Continued

[susandennis]

I really did love my new job. I threw myself into it in part to counteract the feelings I got at home from the marriage I was ignoring but part of it was just because there was something new and cool nearly every day.

One day not terribly long after I started at the job, I was having lunch with a group from my team and one of the managers said 'oh we finally got those home terminals in, anybody interested?'

I had not one single clue what he was talking about but did that stop me from shooting my hand up in the air?? Heck no! 'I sure am!!' Turns out the IT people were trying out remote access to the plant's mainframes and they were particularly interested in non-engineering types. And that's how I got first did home computing.

They gave me a 3101 ASCII Display Station and a 300 baud coupler modem. Just like the ones pictured here.

I had a phone extension installed in our spare bedroom which became My Room. I would go in there and close the door and spend hours at that terminal. I could access the PROFs system so I could do work but mainly I just explored. There was a kind of IM called Tell and using it, I would 'chat' with sys admins around the world. Anyone who had some free time was delighted to talk to a chick. I also just entered commands to see what they would do. Mainly I learned that I could mostly try whatever I wanted and not bring the system down so I tried everything.

It was just fun and way funner than my marriage.

The other thing I discovered at work was speech writing. We had a speech writer on staff and he went on vacation one time. The head of the plant needed to address the employees at a special all hands meeting about some corporate something or another. The speech writer had written the speech but it needed some last minute tweaking.

My boss's boss asked me if I would take a stab at it. I said 'sure!' I'd never even seen a written speech script before but how hard could it be? Turns out it was hard BUT, turns out it was fun. And the head of the plant was impressed with what I did. Before the speech writer got back from vacation, he asked me to write him some remarks for a lunchtime speech he had to give.

He told me what he wanted to say and then sent me to talk to some other people who could explain stuff and add ideas. So off I went. It was really fun and he liked the speech a lot and I found a new niche for me. LOTS of very excellent corporate writers hate speech writing. It can be kind of thankless. And if the speaker scores a win with your speech, the speaker gets the credit. If the speaker bombs, he/she and everyone else blames the speech writer. But I loved it.

To Be Continued

Comments

[captainsblog.livejournal.com]

In my last spring and summer before law school in 1981, I was the Ithaca-based correspondent for Syracuse's then-three newspapers. I'd been a stringer before that, dictating copy over a phone line, but once hired on real payroll, I got a VDT and 300-ish-baud coupler much like those.(I also took occasional pictures with my father's 35 mm Minolta, which I'd drop off at the Ithaca Greyhound station to be delivered to the 'Cuse for development and rare usage.)

The phone bills were staggering. They paid them all, but most months they outstripped my pay- and that was at Ma Bell night-and-weekend rates.

[susandennis]

Oh, those phone bills! But, cool.

[rejectomorph]

A dial-up connection accessed with a literal dial! I've never seen one of those, either. My first dial-up connection needed only a click of the mouse, once it had been set up.

[susandennis]

The olden days were rough :)

But, the modem I got after this one (still a separate box) did not require you pick up the receiver or actually dial the phone. It took me for-freakin-ever to wrap my head around the computer could/would actually, virtually, 'pick up the receiver and dial the phone'. I thought that was some kind of druid magic.

It was nearly a decade before I had (or even heard of) one that was mouse click to connect via an internal modem.

[(Anonymous)]

Being wide open to any new thing can net you some bad experiences...but also some awesome ones, and I'm really enjoying reading about yours! That is so cool.

-Kyrielle

[susandennis]

I like 'being wide open to any new thing'. I always figured it was 'being too stupid to know better'!! But, I did get very lucky - over and over and over again.

[sweetmeow]

I'm not totally sure what year(s) this all happened for you, but my guess is that my entrance into the online world was more than a decade later. Our first computer was 1988, but it wasn't until 1994 that we went online, first with an external 2400, then 14400 baud rate modems before we got to an internal modem.

These photos you've posted are so interesting ... I never saw anything like this where the phone receiver was actually placed on the modem! Very cutting edge!! I am so fascinated reading these...!

I started out with CompuServe, which was one of the first opportunities for the general (non geek) public to get online, have an email address, hang out in forums, etc. In the beginning, CompuServe wasn't even "internet", as you stayed within the walls of CompuServe. I don't even think you could email people outside of CompuServe in the beginning. But - it wasn't long before I entered the WWW.

My memory of this time was the expense. Until they gave us a local number, it a toll call. In addition there was CompuServe's pay by the minute policy. My solution was to become a sysop in the pets forum which eliminated those fees once you were inside those forum walls, and by that time there was a local number I could use.

Yeah -- it was addicting. Actually it still is. It didn't do much for my marriage, either, although after some very rocky times, I found balance (and Ray discovered the internet himself! LOL)

[susandennis]

This was in the early 80's - I didn't get my first personal computer until 1985.

[fenchurche.livejournal.com]

Back before instant messenger systems, when I was traveling, I would find a way to get an internet connection (not always easy at first, but better later on) and since my provider had shell access, I could get to a UNIX prompt. So, I would get into my account, email my husband at his work address to let him know I was online and then we would just use Tell to chat with each other. It might have been easier to find some IRC channel somewhere, but we didn't have to depend on finding an empty one or creating our own to chat that way. This would have been a bit later though... at least 2400 baud modems by then (I think we were hitting the 9600 range).

[susandennis]

2400 baud 9600?? speed demons!! Love your system.

[maju01.livejournal.com]

I got my first computer in 1991 but didn't get internet access until about 5 years later. At the time there were a couple of free ISPs in Australia so I was able to experiment with being online without it costing an arm and a leg. At first it was all a pretty steep learning curve for me but now i'm addicted. Once I discovered email there was no looking back because I've always hated making phone calls. Using email was so much less stressful a way of communicating.