[Shop-talk] Quick question on garage floors and garage lifts

[Mike Rambour]

  And here I was thinking I was up with the current trends on computer 
technology because I had a brand new VMS machine delivered last week. 
Ok, so its one of them new ones running something called Alpha OpenVMS 
instead of the good ol VAX VMS but its still VMS.  And you guys here are 
talking about UNIX and FORTRAN ??? gee, I am still on VMS and ADA and 
COBOL guess I am not as up to date as I thought I was.  What next ? you 
want me to learn VAX C or something ?

 All joking/teasing aside, we really did get a new Alpha VMS machine 
delivered last week, they still sell them. We are replacing a VAX with 
the Alpha.  I am proposing we make the old VAX a web server, hackers 
don't know how to get into a VAX or even what it is :)  but I was told 
to forget that idea.  And no the company I work for is not that far 
behind, we do have the new Itanium machines running VMS too, along with 
SUNs and lots of Linux and Windows, we just like VMS.

    mike

Karl Vacek wrote:
> Wow - UNIX ?  E-mail ?  Sounds pretty modern.  When I was at Purdue we 
> had an IBM 7094, and Fortran was translated onto tape by an IBM 1401 
> from the cards we punched.  About the computing power of a desktop 
> calculator with much better I/O, assuming you like cards or tape.  No 
> such thing as e-mail, no UNIX.  If you were lucky, though, you might 
> get to use one of the two IBM 029 card punches rather than the 026's.  
> All of this had to be done in the sub-basement of the newly-opened 
> (sophomore year) Math-Science Building. Ahhh, the good old days.
>
> When I returned for grad school a few years later (1973), there were 
> remote terminals to directly input FORTRAN programs at a few campus 
> locations.  No trudging to the M-S Building to punch your cards.  No 
> e-mail then either, though.  And I bought a TI SR-10 calculator 
> ($119.95) just before going back to grad school - it could DO SQUARE 
> ROOTS !!
>
> Karl
>
>
>
>> Yeah, kids now are spoiled wimps.  When I graduated from Purdue, we
>> had to learn FORTRAN and all of the email systems were Unix.
>


-- 
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Mike Rambour
Bug Writer err...Programmer
      mikey at b2systems.com
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