You Know You Are Old When

[garry1p]

Dang, I must be really old the first data processor I worked on had over a thousand tubes with a drum memory and transmitted at 128 bps over a dedicated line to an IBM 360. That's 128 bps not kbps or mbps.

In the early 70's I worked on a computer for NASA that had a delay line memory that looked like a screen door spring.

 

[MossRoad]

I kinda miss the good old days when it took a real computer nerd to keep them working.

They had a serial connection back to the servers with miles of 4 conductor shielded cable. They booted off of a 5.25 floppy that loaded DOS. Then they ran a command to start an emulator mode to emulate a DEC VT100 terminal. They were way less expensive than an actual VT100.

 

[goeduck]

I kinda miss the good old days when it took a real computer nerd to keep them working.

Are you calling Moss a computer nerd?

 

[goeduck]

I recall pizza box sized circuit boards on some Honeywell computers we had. I think they bought the line form GE and then sold it to Bull. Back then there were raised floor computer rooms with CRAC (computer room air conditioning) units cooling the underfloor. The computers would draw the air up from the cooled raised floor to cool themselves.

 

[FPGT72]

I kinda miss the good old days when it took a real computer nerd to keep them working.

So do I brother.....so do I

 

[ultrarunner]

I recall pizza box sized circuit boards on some Honeywell computers we had. I think they bought the line form GE and then sold it to Bull. Back then there were raised floor computer rooms with CRAC (computer room air conditioning) units cooling the underfloor. The computers would draw the air up from the cooled raised floor to cool themselves.

A friend did the overnight processing at the computer center for one of the airlines...

Everything was raised floor with lots of cooling and back up power... this was early 70's

I saw him years later and he said all that computing power was reduced to the size of a walk-in closet and electric consumption slashed...

 

[MossRoad]

Are you calling Moss a computer nerd?

I used to be. Spent about 25 years in IT at the local newspaper. Was hired to repair power supplies in hard drives the size of washing machines. That morphed into other repairs. Those repairs required an understanding of the operating systems. That understanding led to system administration. That lead to software and hardware installation. That led to networks. Desktop support. Help desk support....

At our peak, I was responsible for about 50 servers, 50 robot boxes (PCs that had one automated task to do repetitively), 500 PC desktops, and about 50-75 Macs, the entire network, plus all computers that operated all of the packaging and production equipment.

I was also heavily involved with machinery installations, and all of the computers, programmable controllers, networking, etc. that went along with that.

I spent the last three years maintaining the electronic part of the presses, and doing mechanical PMs and repairs on the packaging equipment.

Overall, it was a very satisfying 30 years before they let us all go and outsourced printing. I do miss it.

But, I do NOT miss computers.

 

[ultrarunner]

I use to watch NCIS and Gibs was known as a total analog depending on tougher team members for any tech required.

One episode had him going in under cover to infiltrate a server room...

His young staff was taken back saying the boss could never pull it off but the boss did.

At the debrief staff commented and Gibs replied I never said I can't do tech... I said I don't like tech and going back 30 years he was trained in the latest in system administration, etc.

Always a curve to keep the ones that think they know everything off their game...

Rule 33?

 

[MossRoad]

Being out of IT for 10 years now, I doubt I could jump in and function properly out of the gate.

Virtual desktops and servers as well as cloud computing and storage were just becoming a 'thing' when I got out.

I understand the concepts well, though. I just don't have a want or need to stay current on the technology.

When I was in IT, one of our primary functions were to install and test new systems for our users, then teach them how to use them while maintaining parallel systems, then support them once the system went live and decommission the old system.

Today, IT just seems to be connectivity and a functioning machine, and that's about it. You have to go somewhere else for actual help for the system/program you're using.

 

[masseyrider]

You know you are old when upon completion of even some minor job you proudly state, "Still got it!"