🚀 go-pugleaf

<hanc...@bbs.cpcn.com> wrote:
> On Wednesday, March 28, 2018 at 8:09:21 PM UTC-4, Lynn Wheeler wrote:
> 
> 
> 
>> this was in period (late 70s/early 80s) where 3270 terminals were part
>> of fall budget cycle and each one required VP-level sign-off. Then there
>> was a rapidly spreading rumor that some of the corporate executive
>> committee members were using email ... and all of a sudden every middle
>> manager in the company had to have 3270 terminal on their desk (even if
>> they never actually used them, spending the day with the vm370 login
>> screen or possibly PROFS menu being burned into screen) ... pre-empting
>> annual 3270 terminal deliveries justified for development projects.
> 
> When PCs came out, every manager wanted one for the prestige
> of it, and also wanted the better models (faster chip).  The 
> people who actually did work got stuck with the lesser models.
> So a manager would have a nice AT that never got touched, while
> the clerk pounding away all day had the XT.
> 
> As to terminals, I think most places started off with a 
> terminal room where the terminals were shared among a large
> staff of programmers.  Then as the cost dropped, more and
> more programmers got them.  For us, it was in 1989 that 
> finally every programmer got a terminal.
> 
> One welcome terminal feature (I think provided by the controller)
> was the ability to get multiple sessions and easily toggle between
> them.  This way a programmer could look at his source code and
> then the execution on CICS.
> 
> (Another welcome feature was software that allowed one to step
> through execution of a CICS program, being able to look at results
> of each line and of all the fields.  We had both the IBM product
> and the one from an independent vendor.)
> 
> 
>> other trivia: PROFS group had collecting some number of internal
>> applications (including telephone books) and wrapping MENUs around
>> them. They had taken very early version of VMSG for the email
>> client. When the VMSG tried to offer them a much enhanced version, the
>> PROFS group attempted to get him fired (since they had already claimed
>> credit for everyting).  Things quieted down when VMSG author
>> demonstrated that every PROFS email had his initials in non-displayed
>> field (after that the VMSG author only shared source with me and one
>> other person).
> 
> Our corporate phone book was also on PROFS.  Most useful.
> 
> I liked PROFS, and used it until it was unplugged.  Others liked
> the PC email packages.
> 
> It's sad to read of intra-department squabbles at IBM, but it
> seems from the IBM Early Computer history that this is nothing
> new.  Back in the early 1950s there was rivalry between the
> Endicott and Poughkeepsie labs.  The S/360 development had a
> lot of sharp differences of opinion on the direction to go.
> 
> Some CEO's believe conflict in an organization is healthy and
> spurs people onward.  Watson Jr said in his memoirs that he
> liked to purposely shake things up in the company.  Personally,
> I think a company functions better as a united team and conflicting
> are best worked out at a low level when possible.
> 

That's best if you're going in the right direction, but a herd of lemmings
marching in lockstep off a cliff is never a good thing.

-- 
Pete