On 12 December 2015 at 03:00, Rich Alderson
<RichA at livingcomputermuseum.org> wrote:
From: Liam Proven
Sent: Friday, December 11, 2015 10:54 AM
On 10 December 2015 at 20:42, Rich Alderson
<RichA at livingcomputermuseum.org> wrote:
> From: Liam Proven
> Sent: Thursday, December 10, 2015 8:33 AM
>> *I* never delete my emails. I have a
trail back to 1994. So?
> Piker.
Um. I don't know what that means. In UK
English, "pikey" is a highly
offensive pejorative term for a person of Gypsy or Romany origin, or
these days, more generically, a person of very lower-class origins:
"trailer trash". I am guessing you didn't mean that. :-)
So, what, it means I'm very young? I'm
fine with that, given I'm nearing
50. :-D
Two cultures separated by a common language, and all that.
Indeed.
According to the dictionaries of American English
which I just consulted, it is
refers to small-time gamblers and others who make limited cash outlays. Hmm.
Oh! OK. New one on me, and I thought I was reasonable at US idioms. I
have probably misheard or misparsed it before now, thought it
strangely out-of-context and moved on.
In nearly 60 years of reading and watching movies and
television program(me)s,
the internalized definition I have for it is any person who does something in a
small way. Usually used jokingly. Thus, that your collected e-mail is two
decades' less duration than mine leads to such a description.
That was my general impression, but I read it as age rather than
quantity. Close enough for government work.
Certainly no offense intended.
Oh, none taken!
On the subject line topic, I read this list via an
Exchange/Outlook setup,
[...]
> Simple. Quick.
This must be some strange new usage of the words
"simple" and "quick"
that I wasn't previously aware of.
Well, given that I first learned EMACS (to give the TECO spelling) when you
were all of 8 years old, the method I described *is* simple and quick, for me.
First editor. Hmm. I guess the Commodore full-screen BASIC code editor
on the PET series doesn't really count. But before I used it in any
anger, in Comp Sci class, I got a ZX Spectrum after playing with my
uncle's ZX 81. But the Spectrum barely had an editor, either, so I
mostly used Beta BASIC which was slightly (slightly) richer. (A used
Spectrum 48K cost my parents ?80. No idea of exchange rates in
1982-1983: at a total guess ITRO US$ 140-150? That was the most
computer we could afford.)
First actual discrete editor which could load and save files was
probably EDT on a terminal on the University VAX in about 1985. I was
never a master but I could use it. Does that have enough early-editor
kudos? Probably not. :-(
Isn't this the Old Geezers club? :-)
Well, quite! :-D
--
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