After all these years? (1 Viewer)

Seems daft after all these years, but here goes:

Back in the dark ages when it was necessary to place a 5 ¼ inch floppy boot disk into the “A” drive of your personal computer in order to have it boot up and all data was saved on floppy disks I worked as a shipping clerk. Because I showed potential in understanding of the software used at the time, Supercalc and Wordstar, I was charged with both writing macros, creating DOS files and introducing new staff members to the software. You know what they say about mud sticking…

Each subsequent job has involved, mostly, training others to use or to script software.

The current project I am involved in is coming to an end and after four years of Access and SQL based work I now find myself moving back in time to using Crystal Reports and SQL. I look forward to this new and exciting project as I have often found the results from both systems extremely rewarding.

Two years ago I was stuck with bad health and have had very little energy to spend in my spare time. I now look forward to returning to my old hobbies of writing poetry; drawing and painting and have recently discovered the joy of photography, albeit with a simple Sony Cybershot.

That, my friends, is as much information as I am prepared to share about myself, I will leave you to decide whether this is because I have deep dark secrets or I am just too darned old to remember much else.

You are the same age as me give or take a few Janet. And it appears the same starting point regarding software. I also used dBase II upto dBase III+ until Access came along. And yes I did use Supercalc and Wordstar also. Do you remember the Comodore 32 pet? or the Apricot Zen?

LOL. I remember them both, and the old BBC (first "Apple") pcs. Not to mention Wangs whose discs were the same size as an LP! Punch tapes as well. I used to be able to look at a punch tape and read it back perfectly.

The first server room I ever went into was massive, it had all these huge machines in it and you had to wear dustproof clothing to go in. The memory size was a massive 500 mb!!

Now I'm starting to sound like the "men from Yorkshire" sketch...

When I was in college, we used paper tape and punched cards. I still have a stack of cards from my PL/1 computer class. I remember the 8 inch floppies (130K ?).

I programed assembly language on the Commodore 64 (converting code from the Apple II).

oumahexi said:

That, my friends, is as much information as I am prepared to share about myself, I will leave you to decide whether this is because I have deep dark secrets or I am just too darned old to remember much else.

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Some of us would rather hear about your deep dark secrets

Hey, Janet, don't knock modern digital cameras. Once you get past about 6 Mpixels, you have the same resolution as the film used by National Geographic magazine for so many years. If you have a 10 Mpixel unit, you have higher resolution than they ever used. (They used low-speed Kodachrome.) My wife just loves her little Canon 120. Particularly since she now can move pix onto her computer through the memory card plug-in and drag-n-drop.

I recall Supercalc and Wordstar. In fact, wifey and I made our own wedding programs and invitation supplements using a $50 copy of WSWin and a $10 disk of miscellaneous ornate fonts - plus an HP Laserjet II+ printer. We had samples of the printer's fonts and matched their font for our programs and maps.

By the time we were doing that, I had moved off of the Osborne One (where I learned Wordstar), through a couple of Leading Edge (remember that brand?) models, and to a Standard computer (capitalized because that was the company name, and no, they're not in business anymore, either.)

Don't feel like you're so old. Like I tell folks, ...

I'm really NOT older than dirt - but we ARE on a first-name basis.

Rich said:

Some of us would rather hear about your deep dark secrets

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Love to oblige Rich, if only I could remember

The_Doc_Man said:

Hey, Janet, don't knock modern digital cameras. Once you get past about 6 Mpixels, you have the same resolution as the film used by National Geographic magazine for so many years. If you have a 10 Mpixel unit, you have higher resolution than they ever used. (They used low-speed Kodachrome.) My wife just loves her little Canon 120. Particularly since she now can move pix onto her computer through the memory card plug-in and drag-n-drop.

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]

Exactly why I like it. I'm not knocking my Sony Cybershot, I know it's not a SLR, but I can't be bothered with all these F stops and stuff. Aim, snap, shoot, and let Picassa do the rest

The_Doc_Man said:

I recall Supercalc and Wordstar. In fact, wifey and I made our own wedding programs and invitation supplements using a $50 copy of WSWin and a $10 disk of miscellaneous ornate fonts - plus an HP Laserjet II+ printer. We had samples of the printer's fonts and matched their font for our programs and maps.

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Ack, you were just show offs lol.

The_Doc_Man said:

By the time we were doing that, I had moved off of the Osborne One (where I learned Wordstar), through a couple of Leading Edge (remember that brand?) models, and to a Standard computer (capitalized because that was the company name, and no, they're not in business anymore, either.)

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The name sounds familiar but I don't recall ever encountering the technology.

The_Doc_Man said:

Don't feel like you're so old. Like I tell folks, ...

I'm really NOT older than dirt - but we ARE on a first-name basis.

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That's the problem Doc, I don't feel old at all, at least not that I can recall lol.

The name sounds familiar but I don't recall ever encountering the technology.

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I remembering encountering the technology, I just don't remember why I encountered the technology

oumahexi said:

Seems daft after all these years, but here goes:

Back in the dark ages when it was necessary to place a 5 ¼ inch floppy boot disk into the “A” drive of your personal computer in order to have it boot up and all data was saved on floppy disks I worked as a shipping clerk. Because I showed potential in understanding of the software used at the time, Supercalc and Wordstar, I was charged with both writing macros, creating DOS files and introducing new staff members to the software. You know what they say about mud sticking…

Each subsequent job has involved, mostly, training others to use or to script software.

The current project I am involved in is coming to an end and after four years of Access and SQL based work I now find myself moving back in time to using Crystal Reports and SQL. I look forward to this new and exciting project as I have often found the results from both systems extremely rewarding.

Two years ago I was stuck with bad health and have had very little energy to spend in my spare time. I now look forward to returning to my old hobbies of writing poetry; drawing and painting and have recently discovered the joy of photography, albeit with a simple Sony Cybershot.

That, my friends, is as much information as I am prepared to share about myself, I will leave you to decide whether this is because I have deep dark secrets or I am just too darned old to remember much else.

Click to expand...

I'd love to see some of your art work!