Subject: Re: Early,Nixdorf personal computer

From: chris <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon Jul 7 14:56:01 2003

>Not exactly an early one ... I guess in a few years they try
>to sell us 486es as 'early' PCs :)

Why not, a friend of mine that is employeed as a IT manager told me the 
other day about an unlabeled computer he wanted to give me that had 
"antique memory" in it. I was all excited wondering what he might have 
that could be "antique".

It turned out to be a generic Pentium 90 with 72 pin SIMMs!!!

-chris
<http://www.mythtech.net>

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From: James Rice <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon Jul 7 15:05:01 2003

To most of the kids in IT today, anything not a t least a P3 is a 
"classic" and they have no clue what to do with it.  These are the kids 
that are being turned out by the MS certification mills.  Last week I 
had a newly minted MCSE tell me that the "net" command had been 
discontinued with DOS.  Heaven help me if I had presented her with a  
Unix shell.

James

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From: Philip Pemberton <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri Jul 11 04:10:01 2003

In message <[email-masked]>
          James Rice <[email-masked]> wrote:

> that are being turned out by the MS certification mills. 
Heh - don't I know it. I once explained to someone how I could plug my Linux
laptop into the network and have the admin passwords in less than ten
minutes. Her response was "Yeah, but you've got no reason to do that". I said
"But - hypothetically - what if someone really did want to break into the
network?". She had no answer... Next inDUHvidual, please!

> Last week I 
"This is our UNIX fileserver. It's running ..."
"Hey! You can't use UNIX systems on a Windows network! It'll break
everything!"
"Actually, it works perfectly. As I was saying, it's running SAMBA so we can
use it as a fileserver..."
"But it'll break everything!"
"Excuse me, I'm a fully qualified IT engineer with [n] years experience.
You're a newly-hired MCSE. Do you know anything about UNIX?"
"Uh, no, but.."
"Well, here's a set of UNIX books. Have a quick look through them (especially
the 'Ultimate SAMBA Reference') and tell me why 1,000 Windows 2000 systems
won't coexist with our $10,000 UNIX server."
"Uh....."

Microsoft: Spreading misinformation about our competitors since the late
1970s.

Later.
-- 
Phil.
[email-masked]
http://www.philpem.dsl.pipex.com/
... Dunno if we'll get that past the CSA und UL 'owever.

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From: "Fred N. van Kempen" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri Jul 11 05:07:00 2003

> > that are being turned out by the MS certification mills.
Hmm.

Also, dont underestimate current IT colleges.  I am feeling more and
more apalled at what they get taught there.  JAVA is Programming,
WinXP is "OS Design" (sometimes they divert to MacOS 9, it seems)
and The PeeCee is Hardware Design & Engineering.

I recently slapped one of those "teachers" in the face with an LK201
(yes, it still works - the keyboard, that is) and threatened to take
his place for a few months, and teach them REAL technology instead.

Guess what?  The dork NEVER had done any real programming, never had
any serious exposure to OS design, and never even came CLOSE to a
piece of open-guts hardware.....

*SCARED MODE*

> Microsoft: Spreading misinformation about our competitors since the late
I have been a fully certified MCSE, MCSD and MCSA since 1996.  We were
never taught that UNIX will bite NT systems or networks, just that it
can be awkward to make them talk and/or work together.  Which still holds
true, although its getting better, thanks to efforts on both sides.

And yes, I know "a bit" about UNIX and networking, too.

This poor girl (only way I can describe her..) had bad teachers from a
probably clueless school/training organization.  See my note above on
THOSE...

The girl can still be rescued, and you did well: expose her to that
"scary" (UNIX) stuff, and she'll learn and understand.  And forget the
crap her (bad) teachers forced her down the, uhh, ok, throat.

Cheers,
	Fred

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From: Mark Firestone <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri Jul 11 05:38:00 2003

Heh.  I have an MCSE, but I didn't go to no school to get it.  No sir.  I 
bought the books (and did the job...)

I also set up SAMBA (and lots of other linux stuff, with no frigging 
book... sigh...)

Back to my exploration of RSTS/E... anyone know how to make $notice.txt 
print automatically at logon?

Take Care,

Mark

>crap her (bad) teachers forced her down the, uhh, ok, throat.

[---------]
"Homer, we don't have to have sex."
"Yes we do, the cookie told me so."
"Deserts aren't always right Homer."
"But they're so delicious."

Website:      retrobbs.org
BBS:           telnet bbs.retrobbs.org 2323
Tradewars:   telnet tradewars.retrobbs.org
[---------]

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From: [email-masked] (Tony Duell)
Date: Fri Jul 11 13:07:00 2003

> more apalled at what they get taught there.  JAVA is Programming,

Oh, don't get me started....

What worries me are the large number of modern books on such subjects 
that are woefully incomplete. Things like books on hardware (and 
particularly CPU design) that don't contain a single schematics (let 
alone a schematic of a complete CPU [1], however simple). Books on 
operating system internals without a single complete routine (if there's 
any source code at all). 

[1] I estimate you could draw out a 4 bit CPU at gate level in under 10 
pages...

Many years ago, I wanted to understand how a telephone exchange worked 
(no, not for phreaking, OK). I read many books that claimed to explain 
it, and came away none the wiser. Nothing seemed to make sesne. It 
appeared that at last there was an electrical device that I couldn't 
understand.

Then I found a copy of Atkinson's 'Telephony' in a secondhand bookshop. 
This excellent pair of books gives full circuit diagrams for actual 
telephone exchanges (well, OK, if a circuit exists <n> times, one for 
each line, you only get it drawn once). At last everythinh made sense. I 
could understand what was going on.

And I realised then what the problem was. The other books were too 
simplified. THey missed out important details, and my brain couldn't fill 
them in. I couldn't make sense of the partial facts in said books...

-tony

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From: "John Allain" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri Jul 11 17:22:00 2003

> Also, dont underestimate current IT colleges.  I am feeling 
> more and more apalled at what they get taught there.
> JAVA is Programming,

I guess one ultimate test of suitability is what level (breadth vs depth)
of technology would make a person most competitive in the global
economy.  I'd be interested in how they teach programming in India,
Israel and Singapore, for example.

John A.