Wait, you have savings?
How the hell did that happen?
1631 publicly visible posts • joined 28 Sep 2011
First computer job i had the place had one 360/30 which we calls "the pits" and was used variously for card-to-tape, printing, and card punching. 1403 printers were the choice du jour. If you have one, hope you got the roll of carriage tape material and a punch to make it dance (and have spare chain elements to boot).
We also had 3 360/65s, one of which had an LCS. Consoles were IBM selectrics. There was also a 7080 which (if you learnt how), you could program from the control panel of the console. It allowed for all kinds of good mischief.
We later got in a 360/40 on which to install HASP. That was a change.
Full panoply of card mangling machines, from keypunch to collator, interpreter, and sorter. You only need learn your field and numerics to make (remake) almost anything. Had an imager which would allow you to actually read a 7-track tape (again, if you knew how). Wonder what happened to all that stuff?
Third shop was Unisys stuff... including 1004, 1005, fastrands, 1782, 432, 494s run in 490 mode and eventually into 1100 series.
Won't even talk about the greatness of learning PL/1 on the 360 as it supported a football game (which i was told not to do as we weren't
"programmers"). arseholes.
Had a manager at another site (another state away) curse me on the phone and i simply hung up mid-conversation. walked to manager's office next door and said, "you're going to get a call from so-and-so and i hung up because he swore at me.". moments later his phone rang and i went back to next office and told my reportees they never had to put up with someone swearing at them (or other abusive language). Funny thing was, i had to go to that location not a week later and that manager was nice as he could be. nothing else ever said about language.
worked at another site where a manager called me out in front of other employees (he wasn't my boss or even in my chain of command) and 2nd time i was five feet away and so mad i couldn't even see him, He had no idea how close he was... i said I had to go and turned and walked away. He never had to learn i could put my fist through a brick wall.
We used to have a certain escalator at work which would sometimes stop on the way down...pitching you face first into whatever was before you...loads of fun was had by all. On the other hand, after fire drills we would be going back in (en masse) and one of them being overloaded would actually slip backwards (until enough people were dumped off to make it up to the next floor). more entertainment.
When i were much younger and had to stay for morning meetings (worked 2nd or 3rd in computer room), i would sometimes run up the down escalators all four floors to wake up. worked a champ.
Last flight I was on there was no room between seats and my knees were right up against the back of the seat in front. They tried to recline - several times - and looked back and i said, sorry...no room. they (thankfully) gave up.
And yes, you can punch me if you like; but if you smack me i'll choke the life out of you.
I have a well and have never treated the water from it since it was bored (many years ago). How is this a bad thing (or are you talking about city water)?
Also, have had two sets of shots to try to minimize shingles, but never heard it was contagious. Yes, i had chicken pox as a kid and the virus is always with you after that.