Demography?

From: Aaron Christopher Finney <aaron_at_prinsol.com>
Date: Sun Mar 1 21:25:22 1998

> Hey all,
>
> I'm kind of curious as to the demography of the Classic Computer
> Mailing List. What are people's backgrounds, what are they doing now,
> and so forth.


The quickie:

I'm 24, a computer science student in Southern California, father of 2
boys, and work as a systems admin/programmer for a local company that
copies medical records for insurance companies. Most of my current job is
pushing unix servers around and making them push NT boxes around, but I
get to do some programming (mostly C and Powerbuilder) as well. I have
been going to school for almost 7 years now and have degrees in English
and Music composition, with somewhere between 2 1/2 - 3 years left to get
my B.S.

My first computer was a Vic-20, donated to the cause by my aunt (I was 8
y.o. or so, she won it in a raffle), that I abused until the letters were
worn off the keys. During these years I wanted an Apple IIe like I used at
school in the worst way, but my parents had a hard enough time buying
clothes and food. My best-friend's dad had an Osbourne 1 that I drooled
over (who wouldn't? It had *floppy drives*!) until I moved to California
when I was 12. At this time I got an 800XL and really learned how to
program with it. I was able to work enough little side jobs to end up with
two 1050 floppy drives, a 256k memory upgrade, an 850 interface, and a
2400 baud Codex modem. Welcome to The Black Sabbath BBS, with your sysop
Squid Vicious....

My collection of computers is really varied in content and purpose. I have
a lot of Atari 8-bit stuff because I find it really *relaxing* to program
those reliable little machines after a day of Solaris and Windoze
headaches. There's also the nostalgia thing. I have an Osbourne and an
Apple IIe because I wanted them so much as a kid. And then there are all
the machines that I picked up just because they are so neat with all
kinds of *lights* and yummy mechanical clicks. So far:

Apple IIe systems with stuff
Atari 400,800,600XL,800XL,1200XL,810's,850,1050's,1030,410,1010,1027,Rana
1000, Indus GT, a couple of monitors, etc.
Mac 128,512,Plus,Se,Classic,Se/30,LCII,ImageWriter,ImageWriter
(wide),Stylewriter
Commodore Vic20,C64,128 (with all kinds of peripherals)
IBM XT's,AT's
Kaypro 2's and 4's, TRS-80's, Osbourne 1, etc.
Colecovision and Adam
Sun 3/50,3/60,3/80,4/330,Sparc 1, Sparc 1+, monitors, etc.
VaxStation 3100, MicroVax II (listed but I haven't picked it up yet)

Ah well, enough wasted space.
Received on Sun Mar 01 1998 - 21:25:22 GMT