ColI'm so old I remember when the internet didn't have commercials.
Harry@kibcol1049 I remember dialup to connect to an ad free internet, worse than that I remember punch cards .
@harrymuzz At my first job, the computer room temperature was controlled with double door air lock to enter. The computer was huge with punch card operators typing and huge floor to ceiling reel to reel tapes. The print outs were on large sheets of paper and took several runs for all the errors to be corrected. With programmers, inputters and clerks, there were about 8 staff. Nowadays a kid of 8 or 9 could do it all and more on a smartphone and 30 times quicker! Hard to believe but true.
Tim Hall@kibcol1049 @harrymuzz and if you went into the computer room (normally only to show a visitor round and impress them) you had to put a drawing pin into a cork board at the door, one for each person. So that in the event of a fire and the room being flooded with halon gas, they would know that there were unconscious people inside needing rescued quickly.
Tim Ward ⭐🇪🇺🔶 #FBPE@outinthehills @kibcol1049 @harrymuzz I don't think we had that. But we were told that when the klaxon went off we'd better be out of the door in as few seconds as we could manage.
@outinthehills @harrymuzz My last job had a massive computer room with banks of computers, servers, alarms and network stuff. Not being in IT now I only went in there occasionally for some minor maintenance tasks. It was a maze of alleyways and corridors. When the fire alarm went off you had 2 minutes to get out before the gas fire suppressant was released, flashing red lights and deafening klaxons increased panic as you struggled to remember the way out. Very scary!
@kibcol1049 @harrymuzz and visitors were always disappointed that there weren't lots of wall mounted tape drives spinning, that's what computer rooms looked like in films. It was much more like a launderette, with lots of big (blue) metal cabinets gently humming.
Andy Wootton@outinthehills @kibcol1049 @harrymuzz Ours were top-loaders. (I have terrible memory but they were DEC RA-60s.)
Peter 💙 Stevens@outinthehills @kibcol1049 @harrymuzz
One of my customers was doing a promotional video. I was hidden behind their tape drives using the diag tool to make them go backwards and forwards.
vicarvernon@outinthehills @kibcol1049 @harrymuzz my first job was in head office, adjacent to the computer room. It was all Very Underwhelming. There was great excitement in our department when we got the first desktop pc.
@kibcol1049 @outinthehills @harrymuzz
More scary was dealing with the printer output after the halon spread it EVERYWHERE!
Barbara Monaco@outinthehills @kibcol1049 @harrymuzz
Really? I just read a murder mystery that included halon gas in a computer room in its plot. I thought it seemed far fetched, but what do I know. 🙃
Really? I just read a murder mystery that included halon gas in a computer room in its plot. I thought it seemed far fetched, but what do I know. 🙃
@Barbramon1 @outinthehills @kibcol1049 @harrymuzz Halon gas in computer rooms was real. If the klaxon goes off you'd better hold your breath as you get out.
Alexand@TimWardCam @Barbramon1 @outinthehills @kibcol1049 @harrymuzz
Totally real concern, we didn’t remove the Halon system where I worked until late-1990s. The DEC minicomputer cost more than the building and had to be protected! (Was still running the original COBOL too…)
I think they got a SUN UNIX box and replaced it around Y2K.
Not a Spring Onion@Barbramon1 @outinthehills @kibcol1049 @harrymuzz
Ah, "The Grid" by Philip Kerr.
AKA "The Tower (1985) , but as a book."
@wakame @outinthehills @kibcol1049 @harrymuzz It was a Michael Connelly mystery. The title escapes me at the moment. Have been reading a lot of Connelly.
@Barbramon1 @outinthehills @kibcol1049 @harrymuzz I saw that plot-line updated recently, with an energy efficient house being used as a murder weapon.
Tuchowski@adipoeserPursch @woo @outinthehills @kibcol1049 @harrymuzz Pretty sure now that it was "Fair Warning".