🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <pagrbk$u6o$1...@dont-email.me>,
Dan Espen  <dan1...@gmail.com> wrote:
>hanc...@bbs.cpcn.com writes:
>
>> On Saturday, April 7, 2018 at 4:13:53 PM UTC-4, Lynn Wheeler wrote:
>>> S/360 announce 4/7/1964, 54yrs
>>> http://www-03.ibm.com/ibm/history/exhibits/mainframe/mainframe_PR360.html
>>> 
>>> ... and from 34yrs ago
>>> 
>>> we had regular Friday's after work and one of the discussions was that
>>> most of middle management and executives were computer illiterate
>>> ... and could we create something that would attract them to using
>>> computers. We came up with the idea of doing online telephone books. Jim
>>> Gray would write the lookup application and I would create the
>>> collection and formating process ... but neither of us would use more
>>> than 2weeks of our time (note this was later picked up by and shipped by
>>> PROFs). One of the hardest problems were site security that believed
>>> computer/soft copies of paper phone books violated security.  From long
>>> ago and far away:
>> [snip]
>>
>> That is strange that something like an internal telephone
>> directory would be a security threat, especially years ago
>> when computer access was more tightly controlled than now.
>>
>> Years ago my PPOE moved its internal phone book to the VM machine.
>> Was a lot easier to use.  However, all it had was the alpha listing
>> of individuals; it did not have dialing instructions nor listings
>> by department.
>
>At Bell Labs and it's descendants, we had the "dq" command.
>(Directory Query).
>The UNIX version had a nice phonetic search.  You really only
>had to approximate the name you were looking for.
>You could get "dq" to return a full list of all employees.
>A few employees used this to build a tool that would track
>new hires and fires.  You could get on a distribution list
>and get weekly updates on changes within the company.
>
>Sadly dq eventually died and we ended up with Microsoft
>contact lists.
>
>> Sadly, today, it's difficult to reach many companies by telephone,
>> even tiny ones, because everyone has a computer front end and the
>> caller is forced to wade through multiple menus.
>
>My last 10 years of employment I never answered the phone.
>Somewhere along the line I had forgotten my password to
>voice mail and stopped caring.  I felt if they didn't
>send email, they really didn't want to contact me.
>
>-- 
>Dan Espen

"There's an old story about the person who wished his computer were as easy to
use as his telephone.  That wish has come true, since I no longer know how to
use my telephone." -- B. Stroustrup, AT&T, (inventor of C++)


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