From: hcharper@goldenvalleycable.com   
      
   OM wrote:   
   >   
   > ...I take it you punched cards on both an 026 and an 029 at least?   
      
   Only used an 026 for 2 weeks when the company bought 029s to replace   
   them. They also got 2 key to disk (old 8" floppies) but we never used   
   them except for boot up routines.   
      
   > ...Managed a DASD farm for about a year, which is basically   
   > babysitting 50 washers on spin cycle and hoping the load doesn't get   
   > unbalanced because the damn things would wobble across the floor as   
   > they weren't anchored to the raised floor!   
      
   ROFL!! The old POWER spool system! Remember it well, and made many   
   friends at Sorbus as they came out 2-3 times a week to repair head crashes.   
      
   > ...You now have my respect, sir. I'd have given my left nut to have   
   > studied under Seymore, and my right one for the privledge of beating   
   > the living shit out of the punk who caused that car wreck that killed   
   > such genius.   
      
   The one thing Intel, TI, Motorola, and AMD have overlooked is Cray's   
   "Vectorized processing" that make his Y2G so blazingly fast. But I   
   suspect the precision of circuits measured to the nanometer is to much   
   to expect from today's chip designers.   
      
   Cray was a perfectionist. He once knocked an "A" project assignment of   
   mine down to a "C" because I could have written it 112 bytes shorter!   
   Told me the shorter the code, the faster it runs. Sheesh! 112 bytes!   
      
   > ...Sadly, the only direct work I've ever done with rope cores was   
   > helping someone dismantle one he'd picked up surplus and was stripping   
   > it down for the gold leaf on the substrate.   
      
   I know a guy that got rich doing that.   
      
   > basically a damn good port of bad D&D, I actually paid a semester's   
   > tuition on a PCJr.   
      
   Well, the 4004 was still on the drawing boards when I graduated, we   
   mainly fooled around with a startrek game on the mainframes.   
      
   > ...As for FiDOPEnet as we called it, there was a sysop's group locally   
   > that all ran Fido-compatible BBS programs, and it was an unspoken but   
   > iron-clad rule that if you wanted membership, you had to run either   
   > Opus or one other commercial BBS package that supported it. They felt   
   > that BBS programs that you could get the source code for - like WWIV -   
   > could be "easily hacked into trojan systems that would destroy   
   > anyone's system who was unlucky enough to call in!" The main guy   
   > behind the attitude was a religious whackjob who claimed anyone using   
   > WWIV was "a pirate"(*) and anyone using a "handle" was working on   
   > behalf of Satan.   
      
   To start NET 2215 I had to pull a coup. The local group was feeding off   
   a group from Cleveland instead of the Regional feed and was allowed to   
   charge excessive amounts and deny access to those they didn't care for   
   as a result. They used Policy 4's "excessively annoying" clause to dump   
   anyone who suggested the direct feed and independence from Cleveland. A   
   regular "good ol' boys" club, so I know the feeling! But I was   
   successful, and Akron had 2 Fidonet feeds from then on. A compromise.   
   Theirs and 2215. And we helped Canton start 2216 as they wouldn't.   
      
   Anyway, it's great to meet another old computer Frogg! (bugg catcher)   
      
      
   It'd be nice to see Caprica and Greystone Industries get involved in   
   some net wars, eh?   
      
   TTYL,   
          Guido   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)