Quote:
Originally Posted by BarracudaUAK
I was sure someone would fill in the area before Word Perfect, and Lotus 1-2-3.
Those were the earliest that I remembered...
My Mother had several jobs that included transferring older records/files to MS Office.
Some as far back as an early '60s OS (Unix maybe?) when everybody decided to update to PCs.
I remember using the old mainframe/dumb terminal at the local library to find books that I wanted (on submarines and planes mostly    ).
Then the library switched to a PC/web site based search system, I couldn't find ANYTHING I wanted, no matter how I searched.
I went to using the 'cards-in-the-small-drawer' file to find the books I wanted (I forget what the actual term is).
...
Sometime between 2010 and 2014, I found an old 486 DX/33mhz CPU and dropped it in the Socket next to the SX/25 processor... Played on that thing for the next few days.
Still works, has Win95 installed. 
BUT, Command; Aces of the Deep works on it. WITH voice commands!
...
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I did several conversion projects when PC first came out; sometimes the job was fairly easy and other times, they were near intolerable. The utility company I mentioned before was a case of the near intolerable; there was a very strong resistance from the mainframe group to the new PCs; the CFO and I asked for a direct connection to mainframe data so as to download raw financial information to be refined using the PCs, with the priority project being to speed up the monthly financial reports; prior to the PCs, the procedure was to have the DP unit printout a hard copy of the raw financial data (mainly ledgers and journals) and then forward it to Accounting where the data was written up, in pencil, on accounting pads in a rough final format; the pads would then be reviewed by the CFO, revised if needed, and the 'final' version would be sent to the Typing Pool where ditto machine masters where typed; then the ditto masters would be reviewed, and, once approved, the Print Shop would run off copies of the Financials to be distributed to the executives, outside auditors, and legal advisors; the whole process took about 1-1/2 to 2 weeks, not good if you wanted good data fast. The DP Head (who was a rather unpleasant person) refused to allow a mainframe to PC hookup, citing "security concerns", even though we argued having paper copies of printouts all over the place was hardly secure, and there was to be no connection to any other net, internal or external (the WWW was very new and we were far from capable of making any connection). They wouldn't budge, but they did grudgingly offer to supply us with the data on a tape spool (which were huge on mainframes), so we had to take what we could get; we found a tape drive that would interface with the IBM PCs. Lotus 1-2-3 (and later Symphony) couldn't directly download to the spreadsheet in those days, so I rigged up a macro in Lotus that would make a call to dBase III, which would run its own macro I programmed to run the tape drive and download the data to dBase II and then from there to Lotus. I had setup a spreadsheet to exactly mimic the final format of the monthly Financials and put a sort of gathering area for the data at the bottom of the spreadsheet, using formulas to assemble and compute the data into the appropriate areas of the report. Downloading form the tape took only a few minutes instead of hours over accounting pads; from there Accounting could make any necessary tweaks, print out a draft, get it approved, print a final, and xerox it, and distribute it to the execs, etc. The whole new method took two days, tops, rather than 1/2 to 2 weeks. After the battle over the data and tapes with DP, the CFO said he took no little amusement, when at the Executive Meeting following the first run of the new process, the CEO was praising the speed and efficiency of the new method; the DP Unit Head was rather put out by the CEO's praise of what he viewed as a threat to his little 'kingdom' and angrily said "Well, DP could have done the same thing long ago", to which the CEO demanded, "Well, then, why didn't you?" The CFO said watching the DP Head cringe when he realized he had royally put his foot in it was worth the trouble we had gone through...
I, too, miss the old index card files that used to be in libraries and have found the 'improved' digital lookups to be ma bit frustrating at times; if a patron is not really familiar with database search techniques, they can miss out on relevant information; an added problem is the quality of the conversion; here in LA, volunteers, of varying computer and typing skills, were used to manually enter the paper card data into the database; typos of all sorts resulted and, unless, you know try variant searches, some items will not show up. On a plus side, an artistic use for the old cards have been found:
http://www.poetichome.com/2010/03/15...eek-wallpaper/
Here in LA, the old wooden card catalog drawers have been re-purposed into a "Donor Wall" displaying the names of Library benefactors and donors:
I own what has been called one of the first models of a PC 'portable computer', a Compaq 'luggable', so called because the thing weighs about 40 pounds (a bit over 18 kilos):
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