sorting was: The System360 Model 20 Wasn't As Bad As All That 3892

says...

We (hardware design engineers) were using computers long before that. I was a spearhead in getting terminals moved from terminal rooms into our offices. I had one of the first 3277GAs in an office on Boardman Road (Blgd. 701). We did have to hook them up remotely over 8600bps modems, but that was till better than 2741s. By mid '77 pretty much everyone that wanted-needed a terminal had one in the office (though many were shared). By contrast, only Senior Engineers and above had "personal" 2741s. I used to use the office and 2741 of one of the most senior engineers (can't remember his name, but he was one of the inventors of the channel) and his terminal. The few times he came around he simply sat on the other side of his desk. ...great guy!

I remember that. The PHBs were gaga when we could look up phone numbers in an instant. This became a problem because they wanted our (yet to be delivered) terminals. That was the one application that made it impotent for a PHB to have a terminal on his desk. Soon after they needed the flashiest hardware to read their PROFS email (gack!).

It always was for me, since my fingers were already on the keyboard and even the local phone book was tucked away in a locked drawer (it was confidential) somewhere.

...and 30 years later it still doesn't work. I constantly get emails (some with some quite "interesting content") intended for a muckymuck in corporate HR with the same name but rather different locations and email addresses. Of course I never read them and bounce it back to the sender. 0:-)

About ten years ago I noticed my "bluepages" entry change, so I changed it back. Over several weeks I played the dance. I hadn't noticed it but I stopped getting my e-payroll stub too. One day I got an outside call from someone (no clue who) asking if working for IBM was better than changing oil. Huh?? Turns out they'd entered his information on top of mine and he (a temp in building maintenance) was getting my pay stubs (though not the checks, fortunately). He musta though, "IBM, what a nice place". ;-)

Bottom line: There are may pitfalls in such systems. Making things too easy will breed mistakes.

-- Keith