BaltACDThe systems were subsequently replaced by Mainframe applications in 1990 and I was out of a job.
And now, how many tech generations later, you have more computing power and data storage in your pocket than even the most powerful mainframes of the day.
I remember how thrilled I was to install a 40 megabyte hard drive in my Tandy 1000SX computer, so I didn't have to boot off the 5.25" floppies any more. Nowadays, you can't buy a thumb drive that small.
That computer is still in the attic in the garage. I wonder if it still works...
Larry Resident Microferroequinologist (at least at my house) Everyone goes home; Safety begins with you My Opinion. Standard Disclaimers Apply. No Expiration Date Come ride the rails with me! There's one thing about humility - the moment you think you've got it, you've lost it...
"...treated like children..."
Paul, I hear 'ya! Same here! The company seemed to be turning into a real-life "Dilbert" comic strip! Makes you wonder just who's running things and how they got into positions of responsibility. Some days I thought a pin-ball had more direction than the company did! Towards the end I (and the other company veterans) would go around muttering "These people make money in spite of themselves!" Sure not like when I started at a locally owned concern.
Like I said, I knew when it was time to go.
Wayne
Flintlock76It was a bit of a rush to take a dead or grouchy piece of machinery and bring it back to life. And I was OH so popular when I was finished!
We had a mainframe from a well-known computer firm. The tech was telling us one day that he'd taken a vacation that caused him a lot of trouble.
Seems this manufacturer was in the habit of putting several "sub-boards" on one large circuit board. Different portions of the computer used different sub-boards, often to the exclusion of the others in the main board (confused yet?).
So let's say that slots 1, 2, and 3 all used the same main board. Only slot 1 used section A, slot 2 used section B, and slot three used section C.
If section A failed in slot 1, the tech could simply swap it with the board in slot 2, and everything was back on line. As long as the board was never placed in a slot where section A was needed, it had a long and useful life ahead of it.
One computer he maintained had a number of such boards with various failed sections. He knew which was which (I'm presuming he kept notes).
His replacement while on vacation didn't know that. As a result, that tech swapped a couple of boards due to a problem of some sort. This didn't solve the problem, but amplified it, as the swapped boards had bad sections that were needed in the "new" slots.
I think you can see where this is going. The regular tech got it sorted out, but I'm sure there was some muttering...
Flintlock,
Each time the school copier wore out and we got a new one, the learning curve changed upward dramatically.
In my years, we went from a hand-cranked mimeograph machine, to a motor-driven mimeograph machine, to a copier which basically ... copied.
When I retired, the copier was accessible from any computer or phone anywhere in the building. It copied front and back, sorted, collated, stapled, and served ice cream on the side.
We did restrict teachers from using color too much.
When I retired, the copier was actually getting used less.
Years ago, a teacher would type a paper, print it on a printer attached to her computer, take the page to the copier, print 25 pages, and hand it out to kids.
Now the teacher posts the page, the students read and answer online, and the teacher grades the pages online. No paper used.
Seems like an improvement, but I don't believe it. There are some great studies that seem to indicate learning online is not the answer many thought.
Anyway, you have my appreciation. After the copier was fixed, the teachers were happy. And happy teachers made my life much easier.
York1 John
York, while it's certainly a good thing the kids are learning to be computer-literate and how to get the most out of the things, because it's good for their future, I'm with you in believing doing everything on-line isn't necessarily a good thing.
As has been said, electronics can fail, and when they do they've got to know how to deal with it. Pads and pencils don't fail, and neither does your brain if you're trained to be self-reliant. The "apps" can't do everything.
I don't know if, as yachtsmen, Lithonia-Operator and Paul of Covington can deep-water navigate using a sextant, charts, and a chronometer, but I'll bet it's a sure thing they can handle coasting with a chart and a compass, and not GPS.
Your district sounds a bit unusual. Here in Virginia paper in schools in far from obsolete. In some cases they've gone overboard and used the copiers to effectively "manufacture" their own textbooks! But that's another story.
Funny story. Years back I was working on a cranky copier (it really should have been replaced) when a young woman walked past and said, "Oh, I HATE that thing!" An older woman standing next to her said "That's because you don't remember what mimeograph was like!"
Flintlock76An older woman standing next to her said "That's because you don't remember what mimeograph was like!"
I grew up with school handouts that were pale purple with That Unforgettable Spirit Duplicator Smell. And had some fun making and cutting the dark wax stencils used to produce those.
Of course, when I was a kid copiers produced white reverse images on a black background, with a strong smell of ozone, and neither the resolution nor the dimensions were at all good. Later, when I should have known better, I made the idiot mistake of thinking copiers made 1:1 images and went through multiple generations of pasteup to reduce offset-master thickness... only to encounter progressive registration errors...
I had the third LaserWriter NT produced. That was my introduction to computer equipment that worked exactly right, and kept working almost forever. In fact the only thing that 'killed' it was that I didn't know Apple (this was in the pre-crApple days) had a shutdown timer on page count, and swapped out the controller for the NTX bought later for the tumor clinic... with more copies on its electronics... karma, I guess.
OvermodI grew up with school handouts that were pale purple with That Unforgettable Spirit Duplicator Smell. And had some fun making and cutting the dark wax stencils used to produce those.
Ah, yes, if I remember right it was called "Ditto". You wrote the original with a special purple ink (or was it a pencil?), and somehow it got transferred to a gummy surface that transferred it onto other sheets of paper. You wound up with blurry purple copies.
_____________
"A stranger's just a friend you ain't met yet." --- Dave Gardner
Paul of CovingtonAh, yes, if I remember right it was called "Ditto". You wrote the original with a special purple ink (or was it a pencil?), and somehow it got transferred to a gummy surface that transferred it onto other sheets of paper. You wound up with blurry purple copies.
A teacher could use a sheet called, strangely enough, "ditto master". It was a sheet of thin paper attached to an inked sheet, much like carbon paper.
The teacher could write or type on the front of the master, and the reversed image would be imprinted onto the back of the paper.
Perforations allowed the paper to be separated from the inked paper.
There was even a type of ditto master that could be used in a heat transfer machine. It was possible to transfer words from a typed sheet of paper onto a ditto master, thus saving the teacher the time of retyping.
The ditto masters had a limited number of runs. Normally after about 30 copies, the page's ink began to fade.
Before becoming a principal, I was a middle school teacher who came home each night with purple finger tips.
York1Before becoming a principal, I was a middle school teacher who came home each night with purple finger tips.
Hey, I always had purple finger tips, too. We got a big kick out of an advertisement years ago for a tech school promoting computer repair. In one testimonial from a student, he said, "and best of all, I don't get my hands dirty." Working on computers was promoted as a sophisticated, high-falutin' job, but the reality was that we spent maybe 95% of our time on dirty mechanical work on tape drives, printers, card readers and punches, keypunches, etc., and we always had oil, grease, and ink on our hands. Although the printer ribbons were black, for some reason, no matter how much you washed your hands, the purple component in the ink would not wash out, so my fingers were always purple.
Don't overlook computer equipment placed in a field railroad enviornment - remember cooling fans run continuously - and they are running all that time in at situation that is about as far from 'clean room' specs as one can get - most of the dust and dirt ingested by the cooling fans then get deposition on the electronics the fans are trying to cool. A lot of dirt when it comes time to fix what broke.
Never too old to have a happy childhood!
Paul of CovingtonHey, I always had purple finger tips, too.
Paul, it's almost easy to look back on those days sentimentally, but each of the improvements sure made life easier.
How did Covington fare in the last hurricane?
York1How did Covington fare in the last hurricane?
We got practically nothing from it. The main part of it went west of us, and the feeder band hit the Mississippi-Alabama border with a lot of rain and a few tornadoes. I'm struck by the similarity to Harvey which hit Houston and SW Louisiana while its feeder band hit Mississippi and Alabama.
When asked "What's the most important service we provide to our customers?" we copier technicians always replied...
"Cleaning the floors of their copy rooms with our pants!"
Ever see what the kitchen floor looks like when you pull the refridgerator away from the wall? THAT'S what it's like behind most copiers, especially the big ones!
Oh, good Lord...
For about nine years, in the sixties and early seventies, I prepared the weeklychurch bulletin, using a mimeograph machine to make the copies. Being handpowered, it gave little trouble--but I had to be careful when handling the ink.
Later, when working in Stores in a manufacturing environment, Ihandled defective PC boards, which were used in most of the equipment. Some seldom failed, but others were prone to failure and could be repaired through sending them to either the manufacturer or to another company which specialized in such work. A common fault was (as noted on the form that accompanied the defective board) "needs smoke put back in." Since Stores kept at least one of each such boards in stock, the maintenance techs were usually able to get the tools back into service quickly.
Johnny
York1The teacher could write or type on the front of the master, and the reversed image would be imprinted onto the back of the paper.
Corrections were a bear - you had to turn the master over, scrape off the transfered blue ink, and hope there was enough of it left on the inked sheet to handle the correction - after you ever so carefully (and usually unsuccessfully) tried to re-align the master in the typewriter...
I worked on the school paper in junior high school - which was reproduced using a "spirit duplicator," ie, ditto machine. Assembling the paper for distribution (ie, stacking the pages in order and stapling them) sometimes got us into the school early, before the other students - a real privilege.
I believe the transfer medium was simply alcohol. The ink tranferred onto the master was slowly transfered to the paper, which is why they eventually faded out.
Mimeograph machines that use ink could go until the master died (ink was pushed through the master onto the paper) or the machine ran out of ink. They could get very messy.
We had an early copier at one place I worked that used thermal paper. It could only copy one sheet by feeding it through - no laying a book on top of the glass to copy a page.
We had a mimeograph machine in my high school in the late 90's early 2000s. Yeah, we weren't the most modern school district.
You in that video, Firelock?
It's been fun. But it isn't much fun anymore. Signing off for now.
The opinions expressed here represent my own and not those of my employer, any other railroad, company, or person.t fun any
Hell no Zug, I ain't THAT old!
Man, primitive stuff, for lack of a better term, but hey, it worked!
The funny thing is, I used to see a lot of that old equipment, or machines like it, gathering dust in some school storage rooms. I always wondered if there was anyone on staff who knew how to use it. In this day and age, probably not.
Back to sailing for a minute. Yesterday we had one of the most peaceful relaxing days I can remember. And that was punctuated by a funny incident.
Today we had one of those moments of terror. Terror might be a bit strong, but friggin scary.
If there is popular demand, I will elaborate. But don’t feel obligated. It’s not about trains, and it’s not about technology.
When I was a senior in high school, each of the seniors wrote a brief paper on some important (to that person)--and these were copied on a ditto machine so each one of has a copy of the entire collection. Several years later, one of us recopied (probably after retyping it) the entire collection and distributed the better preserved copies to us. I stll have both--from sixty-five years back and more recently (I don't remember just when).
I for one am really enjoying this thread, and I think I can safely say that you have our rapt attention, L-O!
Brian (IA) http://blhanel.rrpicturearchives.net.
Lithonia Operator Back to sailing for a minute. Yesterday we had one of the most peaceful relaxing days I can remember. And that was punctuated by a funny incident. Today we had one of those moments of terror. Terror might be a bit strong, but friggin scary. If there is popular demand, I will elaborate. But don’t feel obligated. It’s not about trains, and it’s not about technology.
Consider it demanded (both stories!)
Semper Vaporo
Pkgs.
I’ll tell the happy story first.
The sleepy boatyard was beyond sleepy, and is in a really beautiful spot. The weather was perfect. we took showers, felt great, and while we did some loads of laundry sat on a deck and read our books. This place was SO quiet. A really great afternoon.
We had finished doing our laundry and were in the dinghy about to shove off. My wife was in the process of uncleating the line, and we were watching a hard dinghy arriving with a man and a large dog. It was cute; as soon as the dinghy was remotely near the dock, that dog was leaning way out, and just itching to jump to the dock. When they got close he uncoiled and sprung, his push-off from the gunwale nearly flipping the dinghy with the man in it. The dog landed on the dock ...
... and in about two seconds jumped into our tiny inflatable dinghy with two adults and three boat-bags of clean laundry. It was a hoot! The owner was mortified, but we laughed our asses off. Wicked friendly dog. He put a dirty paw print on one of my clean items, though.
"He just wants to play!"
Hey, that's why you go cruisin', right? Meet interesting people and animals and come home with great stories!
Well, we just had one our scariest sailing moments ever. But the humans are fine. The boat? Not sure yet.
So, we had a fantastic sail in 15 knots of wind, with higher gusts, from the Isleboro area over here to Camden. We had one reef in the main, and the staysail; no primary jib (yankee). Exciting passage, and all went well out in the bay. The sailing was so good, I wanted to sail as far as possible up into the harbor before dropping sails. Also, the big waves would have made dropping them out there pretty uncomfortable and a bit more risky for my wife going forward. We scream into Camden harbor.
I start the engine. It’s still blowing hard, as the outer harbor has little protection from a south wind. Camden harbor this time of year is VERY crowded. Boats cheek to jowl on maybe 600-700 moorings in a tight space. Tense enough getting the sails down among the boats, me holding the bow to wind while trying not to move too much. Marilyn did a great job getting the sails down quickly. At pretty much the instant she finished that, the engine’s overheating alarm started screaming. I looked at the gauge, and yes, quite hot. But we HAD to use the engine. I looked around for an empty mooring. Saw one, went towards it. From this point forward, I am worried about how much damage we might be doing to the engine, and whether the issue might make it conk out. The alarm keeps screaming, and will until we get some resolution, just to frazzle our nerves more. We approach the mooring with some Polish name on the ball. Marilyn grabs the pickup buoy. Those suckers are awkward to feed thru the pulpit before you get the actual mooring line. But she gets the line. I put the boat in neutral, and run forward to help. The wind is strong and the line starts to slip from her grasp. I try to help. But it’s too late. We are blown away, and in trying to exit the boat, the pickup buoy gets ripped from the mooring line, never to be seen again.
I run back, put the tranny in forward, and give it some stick. The engine dies. Trust me; this was a low point. So we are now adrift. Sideways, drifting quickly towards dense clump of boats in the strong wind. Alarm keeps screaming because the key is on. I hit the start button; thankfully it starts, but the friggin noise continues, as we are overheated. We head for another mooring. We manage to snag this one on first try.
Stay tuned for an update. We may be looking at dropping some dollars, but the crew is fine, and we handled the emergency pretty well.
Wayfarer Marine towed us to our reserved rental mooring. (There is no anchoring in here.) As a side note, we got the harbormaster involved, and he says the mooring we were on temporarily is some mystery mooring, and shows no sign of being inspected recently!
I have started the troubleshooting. Diagnoses still possible are one that’s cheap and one that ain’t.
I said I want to sail til age 75. Since I aged five years this afternoon, that’s not far off.
Flintlock76 "He just wants to play!" Hey, that's why you go cruisin', right? Meet interesting people and animals and come home with great stories!
zugmann We had a mimeograph machine in my high school in the late 90's early 2000s. Yeah, we weren't the most modern school district. You in that video, Firelock?
And the awesome smell of fresh mimeograph copies! There's a scene in the movie Fast Times at Ridgemont High where a teacher passes out a teast and all the students start sniffing the paper.
Thanks to Chris / CopCarSS for my avatar.
L. O., it's been said about sailing: seemingly endless hours of tedious boredom interrupted by moments of stark terror. I hope the problem is minor.
I don't know if they are still using the same design water pump as they did back in my day but I was always nagged by it in the back of my mind. It was a "rotor" with rubber vanes that rotated in a chamber that had a "bump" on one side that forced the rubber vanes to bend back, sqeezing the water out the exit opening. I never had a problem with it, but it always worried me because I knew a few people that did. One of the vanes breaks off and plugs the exit. I always thought it was a stupid design.
Anyway, good luck!
Paul, we have a pump like that. An Oberdorfer. I have probably exhausted all things I can fix myself now. We have no obstruction between the thru-hull and the raw water pump. The impeller looks great, has lost no vanes, and the rubber part has not detached from the bronze core (I’ve been to that rodeo several times over the years). When I turn the engine’s crankshaft, the water pump’s shaft revolves.
Now I’m going to sniff around the heat exchanger ...
LO, glad to hear you avoided any major collisions, or worse -- injuries.
I've enjoyed reading your sailing travelogue.
Thanks, John.
Camden is not a bad place to be stuck. It’s beautiful, has great restaurants, and Wayfarer Marine is top-drawer.
They will start work on the engine tomorrow. Not sure what all will be needed, but it’s clear we will be spending a lot of money.
Oh well. Boats!!
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