What Operating System Do You Use? / What Unique and Obscure Interests Do You Have?

[Luke Dupont]

I was just curious!

I've been a long time Windows user, and tried Macs when I started working as a software developer. But about a year ago, I gave Linux a try, and to my surprise, I've fallen in love with it and now use it exclusively on all three computers that I own. It really, really scratches an itch for me that I think most DIY types can identify with: tinkering, customizing, and in general having control over the products I use.

In the past, Linux was considered "difficult to use" and "only for ultra nerds", but I think that title is quite undeserving in 2018. Modern Distrobutions like Linux Mint are very polished and easy to use, and hardware support has come a very long way. At the same time, it doesn't try to "dumb things down" to the frustrating extent that modern OS's are doing, allowing you to dig down and take control as you learn more and realize what you can do with your computer. I really am of the opinion that the only reason it isn't more popular is because it doesn't come preinstalled on any machines that you buy from the big box stores.

I'm already a programmer and tinkerer, so perhaps I'm biased, but I've had so much fun with computers that I haven't had in years, and I've gotten interested in so many more aspects of computing simply by them being made more visible and accessible to me.

I think I might play with other more obscure OS's like the BSD's or even FreeDOS in the near future: for fun, more so than practical reasons.

On the other hand, I really really dislike the way mobile OS's and things like ChromeOS are going. I definitely see the value in them (convenient, and easy to use), but they're just not for me, and I fear that they are making computing less and less accessible by "hiding" and "locking away" any and everything that makes a computer interesting; those things which give you power and control to do interesting stuff yourself. I mean, by design, I would have never had the chance to learn anything about computers if, as a kid, I had been given a chromebook or an iPad as opposed to a general purpose computer! Nobody was born technically literate, and computers exposing how they work is exactly what allows a user to learn to use and manipulate them, as opposed to just giving up when the magic box doesn't do what you want it to -- or worse yet, not even realizing what you can do with it in the first place!

Maybe I'm old fashioned (eh? Wait, I'm only 30!), and maybe I'm a minority, but I'm quite happy this way! As with anything, there's truly a broad and diverse world to explore in computing, each niche with it's own ecosystem and culture. And, exploring, along with creating and tinkering, is something that I live for. It's interesting, fun, and empowering, and you just might find yourself in a better place as a result of it!

That said, this is just my story! I'm curious if anyone else has tried other OS's? How about retro computing? What do you think of the current direction of mainstream OS's? I'm just now exploring all of this and it's incredibly fun and eye-opening.

Now, I have to go pursue something equally obscure and learn to shave with a straight razor I just bought...

And, in a very related but more general vain: What obscure thing have you discovered that you would share with the world, even if it's only a "hey, this is cool and you should give it a look!" -esque shout-out? Feel free to diverge from the original topic as much as you like: this is, after all, an Off-topic topic in the first place ;)

[Jim Koepke]

That said, this is just my story! I'm curious if anyone else has tried other OS's? How about retro computing? What do you think of the current direction of mainstream OS's? I'm just now exploring all of this and it's incredibly fun and eye-opening.

My home machine has always been a Mac. My workplace computers have always been DOS/Windows. Some projects were done on my machine at home and taken to work to use on the Windows side. Mostly art work and page layout stuff.

You have my full agreement about not wanting my desktop machine to act like a cell phone. Those extra features are what is the reason for paying more for a high powered machine.

jtk

[William Adams]

I use or have used pretty much everything. Bought a 128K Mac and one of everything in the store when it launched, and quite a few DOS and Windows laptops including a GRiDcase IIIplus and NEC Ultralite.

High water mark of my computer experience was a NeXT Cube running NeXTstep 3.3 as a desktop paired w/ an NCR-3125 running PenPoint as a mobile machine --- I'd draw in FutureWave Smartsketch, take notes in PenPoint's notebook, then transfer them to the NeXT and use a Wacom ArtZ tablet. Still have the Cube and the tablet was donated to the Smithsonian by the guy I sold it to (not sure if it's ever been on display).

Need to get a Sparcstation running w/ OPENSTEP 4.2 (just need to locate the stupid optical mousepad).

Day to day machine is a Samsung Galaxy Book 12 which I was thrilled w/ as an almost perfect replacement for my Fujitsu Stylistic ST4121 until Microsoft crippled the stylus w/ Fall Creator's Update dumbing it down to scrolling and making it impossible to use in legacy applications --- I've had to roll back twice now and will never update until there's an option to restore the normal pen behavior.

[Alan Rutherford]

I've been using OpenSuse Linux for over 10 uears and successfully got my wife into it a couple of years ago. Aside from the price (free) and versatility, the total lack of malware is a huge attraction. Many Windows users are sitting ducks. Of course Windows is Windows but Linux is any of 100's of distributions and desktops running on them. Also software such as alternatives to Microsoft Office. All those can be very stable and user friendly, they're just not Windows and that's a problem for many. You raise some interesting questions but I have other things I need to do right now. I'll be interested to see what other replies you get. There seem to be several Linux users here.

Also using Lubuntu on a couple of laptops. The flash drive on my key ring will boot Puppy Linux on any computer I plug it into.

[Jim Becker]

MacOS primarily and Windows 10 in a VM when necessary for my CNC design work. The only "Windows" machine I own is the controller for my CNC machine.

Nothing obscure about me or things I do...I'm just generally weird. Ask my wife... :) :D

[Bill Dufour]

My understanding is that the MAC operating systems are really Linux with a few tweaks and more closed so you are not allowed to get into the source code.
Bill D.

[William Adams]

No, Mac OS X runs on top of Darwin, a BSD-Unix derivative based on NetBSD and OpenBSD and the Mach micro-kernel (the current kernel is Xnu).

The source code is available at: https://opensource.apple.com/

[Phillip Gregory]

I was just curious!

I've been a long time Windows user, and tried Macs when I started working as a software developer. But about a year ago, I gave Linux a try, and to my surprise, I've fallen in love with it and now use it exclusively on all three computers that I own. It really, really scratches an itch for me that I think most DIY types can identify with: tinkering, customizing, and in general having control over the products I use.

In the past, Linux was considered "difficult to use" and "only for ultra nerds", but I think that title is quite undeserving in 2018. Modern Distrobutions like Linux Mint are very polished and easy to use, and hardware support has come a very long way. At the same time, it doesn't try to "dumb things down" to the frustrating extent that modern OS's are doing, allowing you to dig down and take control as you learn more and realize what you can do with your computer. I really am of the opinion that the only reason it isn't more popular is because it doesn't come preinstalled on any machines that you buy from the big box stores.

I'm already a programmer and tinkerer, so perhaps I'm biased, but I've had so much fun with computers that I haven't had in years, and I've gotten interested in so many more aspects of computing simply by them being made more visible and accessible to me.

I currently use Linux and have been using it ever since 2003 when I first had a broadband Internet connection in order to download boot disk images. It was thought of as "difficult to use" 15 years ago as well, which was pretty much just as false then as it is now. It is straightforward to use and doesn't try to think it's smarter than you are, like all MS OSes after Windows 2000 have. Probably the biggest issue in those days was trying to run Linux on a laptop of those days with a broken MS-specific ACPI implementation and fighting with websites that used IE6 "quirks," which were common, particularly in professional or financial websites. Both of those issues have long since been fixed.

I've used most of the common OSes over the years. I started off using Apple IIs at school. My family's first home computer was an IBM 286 running MS-DOS, which was eventually replaced with an IBM 486 running OS/2 as that's what they ran at his workplace. Schools and colleges typically stuck with Apple products and everywhere else including at home was "IBM-compatible," meaning MS-DOS, OS/2, and later, Windows.

I've run pretty much every major version of an OS from Apple ranging from Apple DOS on the MOS 6502 in the Apple II, System Software 5/6/7.x on the m68k machines, to OS X on PPC machines. The x86 Apples came along after I was out of college so I've never sat butt at one.

I've run Windows 3.0/3.1, 95, 98, 2K, XP, Vista, 7, and very briefly used Windows 8.x/10 on my wife's laptop. I've even run some of the funky ones like Windows XP 64-Bit Edition and Windows Server 2003 for Itanium at work. The only versions of Windows that I will say I actually thought were decent for their day were 95 and 2K. 98 was okay, XP stank at first but the longer Vista was out and my work stuck with XP, the less bad XP seemed even though it was still just a buggy and crippled W2K with a Fisher-Price UI. 7 is not horrible but not great. Vista was terrible, and 8.x and 10 are nearly unusable.


On the other hand, I really really dislike the way mobile OS's and things like ChromeOS are going. I definitely see the value in them (convenient, and easy to use), but they're just not for me, and I fear that they are making computing less and less accessible by "hiding" and "locking away" any and everything that makes a computer interesting; those things which give you power and control to do interesting stuff yourself. I mean, by design, I would have never had the chance to learn anything about computers if, as a kid, I had been given a chromebook or an iPad as opposed to a general purpose computer! Nobody was born technically literate, and computers exposing how they work is exactly what allows a user to learn to use and manipulate them, as opposed to just giving up when the magic box doesn't do what you want it to -- or worse yet, not even realizing what you can do with it in the first place!

Maybe I'm old fashioned (eh? Wait, I'm only 30!), and maybe I'm a minority, but I'm quite happy this way! As with anything, there's truly a broad and diverse world to explore in computing, each niche with it's own ecosystem and culture. And, exploring, along with creating and tinkering, is something that I live for. It's interesting, fun, and empowering, and you just might find yourself in a better place as a result of it!

Chrome is frustrating as it is extremely crippled and locked-down. You can somewhat uncripple Chrome on some non-phone devices by rooting it and adding back in some of the stripped-out Linux utilities, but it's generally easier to simply install an ARM Linux distribution and have a fully functioning OS. Or, get a cheap laptop instead of a Chromebook and pay a few dollars more, and trivially install an x86 Linux.


And, in a very related but more general vain: What obscure thing have you discovered that you would share with the world, even if it's only a "hey, this is cool and you should give it a look!" -esque shout-out? Feel free to diverge from the original topic as much as you like: this is, after all, an Off-topic topic in the first place ;)

Most things I do and like are obscure.

- Marrying well, having children only once you have been married for a while and are in a proper situation to have children, and staying married and raising your children.
- Working for a living instead of being on the dole.
- Driving vehicles with 8 or more cylinders and manual transmissions. I also enjoy working on them and do essentially all of my own maintenance.
- Woodworking
- Shooting, with actually trying to hit the target, using firearms made out of wood and metal, and shooting reasonable rounds and not supermagnums or the latest tacticool round that's considerably less effective than the oft-maligned old .30-30.
- Saving money instead of blowing it.
- Reading things on paper.
- Listening to the radio instead of watching TV.

My daily driver computer is one I built myself a while ago. It has four 16 core Opterons and sits in a 1990s era beige pedestal server case the size of a two drawer file cabinet. I use a 1987 IBM Model M keyboard which matches the case.

[Jim Becker]

No, Mac OS X runs on top of Darwin, a BSD-Unix derivative based on NetBSD and OpenBSD and the Mach micro-kernel (the current kernel is Xnu).

The source code is available at: https://opensource.apple.com/

Very true. While it's "similar" to Linux, it comes from a different heritage.

Android shares a bit with the Linux family, AFAIK, however.

[Mike Henderson]

I put Linux Mint on a computer and messed around with it. Easy to use. But I eventually went back to my Win 10 machine and all the software that I have on it.

I've been working on computers since the IBM 1401. Did a lot of work in assembly on IBM 360 computers. I bought the first model of the IBM PC - the one with just floppy disk - and have migrated upward since then, both in HW and SW.

Mike

[Phillip Gregory]

Android shares a bit with the Linux family, AFAIK, however.

Android actually is a Linux distribution as Android runs on top of the Linux kernel. Quite a bit of the rest of the OS is markedly different from your typical Linux distribution as Google changed the filesystem tree significantly and use a lot of their own non-standard system utilities and userspace (such as no glibc or busybox.)

[William Adams]

The thing that kills me is I was really happy w/ the Samsung Galaxy Book 12 until Fall Creators Update --- I'm trying to sort out a replacement, and unfortunately, I need to use a pair of apps which run only on Windows or recent versions of Mac OS X, so Linux or Android or Chrome OS isn't an option. Currently considering:

- iPad Pro w/ Apple Pencil --- I have to have the option of using a stylus to draw, annotate and write and take notes.
- Mac Mini
- AstroPad to allow me to control the Mac Mini using the iPad Pro

The other option would be to get a Mac Mini and Wacom Cintiq and give up portability, but I'm chained to a desk all day at work, and I'm not willing to be so limited at home, nor to not be able to use my machine when travelling.

[Curt Harms]

One of the keys to happiness running *nix IMO is don't try to do so on bleeding edge or obscure hardware. For example, people are having video problems with the new Ryzen APUs, I think any Ryzen with 'G' after the model number. I'll bet in a few weeks or perhaps a few months the problem will be fixed. The reason for this as I understand it is that Microsoft and Apple get previews of hardware some time before it's released to the public so have time to fix or develop drivers to work correctly with the new hardware. Linux vendors do not have the same early access so are not aware of hardware issues until it hits the shelves. OTOH I'm typing this on a 8+ year old AMD Athlon II and it runs Ubuntu just fine. I have a 2000ish HP that came with Windows ME:rolleyes:. It has a light weight distro and is pretty slow for daily use but does yeoman service as a torrent box (nope, no pirateware to be found) hosting more obscure distros with shoestring budgets and resources.

Linux distros are typically installed via a DVD or flash drive. These 'live' sessions will show a desktop and be functional but usually don't save anything by default. There are times I don't want to save anything, like malware picked up from an infected banner ad on a web site. Shut it down and everything not part of the original download is gone. It's also possible to create a fully functioning install on a flash drive. I have a couple of these to play with and can be used for specific purposes. For instance, I could have an install just for financial sites and that flash drive install isn't used for anything else so the odds of picking up a nasty should be pretty slim. I don't know how durable flash drive installs will be so have at least one backup of critical data but that's wise anyway.

[Rich Engelhardt]

I've been using OpenSuse Linux for over 10 uears and successfully got my wife into it a couple of years ago. Aside from the price (free) and versatility, the total lack of malware is a huge attraction. Many Windows users are sitting ducks.Linux is far from safe. It's both as vunerable and riddled with malware as Windows.

https://www.av-test.org/fileadmin/pdf/security_report/AV-TEST_Security_Report_2016-2017.pdf

That's the report for 2016/2017.

[Alan Rutherford]

Linux is far from safe. It's both as vunerable and riddled with malware as Windows. https://www.av-test.org/fileadmin/pdf/security_report/AV-TEST_Security_Report_2016-2017.pdf That's the report for 2016/2017. Did you actually read that report? Yes it says Linux malware has tripled. In fact the only graph about Linux shows reports of the Linux-based Tsunami Trojan having increased from 2 in July, 2003 to a whopping 227 late in 2016. That's an increase of 100 times or more. 227! Compare that to 7,628,795 instances of the most common Windows Malware (Page 8 of the same report).

In addition, most Linux malware problems have been in routers and other devices and on servers. Not home PC's. See Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linux_malware: "...As of 2018 there had not yet been a single widespread Linux virus or malware infection of the type that is common on Microsoft Windows; this is attributable generally to the malware's lack of root access and fast updates to most Linux vulnerabilities..."

There are few absolutes in life and only a fool would say "never" about Linux, but in comparison to Windows, I stand by my statement. IMO Linux without anti-virus software is safer than Windows with anti-virus.

[Rich Engelhardt]

Okie dokie - believe what you will and - good luck.

I still find fault with this - "the total lack of malware is a huge attraction" - that's both untrue and it helps promote a dangerous attitude.

[Marshall Harrison]

I started my career 30 years ago developing in C on an unix system. I then moved to DOS/Windows and finally 4 years ago to a Mac. I love OSX and Linux. I still enjoy working from a Unix shell. But I don't do anything but small personal projects since retiring in January of this year.

[Tom Stenzel]

I started with CP/M, ran that computer until 2002 when we moved to our present 1000 square foot mansion. I didn't have the space for all my toys and lost it and my 8 track recorder. Dang.

By then I had already gotten a 386 that first ran DR-DOS 6, then OS/2 Warp. I stopped using OS/2 as I decided that DOS filled my needs at the time. I moved to Novell Dos 7 when I added a CD-ROM. If anyone remembers, Digital Research got around the MS-DOS 3.x 33 meg partition size limit by using the Compaq extentions. DR-DOS 6 wouldn't support CD-ROMs or if there was a fix for it I never found it. Also it would report itself as DOS 3.3 to any program that asked so Dbase IV wouldn't run. It needed DOS 4 or higher. Novell DOS 7 fixed those problems.

I sure got my money's worth out of both WordStar 7 and Quatro Pro 5, ran both for about 18 years.

Then I lifted a HP computer from the trash- CPU box, monitor, speakers, keyboard and mouse. It needed minor repair and worked without a problem. I went back to the owner, he had replaced it with a laptop and was done with that old junk. Then I mentioned that everything on the hard drive was intact- resumes, school work, all kinds of personal info. Did he want anything? Yep, he wanted the MP3s on the hard drive. A couple of DVDs later he had his ELO, Dio, Black Sabbath, Dead Kennedys and Beasty Boys back in his hands. I then deep sixed everything off the computer.

It ran Win XP until support ran out. It now runs Debian Wheezy with the Mate interface. Other and newer versions of Linux wouldn't work with the video. Plus the Athlon XP processor lacks the SSE2 (I think I have that right) instructions that some programs like the Chromium browser need. But it shuffles along.

I also experiment with an obtuse operating system called Emacs. I understand some use it to edit text in some fashion but I'm not so sure it's possible.

My wife's laptop runs Win 7. She also runs Linux too but she doesn't know it, it's on her Nook Simple Touch. It just works, exactly what a computer is supposed to do.

Don't remember all the operating systems I used at work. One memorable OS I did battle on was QNX on the desktop, back when microkernels were going to take over. VAX-VMS ver. 4 was another. I do know that they still have at least two laptops with Win98 on them to support old equipment.

-Tom

[Curt Harms]

SOHO routers are very much an issue and 90+% of those run some form of Linux. Manufacturers don't have a great record for security updates once a model is superseded but the superseded model will soldier on unpatched. If I were a malware-for-profit guy, would I rather go to the effort of infecting machines separately or would I rather infect the single point through which all data flows? The move to HTTPS should help with that, I guess.

https://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/03/05/broadband_routers_sohopeless_and_vendors_dont_care/

[Alan Caro]

Luke Dupont,

I started with DOS 6 / Windows 3.1 in 1993 (IBM 486 DX/2 50, 2MB RAM / 85MB HD) and have so far never escaped Windows. I use the word "escaped" as I find I constantly yearn for Windows to be so substantially different that it would become probably some flavor of Linux. I am completely sick of what I call the Windows' HFB's > "Helpful Fuzzy Bears" and moreso, the really unattractive graphic aspect- it's grim as hell. Windows is what I imagine life was like in Soviet Russia but as advertised by Madison Avenue. Linux appears to be made for grownups - a group to which I aspire, is elegant looking, and has a better integration of processor, memory, disk operations with the GUI. It's a cliche, but windows does still have a strong sensation of a thin- and clunky GUI pasted over DOS. I wish MS would have some kind of stripped down version of Windows- minus the HFB's and oriented towards performance, and as I dream of that, I realize I'm dreaming of Linux. Linux just looks as though an engineer- with aesthetic discernment, designed it. Mac, however elegant and reliable it is, does also have a quality of smugness, but that may be that the systems are designed to be tamper-proof and I like to tamper -heavily.

The problem for me is that I use a single computer for several different tasks: 2D /3D CAD, rendering, graphic design, fairly heavy documents- with database orientation, and also for music production, including running a MIDI controller with 1.2TB of samples. These uses require the system to have high performance in every parameter: high single thread for CAD, multiple cores for CPU rendering, a lot of memory for CPU rendering setup- large renderings need 38GB+, a fast disk system with disk caching for low latency in MIDI samples. This means that I have to use a variety of components for which there will only be drivers in Windows and Mac. My current main computer:

HP z620_2 (2017) (Rev 4) > Xeon E5-1680 v2 (8-core@ 4.3GHz) / z420 Liquid Cooling / 64GB DDR3-1866 ECC Reg / Quadro P2000 5GB / HP Z Turbo Drive M.2 256GB / + Samsung 860 EVO 500GB + HGST 7K6000 4TB / Focusrite Scarlett 2i4 sound interface > 2X Mackie MR824 studio monitors / 825W PSU /> Windows 7 Prof.’l 64-bit > 2X Dell Ultrasharp U2715H (2560 X 1440)
[ Passmark Rating = 6200 / CPU rating = 16954 / 2D = 819 / 3D= 8850 / Mem = 3031 / Disk = 14473 / Single Thread Mark = 2371 [6.24.18]

The key for success is the quite good single-thread performance, courtesy of running the E5-1680 v2 at 4.3 GHz (rated as 3.0/3.8) on all eight cores.

For a tiny amount of woodruining content, the above is going to have this future marine plywood home:

388904

388915

I'm a big fan of what I call "small worlds": interests, activities, and obsessions, and mine have been old cars; I've had about 35 from 1928 to 1994, plus keyboard instruments of which I have a harpsichord, clavichord, piano, and two MIDI keyboards. But those are not rare and obscure. For engaging, obscure discoveries, being interested in the history of science, including Alchemy, and as a fan of illuminated manuscripts, there is another level of obscure with the mysterious "Voynich Manuscript (MS)". From Wikipedia:"The Voynich manuscript is an illustrated codex (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Codex) hand-written in an unknown writing system (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Writing_system). The vellum (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vellum) on which it is written has been carbon-dated (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon-dated) to the early 15th century (1404–1438), and it may have been composed in Northern Italy during the Italian Renaissance (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Italian_Renaissance#Northern_and_Central_Italy_in_ the_Late_Middle_Ages).[1] (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voynich_manuscript#cite_note-ngvideo-1)[2] (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voynich_manuscript#cite_note-physorg-2) The manuscript is named after Wilfrid Voynich (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilfrid_Voynich), a Polish book dealer who purchased it in 1912.

The manuscript, which resides in the Beineke Rare Book Library at Yale, is something related to Natural Philosophy, which would include Alchemy and natural medicine, but the text has never been deciphered. Many cryptographers have tried, some think it's an elaborate hoax, but even many of those are still hooked. There is more than one site devoted to it. Here one:

http://voynich.nu/index.html

Have a look through the Voynich Manuscript site, watch John Gielgud as Prospero in "Prospero's Books", and then read Goethe's "Faust"; it makes a kind of set of alchemical strangeness.

"There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy." Hamlet

Now there is a post with a bit of a range: Linux to Shakespeare,..

Alan Caro

[Jim Becker]

I forgot to add in my original post along the lines of "history" that many folks are mentioning that my first "personal" computer use was on a Commodore PET in the late 1970s that was owned by a former father-in-law. He knew how to make that thing "sing" and even sold a relatively sophisticated astronomy program for it for awhile. I later worked for Tandy/Radio Shack for 7 years and sold that complete line (including to school districts) and then moved on to selling turnkey systems based on SCO Xenix. That eventually evolved into UNIX systems from Motorola and some other providers as well as working with Banyan Vines networking which was also UNIX related under the hood. Linux came heavily into play with my former employer in the telecom world, but I was not working "on" systems; rather, I was designing and selling them.

[Rich Engelhardt]

Banyan VinesWow! There's a blast from the past. Street Talk was a remarkable idea and well ahead of the crowd - back in the day..

[Marshall Harrison]

From reading these posts it sounds like some of you guys worked on the same ancient systems I did. I didn't do much with mainframes but I did play around with an Old PDP8 and paper tape while upgrading the rat lab equipment to run on an IBM AT.

If you are as old as you are claiming then you will probably remember this and enjoy it The Bastard Operator from Hell (http://bofh.bjash.com/)

He was kind of a hero for those of us doing system administration on Unix.

Turn your sound down before following that link if you are at work.

[Jim Becker]

Wow! There's a blast from the past. Street Talk was a remarkable idea and well ahead of the crowd - back in the day..
Indeed. And I had the pleasure of working on the team one year that provided the network for Interop. :) I'm still in touch with some of those folks, actually.

But at the time, like now, "the best technology" didn't always win the race and Novell ruled the major percentage of the market. (I feel the same way about a particular 800 pound gorilla in the telecom world, too...great marketing but significantly better technology is available if folks want it...and want to pay less, too. :D )

[Rich Engelhardt]

But at the time, like now, "the best technology" didn't always win the race and Novell ruled the major percentage of the marketAnyone want a real deal on a Beta video recorder? LOL! Yeah, true dat - about "the best" vs "the cheapest".
Beta beat VHS in every way but the most important - cost of tapes....

[Jim Becker]

Anyone want a real deal on a Beta video recorder? LOL! Yeah, true dat - about "the best" vs "the cheapest".
Beta beat VHS in every way but the most important - cost of tapes....
Yea, I was a Beta user, too...both for video and I also used it as a "mastering deck" when I was mixing down multi-track music recordings for awhile from a four-track. :)

[Wade Lippman]

I started out 49 years ago (lets see someone beat that) programming Fortran on Whatfiv.

Marshall, I also used a PDP8 in 1969. Geez that was hot for its day. 4k of memory IIRC. Don't remember the operating system, but the language was Focal.

[Jim Becker]

PL-1 at Penn State (punch cards :D ) and I later learned Fortran and Cobol "on the fly" so I could help my spouse at the time grade papers for the programming class she was TA-ing. She got very sick and we couldn't afford to lose the income...

[Mike Henderson]

I started out 49 years ago (lets see someone beat that) programming Fortran on Whatfiv.

Marshall, I also used a PDP8 in 1969. Geez that was hot for its day. 4k of memory IIRC. Don't remember the operating system, but the language was Focal.

That's easy. I did my first programming in Fortran in about 1963-1964 when I was in college. Programmed an electrical circuit design for a class. If I recall correctly, it was on an IBM 1401.

It was really assigned to be done with slide rules - profs were not computer oriented in those days. The speed at which the 1401 solved the design just amazed me. It would have taken many hours on a slide rule and there almost certainly would have been errors.

I did some PDP8 assembler language programming later in a programming class, probably in the 70's after my military service.

Mike

[Alan Rutherford]

I can't top either of you, but how often do you hear "Microsoft" and "Fortran" in the same sentence? Around 1979 I was getting my Computer Science degree. I had a Radio Shack TRS-80 and got away with doing a lot of my homework on that instead of the PDP-[something or other] on campus. Microsoft had Fortran for the TRS-80 on a cassette tape. The one I bought was defective and since I lived in Seattle, I took it back to Microsoft. At the time they had 10-15 employees and were upstairs from a bank in Bellevue, WA. I remember the place as being chaotic. Maybe "dynamic" would be a better word. They have upgraded their office a bit from those days.

[Marshall Harrison]

I never did any Fortran. I signed up for the class back in college but the class didn't make as no one else was interested.

I counted several years ago and found that I had used 27 different languages over the course of my schooling and work career. Some were pretty obscure or had limited application.

Jim, near to the end of my career I moved into Telecom and served as an IVR Engineer. Mostly doing speech recognition and VOIP. One of my apps (outbound) kept 4 T1s tied up when things got busy as it did 4+ million calls a month. My Newton's Telecom Dictionary is sitting on my bookcase about 4' from where I am sitting. I'll probably never get rid of it but I've quit updating it.

[Jim Becker]

Marshall, the evolution of IVR has been very interesting...it was a big part of my business. What we can do today with speech technology, natural language, artificial intelligence and intense analytics is amazing. And getting away from crusty old TDM T1 circuits in favor of SIP really kicked things up a few notches, too!

[Marshall Harrison]

Marshall, the evolution of IVR has been very interesting...it was a big part of my business. What we can do today with speech technology, natural language, artificial intelligence and intense analytics is amazing. And getting away from crusty old TDM T1 circuits in favor of SIP really kicked things up a few notches, too!

Agreed. But SIP is a lot harder to diagnose and debug. Especially when using UDP instead of TCP.

[Jim Becker]

Agreed. But SIP is a lot harder to diagnose and debug. Especially when using UDP instead of TCP.
It's not "harder"...it's just "different" and making the transition is primarily a "learning experience". But it's worth it. Disaster recovery and load balancing is significantly improved and automated because it's just routed flows and with SIP, you can pass information along with the communication without complex traditional CTI. That reduces overall network/connection complexity and greatly improves customer engagement because anything and everything known about the customer travels with the flow. That means no repeated questions and much better real-time analytics. You know...people really do hate to have to repeatedly answer the same questions over and over and over and over and over and....just to get what they need or get to the best resource to server them. :)

[Lee DeRaud]

That's easy. I did my first programming in Fortran in about 1963-1964 when I was in college. Programmed an electrical circuit design for a class. If I recall correctly, it was on an IBM 1401.

It was really assigned to be done with slide rules - profs were not computer oriented in those days. The speed at which the 1401 solved the design just amazed me. It would have taken many hours on a slide rule and there almost certainly would have been errors.

I did some PDP8 assembler language programming later in a programming class, probably in the 70's after my military service.

MikeYou're a bit older than I am, but our computer sequence is similar: I was one of the first students in a programming class in high school, 1967-68, doing assembly and Fortran on a 1401 that the Fairfax County school system had installed to automate report cards and teacher payroll. (One of the main "features" of that whole operation was that it forced them to install A/C.)

And I met up with the PDP8 (using BASIC) in '71 or so, but most of my college programming was Algol66 on Burroughs mainframes. First real computer "work" was DG Nova assembler and a little PDP11, followed by a series of specialized military stuff (AN/UYS-1, AN/UYQ-20 etc), until COTS became a big deal and we got some Sun workstations...ended up doing a lot of Solaris stuff, followed by VxWorks on various embedded VME processors.

[Marshall Harrison]

It's not "harder"...it's just "different" and making the transition is primarily a "learning experience". But it's worth it. Disaster recovery and load balancing is significantly improved and automated because it's just routed flows and with SIP, you can pass information along with the communication without complex traditional CTI. That reduces overall network/connection complexity and greatly improves customer engagement because anything and everything known about the customer travels with the flow. That means no repeated questions and much better real-time analytics. You know...people really do hate to have to repeatedly answer the same questions over and over and over and over and over and....just to get what they need or get to the best resource to server them. :)

Sounds like you were more on the network side of things. I had problems finding good software for viewing the UDP packets. WireShark wasn't very good at it. I had to deal with Federation servers, load balancers, database servers, the ASR that all had to trust and play well together or the speech rec didn't work. Part of my problem was that I was using a Microsoft system (Speech Server then Office Communications Server then Lync then Skype for Business). Constantly changing SDKs and APIs. Code samples that worked one month didn't work the next month as they had changed the API (so much for honoring a SOAP contract).

I feel so much better and happier now that I have retired and given that mess up.

[Jim Becker]

I feel so much better and happier now that I have retired and given that mess up.

Ditto!!!!! I loved the technology. I loved the people. I even liked (most of) my customers. I just got tired of the industry and "big business" in general. It was time. ;)

BTW, all my SIP stuff was encrypted so that required different tools than things like Wireshark for folks who really wanted to dive into packets.