The FAB blog spot

I started in IT in 1975 as an operator on a mainframe, then progressed (if progress is the word...) from mainframe operations, through communications, to global communications co-ordination, and onwards to PC support, trainer, project manager, problem management and IT management. There is, I reckon, very little that would surprise me when encountering the problems reported by users of all levels.   This, then, is the first in a series of the various issues I have dealt with or come across. They're all true: For example, going all the way back to when PCs were in their infancy, the company for which I was working decided to invest in a word processing system built by Wang (no sniggering at the back...).  The desktop machines weren't actually PCs at first, more what was known as "intelligent terminals" which were linked to a mini-mainframe (the one in the picture below is very similar to what we were using - stylish, eh?), and the company then sent me on a "Train ...

For those of you who may be interested in how I developed into the cynical, jaded (almost) human being that I am now, I thought I would resurrect an article that was authored by me and published in a long since defunct computer magazine. I have slightly modified the text to bring the article into context, but 95% of the text is as published, albeit that the magazine published the text in the wrong order (from a WordStar file composed when I had hair on my head):   To give you a little background, I had a burning ambition as a child to become a dentist. OK, so I may be on the sadistic side, and so what if my hands shook a little? I knew from the age of 7 years that dentistry was my goal. Naturally enough, when I had my first session with the careers officer at senior school, he advised me to become an interpreter, but that's another story. The school I was attending had what they called a computer – we called it an adding machine with power as all we used it for was to find square...