: Modern Technology
Starting in the early 1980s until my recent retirement I made a living programming computers, but my first actual experience with computers was in 1965 when I took a summer course in Fortran programming at Stevens Institute of Technology. This was ancient technology. There were no such things as computer terminals back then, we programmed using punch cards. We sat in front of bulky noisy machines and typed in our programs. Chunka! Chunka! Chunk! Make those punches! If you made a mistake there was no such thing as backspace or cut & paste. You tossed the punch card and tried again. Once you finished with your program, you then walked barefoot on broken glass over to the computer room to submit your punch cards to the computer. In those days the computer (with 64K of RAM) took up an entire room. The computer spit out the results onto a different set of punch cards. You then swam through shark infested waters to get to the printer room to see your results.
Error on line 40
Oops, gotta do that all over again.
In 1983, when I got my first actual programming job, using a terminal was an amazing step forward. And over the course of the next 35 years or so I did some really cool & complex things. I designed and programmed a system used to support nuclear power plants, I redesigned a system to keep track of depreciation of inventory, etc, etc. I worked with terabyte sized databases.
You would think with all this experience under my belt that I would be adept at working with computers. But for some reason, I am continually stymied by today’s modern “user friendly” software. I invariably get hung up on some seemingly simple task.
Case in point. I was with my family and took a picture on my cellphone. My daughter takes a look at it and says “Hey Dad, can you text that to me”?
Ooh, you can text photos? That’s pretty cool, let me do it. So I fumble around for a few minutes, but for the life of me I’m getting nowhere. I can hear my daughter rolling her eyes behind my back. Finally, in exasperation, she goes “D-a-ad!”, takes the phone, and goes “See – touch here, here, and here” Choing – off goes the photo – and I hear the response on her phone. I can now text photos with the best of them.
I’ll share a few other stories in the following months.
Meanwhile, I have no gigs or concerts this month, but there are two other items of interest.
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Looking for Volunteer Listeners/Reviewers
As I compose my music, I often hit situations where I have, say, two different ways a piece can progress – and I like both ways and can’t decide. So I’m looking for some volunteers – folks who are able & willing to spend the occasional odd 1/2 an hour and listen to two different versions of a piece and let me know which they like better.
So if you are willing to help me in this regard, please respond and let me know. Just to be clear, this is an unpaid position.
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Teaser Alert
I will soon be releasing a single – either late August or early September. Stay tuned for details.