I started my life in the computer business by joining IBM in 1961 after
college. I was initially a Field Engineer on the IBM 7090/7094. The systems
I worked on were located at Lockheed in Mountain View, CA, Ames Laboratory
(NASA) and Stanford University.
I was subsequently promoted to IBM's Development Labs in Poughkeepsie, New
York where I developed diagnostic software for the IBM 7040/44. I
subsequently wrote a diagnostic monitor for the (first) IBM 360/40 and then
worked on the development of MVS - the operating system for System/360
mainframe.
After leaving IBM I worked for the Federal Reserve System - running IT at the
Philadelphia Fed. - and from there several other computer related jobs - and
I finally started a consulting practice in 1988 specializing in network
design and later (currently) computer related IP (intellectual property)
matters.
My first "home" computer was a CDC-160A which I purchased (for more $ than I'd
care to admit) around 1968. I subsequently acquired a PDP-8/L, PDP-8/I,
PDP-12, and a RPC-4000 (drum machine). I donated all of the above to various
museums - the PDP-12 and the entire DECUS PDP-12 library going to the
Computer History Museum here in Mountain View, CA.
My current collection includes lots of various S-100 bus CP/M systems
(Including IMSAI 8080, Polymorphic, etc.), Lots of Silicon Graphics systems
(from PI -> Onyx Infinite Reality), Lots of Sun SPARCs (including a rare Sun
portable of which only two prototypes were built), several IBM RS/6000's,
several HP HP-UX systems, multiple VAXes, DEC PDP-11/23+, PDP-11/83, early
Macintoshes, NeXT cube (w/Dimension Graphics), NeXT mono/color, Data General
Nova clones, IBM AS/400, etc., etc.
I also have a lot of software for the above - including OSs for all of the
above.
So I'd classify myself as one of, if not the oldest, "fart" on this list -
with way too many computers... ;-)
Cheers,
Lyle
--
Lyle Bickley
Bickley Consulting West Inc.
http://bickleywest.com
"Black holes are where God is dividing by zero"
Received on Sun Feb 27 2005 - 15:59:30 GMT