10 Jun
2009
10 Jun
'09
12:34 p.m.
Zane -
Although I primarily lurk here, one of the reasons I really like reading
this list is the feeling that the older stuff is being kept alive. As
one of those techies who did development work on early voicemail (on
UNIX platforms even), much of the older systems seemed "dead" to my
colleagues. At one point when I started my own company I used to buy
old disk drives, etc off back docks to sell to legacy system operators
(insurance companies, old financial houses, etc) that couldn't find old
disk drives, etc to keep their systems running. Kept us alive until we
had positive cashflow ourselves.
Much like antiques, it feels good to in some small way support the
maintenance of these systems.
Thanks to all who do, and keep posting! It's great fun to read...one
day with sufficient funds (and SPACE and time) I'll do some salvaging
myself...
John
Zane H. Healy wrote:
On Wed, 10 Jun 2009, Dave McGuire wrote:
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On Jun 10, 2009, at 12:52 PM, Zane H. Healy
wrote:
Well, this isn't the only group of technical people in the world. As
far as knowing about what the real data processing world uses, it's
not classic computer enthusiasts vs. the rest of the world, it's
knowledgeable computer people vs. the rest of the world.
Of course this isn't the only group of technical people. The disturbing
thing is, there are a sizable group of "technical" people who thing
Windows
is all there is, and either don't realize anything else exists, or that
anything else still exists. These are the people that really scare me.
Zane
The other
amusing thing about which people here (at least) should
know better is the visibility factor. VMS, OS/400, MVS, and VM are
*everywhere*...but people think they're somehow "dead" because the
only thing they see in for sale in WalMart is PCs running Windows.
Do these people really believe PCs running Windows process their
bank transactions, maintain hospital databases, or run railroads?
I agree with this statement, and out side of this audience how many
people
even know anything besides Windows exists? There are a lot of
people that
think all computers run Windows.