Reply to: Contractor Haters

[n5gooner]

and XP

[zeitghost]

And it's still available on this Win2k box... I've just run it.

[n5gooner]

Yes.

It was called EDLIN.

Ctrl Z

save...exit....

[ancient]

Ancient, I didn't have a go on VAX but remember them being around. It's a strange feeling seeing #XPJC mentioned again, what about CLDF ?, once a common term. Got to admit I've forgotten 99.9% of the mechanics but it's the overall priciples that stick. p.s the ICL1901T processor I first worked on had 32K memory, could run one program at a time and was the size of an Audi A2!
Sorry to bore, won't post anymore

Hey, Oldgeezer, you should post as much as you want - it can be good for the soul.

If we can pass on some wisdom based on experience or learn from others then why not.

IT is full of fashion, but at the end of the day it is bits, bytes a processor and some I/O device - that has not changed in the last 35 years that I am aware of (apart from some hyper-threading). How we do the coding and modelling has a bit, but that is not new, just a new way of thinking.

I am allways glad to here what you have to say - and I am sure many others.

Do not be intimidated by anyone, you have some fantastic experience.

Whilst I may be getting older, I do alot on enterprise architecture and business intelligence, heavily involved in stuff like neural networks, data mining, do the odd project review etc.

The business, technology (diversity) and people (managing change) issues have added extra layers of complexity over the years.

Way back it was exciting, and it still is - all part of the journey

[ancient]

Not for the first time I feel out of my depth reading a thread.

I bet it was great in the old, black-and-white days when a computer filled a floor, had loads of those tape drives spinning backwards and forwards, and was controlled by real men.

Did MS bring out a version of Word for Machine Code?

Do not worry about it - SOA and Grid Computing will solve all your problems.

Just remember transaction control, two-phase commits (yuk), and end-to-end exceptions handling.

[oldgeezer]

Ancient, I didn't have a go on VAX but remember them being around. It's a strange feeling seeing #XPJC mentioned again, what about CLDF ?, once a common term. Got to admit I've forgotten 99.9% of the mechanics but it's the overall priciples that stick. p.s the ICL1901T processor I first worked on had 32K memory, could run one program at a time and was the size of an Audi A2!
Sorry to bore, won't post anymore

[stackpole]

Not for the first time I feel out of my depth reading a thread.

I bet it was great in the old, black-and-white days when a computer filled a floor, had loads of those tape drives spinning backwards and forwards, and was controlled by real men.

Did MS bring out a version of Word for Machine Code?

[ancient]

I've always been an infrastructure man and as we're going down the old road, it brought to mind my first mainframe, the ICL 1901T running George 2, then moved onto the 2900 range and VME when things got really interesting. Then took a backward step into IBM mainframe world running MVS, JCL, CA-7. Last time I logged on using a TSO terminal was back in 1989 then moved into LAN/WLAN's and servers. Operating systems so far:
George 2, VME, IBM MVS, DOS, Novell Netware, OS/2, Windows NTv4-2003. How many more I sometimes wonder to myself.

Suppose we are now seriously off-topic and worthy of a Milan happy slapping.

In the early 80's I remember VAX/VMS it was very impressive, but could only do byte rather than block orientated communications, very heavy on the network at the time. It had case-sensitive language editors and could put graphics on the screen. Weak in other areas; I wrote a TP performance monitor for VAX/VCMS. Cuttler, the father of VAX/VMS went on to do Windows NT for Microsoft. I liked the Windows NT approach e.g. a virtual machine operating system; akin to ICL VME. I know Microsoft has tried to get into the mainframe datacentre space but I don't think they have managed it yet.

Might be all old bull, but solid foundations, though probably not worthy of the 3 page modern CV.

[oldgeezer]

Nostalgia

I've always been an infrastructure man and as we're going down the old road, it brought to mind my first mainframe, the ICL 1901T running George 2, then moved onto the 2900 range and VME when things got really interesting. Then took a backward step into IBM mainframe world running MVS, JCL, CA-7. Last time I logged on using a TSO terminal was back in 1989 then moved into LAN/WLAN's and servers. Operating systems so far:
George 2, VME, IBM MVS, DOS, Novell Netware, OS/2, Windows NTv4-2003. How many more I sometimes wonder to myself.

[threaded]

And in some ways things have got worse. George didn't have a millenium bug problem, for example.

[ancient]

Ah yes, #XPJW, #XPJC and who can forget #XQMY? However I'm talkng about a 1904F in 1971 - 64Kb memory (yes, young uns, Kilobytes) and 40 Mb of disk storage on 5 drives with 8 platters each. None of this high density winchester rubbish for us.

Modern youth, eh? Don't know they're born...

I think what I learn't then is still as relevant today.

So many of these "modern systems" seem to suffer performance problems.

More "Tin" is not allways the answer, it's often about file overflow, indexing and caching and a good understanding of I/O and processor usage is very useful.

Not to mention other things like - end-to-end exception handling, bandwidth and good old systems management.

[n5gooner]

Ah yes, #XPJW, #XPJC and who can forget #XQMY? However I'm talkng about a 1904F in 1971 - 64Kb memory (yes, young uns, Kilobytes) and 40 Mb of disk storage on 5 drives with 8 platters each. None of this high density winchester rubbish for us.

Modern youth, eh? Don't know they're born...

winchester disks.......who remebers the conner pray......to get the disk going....or the park command,

[malvolio]

Ah yes, #XPJW, #XPJC and who can forget #XQMY? However I'm talkng about a 1904F in 1971 - 64Kb memory (yes, young uns, Kilobytes) and 40 Mb of disk storage on 5 drives with 8 platters each. None of this high density winchester rubbish for us.

Modern youth, eh? Don't know they're born...

[The Late, Great JC]

Probably not as many as you, I am a J2EE man these days.

But go on, just for nostalgia give use some ideas.

Milan, try looking up accumulator in the dictionary and tell us what it is.

To try and help you I will try and give you a clue e.g. it is not a battery

LFPZ

It's not really my party trick but I remember a guy at Burtons reckoned there were over 20 (Decimal, not octal ).

[ancient]

I quite liked VME/B.

But to give you a flavour of how far back I can go, first computer I worked on didn't have an operating system. When they brought out EXEC and you could run things without having to type them in, we thought it was wonderful.

Ahhh those were the days

FI#XPJW#DISK

GO 21

Manual EXEC was available on the ICL 2903/04 range