[TriLUG] Old Guy Stories

OlsonE at aosa.army.mil OlsonE at aosa.army.mil
Thu Feb 8 16:57:56 EST 2007


I'll add to the young guy stories.

I was born in 1979 :). My first computer was a Commodore 64. In high
school I had a 486/66DX. My first experience on dialup was with a 14.4k
modem on Compuserve when they gave you a obnixious address like
123512956128935628.2731 at compuserve.com. 

-----Original Message-----
From: trilug-bounces at trilug.org [mailto:trilug-bounces at trilug.org] On
Behalf Of jbrigman at nc.rr.com
Sent: Thursday, February 08, 2007 4:26 PM
To: Triangle Linux Users Group discussion list
Subject: [TriLUG] Old Guy Stories

I can't top the old guy stories, but I can provide the dot at the end of
the sentence:

The "ADDS 4" terminals replaced/supplemented the card readers at NCSU,
sometime in the late 80's. Through a crook of fate, I had to take the
last semester of the last IBM 360 assembly language class at NCSU. That
was in 1990, the year Paul mentions. The ADDS terminals in the bottom of
Daniels were the common access mode at the time, (I think the Rainbows
arrived in 1991?) and there were still long lines, even on Friday night,
to get to the terminals. The two remaining cardpunch terminals/readers
were always empty. So I bummed a box of cards from a roommate and used
the keypunch terminals. I never had to wait in line for a terminal, and
the assembly language programs we wrote were small enough that using
cards was no big deal.

The following semester, I felt the irony of happening by just as those
keypunch terminals were being wheeled out of Daniels by the physical
plant, displaced by the impending renovations. It was one of those rare
and bittersweet moments when one got to witness the actual turning of
the technology. 

By that time, I was screaming along on a C-64/80 Column Card and using
the dial-in modems. Working at home, HiU (Homework in Underwear) mode
became de rigeur. Nary a moment of nostalgia for the old days.

JKB


----- Original Message -----
From: Paul Jones <pjones at metalab.unc.edu>
Date: Thursday, February 8, 2007 4:11 pm
Subject: Re: [TriLUG] visiting Red Hat HQ
To: Triangle Linux Users Group discussion list <trilug at trilug.org>

> we're playing the old guy game now. .......
> i came to unc in 1977 the 360/75 was still there. so was tucc. 
> until 1990. 
...
> http://www.lib.duke.edu/archives/holdings/campus/tucc.html

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