I was a Systems Manager in the early 90s looking after DEC mainframes (VAX and PDPs) (and yes I know exactly what a VT320 is ), but when things started to shrink we started using DEC Workstations. I remember the day we installed an Infoserver with 7GB of HDD storage (3x2GB and 1x1GB) - we were like wow we'll never fill that beast up. Now you can get 7Gb on something the size of a pubic hair. 

Something I remember fondly was setting up the disk heads on an RK07 Disk drive (20MB). We had this massive piece of test equipment that plugged in the back and we adjusted the head in and out using an allen key as the heads flew over the platters to align them. One minor slip and the heads would crash on to the disk platters - I heard that noise a few times, not caused by me thankfully.

I'm so envious when I hear accounts of those who have such an in-depth knowledge of computer technology. I have a good brain which has always been good at absorbing and learning in other ways, but just doesn't seem to have that natural aptitude for an area which fascinates me. Each to their own as many a TNMS argument used to end with 😉.

Found a pic of a VT220 online:



We also had a couple of more modern terminals - 320s or 420s, possibly - and I especially liked those, because they had amber-on-black screens which I thought were a lot swankier. And you could set them to "smooth scroll", so the text would move up the screen a pixel at a time instead of a line at a time - which seemed really cool at the time.

God, it seems a long time ago now.

I remember having to travel to the "export library " in London to basically photocopy yellow pages of other countries and trade magazines to asses potential market leads.

Similarly, as an apprentice surveyor, I had to travel to a city centre retailer which was HMSO approved, to buy excerpts of 1:1250 Ordnance Survey maps in order to provide detailed property boundary plans to solicitors and building societies. Another adventure for the 17 year old me was visiting the Mitchell Library which housed the Glasgow Room. There I could request dusty old tomes to be brought over to my desk which provided various rating and planning information for addresses the practice had surveyed recently. All click of a mouse stuff these days which in a way is a bit sad. I'm glad I got to have a foot in both worlds. I'm still quite conversant in pounds, shillings and pence. I'm not sorry about that at all. I bought a crusty loaf recently and it was two guineas.😁

I'm not exaggerating when I state this: I can read and understand Greek more than the above posts regarding IT stuff.

Managed thru to Edinburgh despite train strikes for a friend's surprise 60th... always cold as fuck in Edinburgh😀

That's my obligations to my Yank paymasters done for this year - aaaaand relax.

Quote from: Fishy on December 17, 2022, 11:14:40 AMManaged thru to Edinburgh despite train strikes for a friend's surprise 60th... always cold as fuck in Edinburgh😀

But drier than Glasgow.

Guitar whizz YouTuber Paul Davids had a guitar string shootout, and my own favourite brand came out on top. I've been using them since the '70s.

It's the shortest day😀

Quote from: Fishy on December 21, 2022, 09:21:19 AMIt's the shortest day😀

Sunset time here in the E Mids already a little bit later than yesterday (although the sunrise time was also later). Good times!

Today's day length 7 hrs, 36 minutes and 21 seconds. Shorter than yesterday (7:36:27) but I don't care about sunrise times.

Tomorrow's day length also 7 hrs, 36 minutes and 21 seconds.

Figures apply to Loughborough (a few miles to the east of here)

https://www.timeanddate.com/sun/uk/loughborough

I can't get my head around whether that makes last night or tonight the longest night.

By New Years Day sunset is 9 minutes later... a nice feeling that...

Looking closer at the figures, the earliest sunset time was about 8 days ago (15:49). Will be an hour later than that on Feb 1st.

I love it when it's still daylight at 10pm.