2007 — Day 93 - is that the Time?
On this day, back in 1974, I began what was to pass as the computing stage of my career (mostly a downhill career, though I did make it all the way up to
first line manager back in the days of the first series of Blakes 7).1 I started
(in the middle of the so-called 3-day week, complete with phased power cuts and the threat of petrol rationing) with a little outfit called
ICL which had the rare distinction at the time of being an indigenous company that was actually larger than the local IBM operation. Mind you, having read
a book2 called "Think" by William Rodgers a few years earlier I had already sort of decided against IBM at
the time.
Ah, the luxury of such youthful prejudices! They disappeared about the same time as ICL began to in 1981 and I hopped over the computing fence accordingly. And then never looked back for quarter of a century, come to think of it.
Funny old world.
This time, I mean business!
At last, a 900-page book that actually has entire sections specifically devoted to the needs of system administrators and server dittos. Whoop-de-blinking-whoop!
Thank you, Borders.3
When I think back to the trouble I had getting the word "simple" approved for placing in my factual sentence "This book is going to teach you how to write simple CICS application programs." in the Preface to the first edition of the IBM CICS Primer (1984), I'm coldly amused by the bold cover statement here: "The book you need to succeed!" though I won't comment on its ambiguity.