Re: Old farts and new Linux

In 1967, I was a young Flight Lieutenant (read Captain) in the Royal Canadian Air Force. I was on a job in Europe installing navigation aids and communications at the base in Lahr that we took over after Charlie DeGaul threw us out of France. One night I received a trans Atlantic telephone call to get my body back to Canada to sit some computer aptitude tests. One month later I was learning COBOL, three months later I was handed a project that three other teams had failed at (to automate the collection of maintenance data for our aircraft fleets), four months later I ran my first 'fleet' through the system, and two months later I handed the system over to the maintainers. I spent endless nights hounding the key punch staff making real time corrections to punch cards as they came from the teams. The computer (IBM 360) staff grew to hate me as I sat with them over the midnight hours correcting my JCL (Job Control Language) cards, and eventual making real time corrections to the overnight compiles. Regretfully in those days, Jolt was non-existent and my only wake up product was way too much coffee (I paid for that dearly in recent years). I got out of the computer business in 1970 to serve in The USAF Air Defence Command. In 1980 I bought myself a TI-99/4A and taught myself assembly language so I could program the 4k module that TI sold.

AS I grew more senior I got out of the hands on involvement but I was a strong and ardent support of OS/2 until it came to an end a few years ago.

Life was fun in those days if one had a constitution of iron and did not mind being looked at as if you were another planet.

Now I am looking forward to escaping the clutches of Windows and wrestling with Linux as I go through another learning process with a mind that is not a sharp as it once was.

Preston

At 06:10 PM 5/3/04, you wrote:

On Mon, May 03, 2004 at 04:43:51PM -0300, Betti Ann & Preston Smith wrote:
....
>
> In your context, I must be a ROF (Real Old Fart) - I am 63 and first
> worked with computers in the late 60 when the IBM 360's and 370's were in
> vogue.

IIRC, The 360 boxes were interesting.  Open source for the OS (but
copyright) and open specifications for hardware.  While not GPL... the
openness made a lot of things possible.

I never got to touch a 360.  The U of A opted for a CDC 6400.  During
the transition all programs were run double once on the old IBM and
also on the new CDC.  The CDC was so much faster and the nights work
was done by 10 PM.  Some of us got to program on the console while the
IBM ran all night and into the morning.  Now that was a work station.

---
Betti Ann & Preston Smith, Head of St Margaret's Bay, NS, prsmith@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
1962 MGA 1600 MK II, 1980 MGB Limited Edition
2002 Damon Challenger 335 Motor Home on 2001 Ford V-10 20,500 lb chassis