My Work Stuff

Yes I do work... I work in the Information Technology industry and have done so since 1976... wow, boy that seems a long time..

I started as a computer operator working with an IBM mainframe called a 370/135 with about 128k of memory. Yes that was right 128k ! It was in the days when real programmers coded on sheets of paper and had "punch girls" transfer it to puched cards via an IBM 129 punch card machine. (Not really politically correct called them puch girls these days is it?).

You were in real trouble if you ever dropped one of those batches of cards, because if you didn't get back in the correct order and fed it in to the card reader (a 2501), then garbage in - garbage out.

I went on to become shift leader and then moved into programming, starting with Cobol and Assembler and then on to a "new" language called MarkIV. Did some CICS programming and changed streams and tried my hand at Systems Programming. By now we had upgraded through and IBM System 370/138, IBM 4331 and 4341 were installing an IBM 4381. The operating system was VSE under VM (will only make sense to IBM'ers).

The system got a bit long in the tooth, and we went out to tender for a new computer. We wanted something that would stay operational all the time and be easy to upgrade and grow with our needs. We ended up with a Tandem VLX. All new hardware and new operating system. Loved working on Tandem equipment but with a change in management came a change in management style.. (read some jerk at the top of the Company who thought IT was a expense not an investment and decided that to make half the IT staff redundant and to outsource the half he had just gotten rid off, would make good sense). Needless to say the Company no longer exists.

I had a bit of a break and went to work for a major Bank in the city, working with Tandem gear (originally NonStop CLX, then upgraded to Himalaya K series and now on Himalaya S series hardware.