughs. The first trip I have records for where we used the program was the spring field trip to the Black Hills in 1978. If you were along you will remember this as the trip on which there was a splinter group of nine people who saw the paleontological wonders of South Dakota under the leadership of Joe Hartman separately from the 40 in the main group. It was also the trip in which the first breakfast consisted of:
48 DANISH ROLLS
8 BOXES OF CEREAL
MILK, COFFEE, SUGAR.
Hmmm. Seems a little spare in hindsight. The next morning’s breakfast was EGGS.
THE ITEMS NEEDED FOR THE BREAKFAST ARE:
8.33333 DOZEN EGGS, FRIED
120 SKINLESS SAUSAGE LINKS
5.71429 BOXES OF CEREAL
2 GALLONS OF ORANGE JUICE
MILK, SUGAR, SALT, PEPPER
COFFEE
Other breakfasts featured French toast or pancakes. If the breakfast contents sound somewhat familiar, consider the suppers. Day 5’s supper was
SHELBY'S CHILI:
10 LBS HAMBURGER
4 LARGE ONIONS
4 GREEN PEPPERS
1.6 CANS (#10 SIZE) OF TOMATOES
4 #10 CANS OF KIDNEY BEANS
1.33333 #10 CANS TOMATO SAUCE
1 #10 CAN MUSHROOMS
CHILI POWDER
SALAD INGREDIENTS:
5.71429 HEADS OF LETTUCE
5.71429 TOMATOES
.4 GALLONS OF DRESSING
60 PACKETS OF CRACKERS
8.33333 DOZEN COOKIES
2 #10 CANS OF PEACHES
It is fascinating to note that the number of tomatoes and heads of lettuce required for a salad for 40 people in those days equaled to the nearest ten-thousandth of a percent the number of boxes of cereal needed at breakfast, measured to the nearest fraction of a flake.
THE LUNCHES ARE STANDARDIZED. FOLLOWING IS A LIST OF WHAT
YOU WILL NEED EACH DAY FOR LUNCH:
88 SLICES OF CHEESE
80 SLICES OF SALAMI
2.66667 HEADS OF LETTUCE
.8 TUB OF PEANUT BUTTER
.266667 CAN OF JELLY
32 APPLES, 8 ORANGES
4 GALLONS OF FRUIT DRINK
8 LOAVES OF BREAD
8.33333 DOZEN COOKIES
MIRACLE WHIP TYPE SPREAD, MUSTARD
40 CUPS, AND SOME KNIVES AND A CAN OPENER
5 GALLON JUG OF DRINKING WATER
Somewhere in the next year or two I learned how to make the computer round off numbers. Maybe it was in response to some rather pointed gibes, but it might also have had something to do with all the energy contained in the 58.3333 dozen cookies we took on the trip. Other enhancements have included adjustments for the sex ratio of the group (college age males tend to eat about half again as much as females), and the weather (people camping out eat more in cold weather than they do in warm weather).