Twiggys [was: Re: ka... ching!]

On 10/08/2016 06:13 PM, TeoZ wrote: Certainly, but playing computer games after a hard day in front of the number-cruncher seems like a terrible way to detox. For some years, for me, it was bicycling and bridge. The SF Bay area used to be mostly semi-rural--a bicyclist's dream with light traffic. Cherries from Sunnyvale, Italian prunes from Santa Clara, wine from the hills around south San Jose. Then later music and charitable work. But computer games? No, there are better ways to spend your life. Remember when IBM did a product announcement for their PS/2 line? The demonstration software did not include, to the best of my knowledge, "Where in the world is Carmen Sandiego", but rather employed a copy-protected hack of Lotus 1-2-3 (the PS/2 5.25" drive wasn't yet available). Serious stuff, not games. I do recall that there was a small start-up that occupied part of the lower floor of the "Prudential building' on Moffet Park Drive--we had the upper floor as overflow from the main SVLOPS building. I think they called themselves "Atari". A couple of us wandered into their offices during lunchtime and asked about job opportunities. We were rebuffed with a firm "no mainframe programmers wanted". I did do a port from a DECsystem 10 tape with the "Adventure" game on it to CDC SCOPE--it was all FORTRAN and data statements. But since I had the travel tables already, it ceased to be interesting after a few times through. So much for my interest in games. So color me a raving loon. :) --Chuck