10 Years in IT

[GrumbleDook]

I had the books as I wanted to learn about the systems ... never bothered with the courses.

[john]

Yeh how times have changed, shame I still have a large number of 19" CRT Monitors in the DT Room They are beasts to shift around never mind roll on next year when they, fingers crossed, will get swapped out for 22" TFTs instead

 

I've been employed in IT in schools for nearly the last 7 years, but working in it for nearly 8 now (used to have a Saturday job in a computer shop) and things have changed for sure and in a lot of cases for the better I always dabbled in IT though, was always the one to look at familys PCs etc from when I was 12 or so

[CAM]

Been tinkering with IT since secondary school so about the same time. Things I miss:

 

- The noise my 56k made. I still remember it in my head! I later discovered the laptop's volume control made it louder...

- Boot screens that show technical information as they load.

- Typing win to start Windows. I got my first PC like this because the school librarian thought the PC was broke (which it was, and I rescued it by isolating corrupt disk segments but that is another story).

- The original Crazy Frog when he was funny and not an annoying mobile phone gimmick.

- Typing school essays using the EDIT command in DOS

- DOSSHELL

- Hamster In A Microwave

- Shockwave Browser Plugin

Edited May 19, 2010 by CAM

[Dos_Box]

I've just had 2 of these dumped on my desk!

Compaq I Portable computer

They're not exactly the same, but that's what they look like on the surface of it... Very large paperweight anyone?

 

If they are one of those, can I come and pick one up?

[broc]

I was a SysProg for just under 10 years, but with a database specialism. I didn't do that much Assembler... and if you've got those red books on CDRom, they're not originals!

Oh yes they are; IBM provided them for their Systems Engineers & Consultants..... & I used to work for IBM. I even helped write a couple.

 

I also had a version of OS/390 that was supplied on CDROM & could be installed to run under OS/2; you could build a complete OS/390 system with IMS, CICS, DB2 and TSO/E & run it on a Thinkpad X series notebook..... it was great for demonstrating new functions to clients, or for training.

 

I had a P/390 at home too......

Edited May 20, 2010 by broc

[Dos_Box]

I almost forgot:

 

AOL Connie!!

 

http://www.plusworld.co.uk/media/connie.gif

 

And guys? Can we keep this thread in the past 10 years please before I start to harp on about my ZX81!

[danrhodes]

Try the WayBack Machine, you can view pages from years ago how they used to look then http://www.archive.org/web/web.php

[tmcd35]

And guys? Can we keep this thread in the past 10 years please before I start to harp on about my ZX81!

 

But the past 10 years have been a little boring! It's been mostly about - a) faster internet, b) new versions of Windows, c) the rise of Apple, d) Google.

 

All the interesting stuff - BeOS, Next computers, the 16bit era, Sinclear Microdrives, BBC Micros running LOGO controlling a robot turtle, 9pin DMP's that made the whole house shake when you printed your homework, waking the neighbours with the noise, Setting the volume correctly on your tape player and watching the loading screen draw on your favourite game, etc, etc, etc all happened before the last 10 years.

Edited May 20, 2010 by tmcd35
Added quote to make sense.

[broc]

The last 10 years has been spent with PCs implementing what mainframes had 30 years ago

 

Runs away & hides ......

[sonic1485]

What search engines were people using 10 years ago? I was using Metacrawler up till about 3 years ago when I made the switch to Google!

[featured_spectre]

lycos.com and mamma.com were the ones I used until about 4 years ago when I started using google.

[cookie_monster]

Just got rid of mine last year. Did you notice just how slim they were compared to the 2000, 2003 books!!! NT4.0 MCSE was a doddle!!

 

 

Except for Networking Essentials which was a beast of a book I don't seem to remember the 2000 modules being much more difficult than the NT4 ones the exception of the 70-292 2003 upgrade exam which was the only one I failed

[elsiegee40]

 

And guys? Can we keep this thread in the past 10 years please before I start to harp on about my ZX81!

 

But ZX81 doesn't count as commercial IT... me and broc are talking about being Systems Programmers (now known as IT Technicians) 25 years ago, not the kit we played with at home!

[tmcd35]

But ZX81 doesn't count as commercial IT... me and broc are talking about being Systems Programmers (now known as IT Technicians) 25 years ago, not the kit we played with at home!

 

Oh, I don't know. I remember thumbing through Sinclear User as an 8 year old reading reviews for Dot Matrix Printers, Microdrives and Spreadsheets.

 

I'm sure there must have been at least one small business in the early 80's that was brave (stupid?) enough to use a Spectrum as their state of the art office PC

[PeteM]

The last 10 years has been spent with PCs implementing what mainframes had 30 years ago

 

Runs away & hides ......

 

At the risk of incurring the wrath of the thread starter - 37 years ago the bank I started work at had just taken delivery of a Burroughs terminal about the size of a grandpiano with a golfball sized print head for data input. It broke regularly. Stuck in the corner of the room upstairs was a 'Concentrator' - big blue box about the size of the Tardis. A man came round to hoover it out twice a year. It fed all the data to & from 6 local branches and if it crashed you had to reboot it using a paper punch tape which took half an hour. /end reminisence

[elsiegee40]

You're probably right @tcmd35... I can remember the excitment when we got our first Word Processing Package in for the mainframe...

 

DisplayWrite/370. It did the basics and you (I) had to write your own code to store the documents created, interpreting all the formatting characters. Microsoft Word was like magic when I first got to see it!

[timzim]

...if it crashed you had to reboot it using a paper punch tape which took half an hour. /end reminisence

 

This any use to anyone? I found it in the cupboard when I started working here 10 years ago...

 

[JJonas]

I used to have parts of a PDP11 in my shed!

[elsiegee40]

I used to have parts of a PDP11 in my shed!

 

Best place for them

[SpuffMonkey]

My maternal grandparents had at best a slab of marble or stone to keep the milk and cheese as cold as possible. With no supermarkets and most shopping done at the 'corner' shop (GGGGGG-Granvill) no one bought a whole week of groceries. Their shop was about 4 doors up.

 

Yeah - my grandparents kept stuff in the larder on marble and in the meat safe. No inside loo or any sort of bathroom til I was about 10 years old.

[SpuffMonkey]

I almost forgot:

 

AOL Connie!!

 

 

 

Compuserve and news groups for support!

[p858snake]

MS DOS 6.2!!! I worked for a company in 1995 that was still using it in 2000 to run their till systems. They probably still are as well.

Alot of embeded systems (POS/Heart Monitors etc) still run small light oeprating systems like those (DOS/Win 3.1)

 

Except for Networking Essentials which was a beast of a book I don't seem to remember the 2000 modules being much more difficult than the NT4 ones the exception of the 70-292 2003 upgrade exam which was the only one I failed

Scott Muller's Networking Essentials or whatever it's called? because that book still is a beast....

[Hecate]

modems, but wait until you have done almost 40 years & then you will remember things like paper tape, punched cards, teletypes, green screens, computers as big as a room, with lots of flashing lights and 4mb memory.

 

I feel old....

 

Ditto - what about CPM and all those lovely DOS 5 configurations for autoexec.bat and config.sys

[ricki]

Hi

 

I am an oldie I remember punch card and paper tape and a computer with no monitor.

 

God it makes me feel old.

 

Richard