Re: If not "newbie" then ????
On Saturday 21 July 2018 18:01:07 cyaiplexys wrote:
> On 07/21/2018 12:20 PM, Gene Heskett wrote:
> > On Saturday 21 July 2018 11:42:31 Richard Owlett wrote:
> >> When I'm "ignorant" and know it, I refer to myself as a "newbie".
> >> My first contact with Linux was when Squeeze was just introduced.
> >> I've been around computers for a while [remember 12AX7 based
> >> CPU's?].
> >
> > No, but I recall seeing, in Iowa City in the very early 1950's, a
> > bit of a monster that had 12,000 12AU7's in it. Used at the time to
> > grade the Iowa tests, the same one I had taken in school and got a
> > quite high score on. They had rigged a Harris Stream fed printing
> > press with a photocell at every mark location on the paper and were
> > calculating the scores from that.
> >
> >> As a BSEE student 50+ years ago I took an introductory programming
> >> course. Later I programmed in 8080 assembler - at the time we were
> >> moving to 8085. As a consumer I ended up in the M$ land.
> >
> > I started with the rca 1802. Still an interesting architecture, one
> > that was able to function in several rads a minute of atomic
> > radiation. But I tried the z-80, found it wanting, then the 6809
> > which put me firmly on a unix like path, and to this day I still
> > don't have a winders box on the premises. Quite a few linux machines
> > though.
>
> OS-9 Level II on a CoCo 3 by any chance?
Actually level 1.01 on a coco2.
> I had one of those systems
So do I but the two 1 Gb hard drives are seized from stiction.
> and then I went to DOS and Windows. That to me was a step down until
> Slackware came along. Then Red Hat, then Mandrake ('scuze me...er...
> Mandriva), then Mint, Then Solyd, now full on Debian. I only used
> Ubuntu as a web server at work and in test VMs. Oh, and there was a
> stint in there somewhere where I was dabbling on a real-life Unix
> system.
We had an AT&T 3b2 in between motherboard fires for a network message
system for about 3 years, replaced by a pdp-11/23. It also was a major
pita, crashing for no reason and dec's incompetant service techs
replaced everything in it except the frame rail with the serial number
on it. I finally cajoled the network tech at CBS into trading my machine
for his test mule. Worked fine, but my machine he then had was
worthless as a test mule, so we got, as did all the affiliates, at CBS
expense, an industrial IBM with an ARTIC card that actually did all the
work. That, once I had edited the sat table, worked well until a newby
tech dialed into it one day and helpfully fixed my tables. Took me about
3 days of waving a 7 meter dish around to find all the birds again. That
got the phone line unplugged unless they called me ahead of time. Most
of its data by then was sent over the teletex path in the ntsc vertical
interval. I was the CE at that tv station for the last 18 years I
worked. I had found my nitch. And it was a good one, getting raises I
didn't have to ask for, so I was making about $15k a year more than any
other similar market sized station could afford.
> My ISP back in the day had "shell accounts" and a wizard (RIP)
> who worked there took me under his wing and taught me how to use it
> and saved my sorry butt when I screwed up. :)
>
> The VERY FIRST computer I ever used was a teletype terminal on a DEC
> Rainbow (TeleWriter) at the Jr. High School. I was one year too young
> to technically be allowed to use it but they let me anyway. Only a few
> whiz kids were allowed on it. Me? I couldn't do a damn thing with it
> so gave up. :-/ Then I started tinkering with the Bell & Howell and
> Apple Computers at the school. I think that came after I bugged my
> parents for a computer and they came home from Radio Shack with a
> Trash-80 Model III with 4K RAM, cassette interface (later CGP-115 4"
> roll paper 4-color plotter).
I still have one of those someplace in the midden heap of a basement.
> They never put disk drives in the thing.
> I spent HOURS programming stuff and got good enough to do labels for
> my dad's business and title screens for family videos (VHS - my dad
> would record the screen, and tape-splice VHS tapes). From there they
> gave me a Trash-80 (called "Tandy" by then) PC-4 pocket computer. When
> I got a job I got a Tandy CoCo 3 and OS-9 Level II and let's just say
> that was the beginning of everything Unix-like for me. Though it was
> more a VAX/Unix blend I think. And Basic09 was more a Pascal/Basic
> blend.
>
> > And I'm still a new bee... But a fading one due to the age of the
> > wet ram now.
Which I didn't state, but I'll be 84 this fall.
> I'm also a bee of some kind. Probably a drone or worker bee. I'll
> always be a bee of some kind though. I often find myself getting
> sidetracked and wanting to learn new things, not realizing just how
> old I got already!
Theres an echo in here. :)
>
> >> So, how would this group have me to refer to myself without
> >> claiming competency I just *DO NOT* have?
> >>
> >> P.S. I've saved ~6 years of useful posts from this group. I've been
> >> trying to figure out how to organize it in order to create a QWSBFA
> >> rather than a FAQ. QWSBFA=="Questions Which Should Be Frequently
> >> Asked" ;/
> >
> > That sounds like a heck of a usefull project.
> >
> >> OWL ducks fer cover ;}
> >
> > If you find a good cover, see if there's room for me too.
>
> And me too, along with a good flame-retardant suit and a nice, cozy
> rock to hide under. ;->
>
> That's the one cool thing about this group and groups like it is the
> conversations where you learn a little bit about those folks in the
> group in between learning other useful things. Reminds me of the old
> FidoNet days (and later newsgroup days - do they still even have
> either anymore??)
>
> ---
> TAGLINE: "Wait-a-minit. Almonds don't have legs."
Take care guy.
--
Cheers, Gene Heskett
--
"There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty:
soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order."
-Ed Howdershelt (Author)
Genes Web page <http://geneslinuxbox.net:6309/gene>
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