[OT] What holiday is everyone celebrating?

[Mike Reinehr]

I was beginning to think that I, too, was the only member of this list over 
fifty. In fact, it's kind of scary to think that I'm now closer to sixty than 
to fifty.

For what it's worth, in college I started out learning Algol on a Burroughs 
B5500 & then graduated to an Basic on an RCA Spectra 70. After finishing 
school I didn't do much with computers until we purchased our first for the 
business -- an Altos 8600 using SCO Xenix. Since then it's been SCO Xenix, 
SCO Unix Sys V, SCO Unixware, and, finally Linux. My Linux odyssey began with 
Caldera Open Linux eServer v2.3 (which still is running, by the way), COL 
eDesktop v2.4 and now Debian (including Libranet).

I'm just an amateur. My day job is running a business that I own, which has 
nothing to do with computers. It all started with that Altos 8600 when I 
realized that I knew more about running it than the dealer that sold it to me 
and I've been doing my own administration & maintenance ever since. I'm in 
the process of transitioning everything to Linux. The only M$ Windows in the 
entire company is a couple of copies of Win98 running under VMWare for legacy 
applications and I hope to be rid of those, soon.

Oh, and the local is Montgomery, Alabama USA.

Mike

PS I remember those acoustic couplers, too. All of 300 baud IIRC!

On Thursday 21 October 2004 03:04 pm, Terence McCarthy wrote:
> On Wed, 20 Oct 2004 17:59:05 -0500
>
> Tom Jandl <tom at jandlnet.com> wrote:
> > One less family member calling me with broken Microsoft problems is a
> > plus.
>
> One more for Linux is a double plus.
>
> I'm 50s too, been messing about with computers since the 48k Sinclair
> Spectrum, Acorn BBC Model 2, Commodore PET, then a Ferranti 8086, before
> climbing the series to my current Athlons.
>
> After the totally amazing experiences of having a 5.5 inch drive instead of
> a tape recorder, installing a WD 20Mb "Hard Card" (formatted as two
> partitions as M$ didn't recognise anything as large!), and seeing my first
> working mouse (M$ actually, bought in Hanover) eventually got bored with
> the M$ (limited) vision of computing and switched.
>
> This was helped by having worked with main-frames, and playing with
> acoustic couplers almost at the start of the Web (London Uni, very early
> '80s when doing my Master's). Incidently, using the 'phone to pass the same
> information aurally would have been a damn sight faster!
>
> Some work later with a couple of HP mainframes (which, amongst other
> things, did Path Profile Analysis for area comms in BAOR), and DEC minis.
>
> Now using only Linux (mainly SuSE) at home and work and converting people
> as I go. My latest venture is my daughter's new flatmates at uni, (both, as
> we speak, or rather, as I write, are curled up in Sarah's room expressing
> delight and surprise at the power and flexibility of Linux and particularly
> Xine playing "Hero" on DVD!
>
> On the 'phone I talked her through setting up net-working and cable access
> in under ten minutes from switching on - are they impressed with Linux!
> (One of the girls' father spent hours trying to get XP to use the cable
> modem).
>
> I've given them a Knoppix disc to play with and I'll try to get them to
> dual boot later......
>
> I'm sure they won't get as much excitement out of the development of
> computing as I've had (and am having). In the same way my generation took
> cars, radio, and television for granted. Yeah, I've now got digital radio
> and TV, but so what?
>
> Sorry for banging on, if any of you reach this far. : )
>
> Terence
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-- 
Debian 'Sarge': Registered Linux User #241964
----
"More laws, less justice." -- Marcus Tullius Ciceroca, 42 BC
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