My first programming course was in 1978 and yes, we used punch cards and a dot matrix printer - I hated it. I tried again in 1980 with a dumb terminal hooked up to a mainframe but still hated it. Went to Japan in 1984 and learned to use a Japanese word processor in Japanese - really hated that. Came back to the US and started using ATs and XTs and portables you pushed around on a coffee cart... no hard drive but hey, I had a 1200 baud modem now, so it wasn't that bad. Moved back to Japan and things started to change just about the time Windows 3.1 and the Internet started to get on mere mortals' radars.

Then many moons ago, half a planet away I got interested in computers again. But it wasn't so much the computer than the computer had become a communications device. I was intrigued by Gopher and BBSs; Netscape hadn't been invented yet, but it was clear the direction things were going.

Spring forward a few years and I was in San Fransisco drinking the dot com kool-aid, and that, of course, led to a trip to nowhere... so there I was, a veteran BBS sys-op, owner of a personal vanity web site, author of on-line textbooks, a burned out shell of a poster from Eminds, Utne and Brainstorms. Where to go next?

Mindsay

That was many years ago, and I'm still posting here. That should speak volumes.
 
   

 


 
 
bbmyls2go on
Re: A little history... for the reunion
sorry to be off topic - but regarding your time in Japan - did you learn to read Japanese? Any chance you might be able to decipher some kanji marks on a WWII era holster? I've tried googling and the best I can do is find image sites that would take me months to go thru to find similar characters and try to narrow them down to the correct words. The imprinted stuff I have is not terribly clear, but I figure if I can find someone familiar with them, maybe they can translate for me?
jimschweizer on
Re: A little history... for the reunion
I can try or find someone else that can do that..

send me a few pics: jimschweizeratgmail.com
laughwithme on
Re: A little history... for the reunion
It's funny how you could stick through so many phases that you hated!
perrye on
Re: A little history... for the reunion
That does speak volumes!

 

I remember punch cartds...

Andreux on
Re: A little history... for the reunion
My MindSay blog has traveled the world with me, and I never lost it. I think that speaks volumes too!

 
Login to replyToggle picture size
 

Latest Comment
Re: I Left - you're right...there's more in the next blog.

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