Funny

[Steve Rickaby]

At 11:51 -0800 30/3/06, Joe Malin wrote:

>Did computer science in grad school. On a mainframe (double ugh). No
>dial-up; had ride downtown to the computer lab to get on a terminal,
>then hang around until 2 AM so turnaround on jobs was less than 20
>minutes. Had to wait until *3 AM* to get access to the computer graphics
>equipment.

Oh boy, it's good to know I'm not the only old codger here. Your job takes more than 4 minutes of core time? Hey, wait till tomorrow, buddy: at 5 am we'll run your JCL, which will error on line 5, so that by the time you get in, *the whole printer room* will be full of your error listings! And if you're really lucky, you can repeat the whole thing tomorrow night too!

>I wouldn't wish any of it on a blind dog. I'm not "better" for having
>done it the hard way, just probably more burned out and less educated.

Don't be quite so sure. We had to *understand* how things worked. Today, who has a hope? How many college undergrads could explain to you the workings of their iPods? That's their loss and our gain. And working in and around IT, we have to learn something every day. It keeps you young.

(My first computer? A DEC PDP12, a two-tone lime green beast that looked as if it had been cobbled together in a film studio's props department - and was about as much use as if it had.)
-- 
Steve