Alan meets the university - a slightly musical

Those were the days when we had real machines
    Before these micros came -
There stood the B6700²,
    That's what you really call a big main frame.

I gave a course in Fortran programming,
    And WorkFlow Language too;
Taught Cobol to the stage 3³ accountants,
    And there were lots of other things to do.

But there were stirrings in the undergrowth -
    "Give us an academic course".
So came the Board of Computer Studies,
    Like a committee might design a horse.

After a year or two of making do
    The university
Said we could set up a real department
    If we could find a way to do it free.

Mathematicians were available
    At very modest cost,
But I was far too expensive for them,
    So somewhere in the process I got lost.

But in the end the Governor-General,
    On hearing of my plight,
Proclaimed an order-in-council for me
    Which accidentally made things all right.

So I came back to academia
    With no trace of regret,
Once more to give a few lecture courses,
    With tests, assignments, and exams to set.

The operating systems lecture course
    Was what I had to do,
And artificial intelligence,
    And 105⁴ for just a year or two.

Settling down took quite a little while,
    But happened finally -
Real-time control for the graduates,
    And operating systems at stage 3³.

After a quarter of a century
    I think I've done my bit
Of marking tests and examinations -
    I've had enough of it, and so I quit.