[OT] What holiday is everyone celebrating?

[Bill Campbell]

On Thu, Oct 21, 2004, Mike Reinehr wrote:
>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 61.  My first computer experience was in 1966 on a Bendix G-20
mainframe using FORTRAN and assembly language.  I did some work on the
GE-235 on G.E. and CEIR time sharing systems, on an XDS 940, and a lot of
ALGOL on the Burroughs B-5500.  Next was an IBM 1130 working primarily in
FORTRAN and Assembly, then Burroughs Medium Systems (B-2500 -> B-3800)
using COBOL, FORTRAN, and BPL (Burroughs Programming Language).

One of the more interesting jobs I did on the Medium Systems was to debug
Burroughs' RJE (Remote Job Entry) system which required (a) getting the
source code for RJE and MCP from Burroughs, (b) fixing some communications
protocol problems in their RJE handler, (c) patching MCP to properly handle
RJE jobs, and (d) sending the fixes back to Burroughs.  After I did that, I
*NEVER* had any problems getting answers from Burroughs engineering :-).

I took a four year break from computers between 1976 and 1980 to race
formula cars full time on the East Coast.  The most sophisticated computer
I had then was an HP 97 calculator.

After running out of money racing, I went to work for Radio Shack in the
D.C. area managing a couple of ``X'' departments and a Computer Center in
Rockville, Maryland where I got my first *nix experience with Xenix on the
Model 16.  One of my customer hired me to be V.P. of their software
company, moving me to Seattle in November 1983.  That job lasted until
December 1984 when I founded Celestial.

At Celestial, I've worked with a wide variety of *nix systems including all
the SCO flavors, SunOS, Solaris, Dynix/PTX, AIX, HP-UX, and been doing
Linux since 1994 or so.  We used Caldera Linux from 1994 through 2002 when
we moved everything to SuSE.  Our in-house systems range from a Caldera
OpenLinux 1.3 system that handles modems and HylaFAX through SuSE 9.1
Professional, FreeBSD, SCO OpenServer, and a couple of Apples running OS X.

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

I still have a Radio Shack Model 100 with acoustic couplers.  It's sitting
in the closet next to my HP 97 (unless my wife decided to clean it out).

Bill
--
INTERNET:   bill at Celestial.COM  Bill Campbell; Celestial Software LLC
UUCP:               camco!bill  PO Box 820; 6641 E. Mercer Way
FAX:            (206) 232-9186  Mercer Island, WA 98040-0820; (206) 236-1676
URL: http://www.celestial.com/

``We maintain that the very foundation of our way of life is what we call
free enterprise,'' said Cash McCall, ``but when one of our citizens
show enough free enterprise to pile up a little of that profit, we do
our best to make him feel that he ought to be ashamed of himself.''
		-- Cameron Hawley