On Fri, 12 Dec 2008 10:35:07 -0800, "BobW"
wrote:
"Jim Thompson" wrote in
message ...
On Fri, 12 Dec 2008 09:40:45 -0800, "Joel Koltner"
wrote:
"Jim Thompson" wrote in
message ...
Never owned an Apple, but did own a TI SR-52:
What was your first personal computer, Jim?
The first one I bought was a 286 clone for the oldest son.
(I was using a VAX780, at Omnicomp/GenRad, at the time ;-)
Though I had used a 386 at Sperry when I consulted there.
I later bought a 386 clone (with 387 co-processor) for myself, 40MB
hard-drive and extended RAM.
I currently run on two (clone) PC's with AMD Athlon 64 Processors
(4000+) with 1GB/80GB-HD ("Communications") and 2GB/130GB-HD (PSpice
machine).
Dual ViewSonic VA912b LCD Monitors, on an Extreme Miniview 4 Port KVMP
Switch, LinkSys 8-port router, Motorola SB5120 Cable Modem, Cox HSI
Premier, hp LaserJet P2015dn, and hp OfficeJet Pro K850 (B-size).
I'm about to install several APC 1500VA UPS's.
...Jim Thompson
Oooh. I remember those VAX780s. They had a login script called LOGIN.COM,
and the latest version for your login, for example, might be LOGIN.COM;3
(indicating the third version of this file).
Well, one day, a coworker found a way to overwrite my login file. The next
time I logged in, it copied ALL my files into one of his directories and
then deleted all of my files. It also included a screen message on the order
of, "ALL FILES AND SUBDIRECTORIES HAVE BEEN ERASED". When I tried to figure
out what had happened, the only left was a login script named LOGIN.COM;666
. He was a real devil!
Bob
I grew to love that method of version maintenance. When I first
started running Spice on DOS, my oldest son wrote a program to do just
that, keeping a running history of every netlist change, saving it
_and_ the matching .dat file.
There were many gag stunts you could play with those machines. The
most used one was the duck with hammer pounding, with "Hit Any Key to
Continue" ;-)
The main problem I had was "administrators" logging me off while I was
turned away from my keyboard (for more than 15 minutes) doing
schematic drawings by hand. I would turn around to enter a netlist
and find myself logged off.
So I wrote a script that watched the keyboard for activity... no
activity for 10 minutes, it'd send a couple of "Enter" keystrokes ;-)
Administrator figured out what I was doing and threatened to
disembowel my script.
I allowed as how I'd tip off everyone in the plant how to do that
electro-mechanically, no script needed. So he backed off.
A few months later I entered the building to find the lobby filled
with cops. They were there to arrest the two administrators for using
the GenRad computer to conduct their own personal software company ;-)
Bwahahahahahaha!
...Jim Thompson
--
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