Age

I started my life in the computer business by joining IBM in 1961 after college. I was initially a Field Engineer on the IBM 7090/7094. The systems I worked on were located at Lockheed in Mountain View, CA, Ames Laboratory (NASA) and Stanford University. I was subsequently promoted to IBM's Development Labs in Poughkeepsie, New York where I developed diagnostic software for the IBM 7040/44. I subsequently wrote a diagnostic monitor for the (first) IBM 360/40 and then worked on the development of MVS - the operating system for System/360 mainframe. After leaving IBM I worked for the Federal Reserve System - running IT at the Philadelphia Fed. - and from there several other computer related jobs - and I finally started a consulting practice in 1988 specializing in network design and later (currently) computer related IP (intellectual property) matters. My first "home" computer was a CDC-160A which I purchased (for more $ than I'd care to admit) around 1968. I subsequently acquired a PDP-8/L, PDP-8/I, PDP-12, and a RPC-4000 (drum machine). I donated all of the above to various museums - the PDP-12 and the entire DECUS PDP-12 library going to the Computer History Museum here in Mountain View, CA. My current collection includes lots of various S-100 bus CP/M systems (Including IMSAI 8080, Polymorphic, etc.), Lots of Silicon Graphics systems (from PI -> Onyx Infinite Reality), Lots of Sun SPARCs (including a rare Sun portable of which only two prototypes were built), several IBM RS/6000's, several HP HP-UX systems, multiple VAXes, DEC PDP-11/23+, PDP-11/83, early Macintoshes, NeXT cube (w/Dimension Graphics), NeXT mono/color, Data General Nova clones, IBM AS/400, etc., etc. I also have a lot of software for the above - including OSs for all of the above. So I'd classify myself as one of, if not the oldest, "fart" on this list - with way too many computers... ;-) Cheers, Lyle -- Lyle Bickley Bickley Consulting West Inc. http://bickleywest.com "Black holes are where God is dividing by zero"