Posted: August 04, 2000 at 19:51:37: by Michael Martinez
: : I've met Irene a time or two, but I don't know if she is old
: : enough to remember that all computers used to be
: : called "beasts". Andre has never became a Beastmaster (or
: : Beastmistress), I guess. :): I don't remember the Damnthings in the 'Fuzzy' stories. Guess
: I'm going to have to visit the library. They were four-legged animals that would charge a human with a deadly ferocity. The hero of the LITTLE FUZZY novel had to stand and fire on one directly as it charged him. I think they were supposed to be sort of like mad moose with sharp horns or something like that. : Maybe calling computers "beasts" is a regional thing? I don't believe so. : I've been in computers since they first got user terminals -
: ah, that means punch cards for most programming and paper
: tapes for re-booting, and user terminals for Wang calculators
: (like the credit card calculators of today) and terminals for
: the NEW on-line programming language APL. I remember that even
: 6 years later I was using a tele-type terminal that I could
: type faster than it could print the letters on it's paper. Well, my first exposure to computers came in 1975. I was able to tinker with them on and off for a couple of years and then went to a technical school in 1978 for a Data Processing program. I learned to keypunch on IBM 021 and 023 keypunch machines, but occasionally had to use the lead-cased 010 keypunch to fix up my cards. I thought the Data General 8010 was really fast and neat (futuristic looking, even). And then in 1980 I got involved with mini-computers, where you had a terminal and typed your code directly into the machine and things were interactive. What a concept! :) : I advised Andre not to use drums to disrupt the robots in "No
: Folded Handes", but she went with them. My suggestion was have
: the drums bring lightening - that could disrupt the innards of
: a robot, and probably any communications with a home base. Haven't read that one, but then, I've never come across a science fiction story which handled computers correctly anyway. : In a more modern time, I would have just suggested that she
: send a virus to the robots - or better yet, just have them all
: have Microsoft operating systems - then they'd crash often &
: just have to be re-booted. LOL! The lost alien virus jumping up from the planet in the form of a raw lightning bolt to infect Picard's Enterprise still sickens me, but I have to admit, even with the breakup, there is a very real danger that we'll be saddled with Microsoft's crummy operating system for at least another generation.
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