A True Wonderful Quote...........Graham
Jul 26, 2019 11:54:38 #
dpullum wrote:
Those of us who have had mentors are lucky indeed.... (show quote)
After a few hundred iterations, Walla! Windows 10!
Jul 26, 2019 13:52:17 #
Graham Thirkill wrote:
My "Quote Thread", has come up with some... (show quote)
Many of us are just poor at counting our wealth....
Jul 26, 2019 18:12:13 #
Jul 26, 2019 20:02:53 #
Jul 30, 2019 00:50:27 #
drucker
Loc: Oregon
Thanks Graham -- fun to know that someone else on this thread knows what a Composing Stick is!
I too had my mentors.
"Uke," the shop foreman was in his early 70s and could easily turn a galley of Linotype slugs and a few lines of handset into a work of art and was always willing to share the "whys and hows" that made type a joy to view and read.
"Kens," the Linotype operator, had operated and maintained the same Model 14 for nearly 50 years after helping to install it as a high school student working part time. When the installation was finished and it was time for instruction, the man scheduled to run the machine was ill. The installer couldn't wait and suggested to the boss that Kens seemed like a good candidate for the job. The boss agreed and Kens got the job while finishing high school. When I arrived as the new kid in the shop, the Linotype company had just done an article on Kens and the machine for their magazine. He had operated the machine continuously except for a few months during WW2 when he lost a leg but returned to the job when he recovered.
With their combined knowledge and experience, they were a formidable pair and always willing to share that knowledge. In the late 60s and early 70s the printing industry was changing rapidly from letterpress to offset printing and I've always wondered how they would have reacted to the technology that I now use. What would have taken them hours of tedious detailed work, I now accomplish with the computer's assistance in a few keystrokes. I like to believe that they would embrace the technology and push their skills to new highs.
And to not neglect the photography side of this forum, I'm in the process of photographing nearly 300 different composing sticks for an upcoming book project. That includes lots of closeups of the mechanical details of what are now mostly relics of the past. I've always done a lot of product photography and can hardly imagine what it would be like step back into using film for this current project!
Dennis
I too had my mentors.
"Uke," the shop foreman was in his early 70s and could easily turn a galley of Linotype slugs and a few lines of handset into a work of art and was always willing to share the "whys and hows" that made type a joy to view and read.
"Kens," the Linotype operator, had operated and maintained the same Model 14 for nearly 50 years after helping to install it as a high school student working part time. When the installation was finished and it was time for instruction, the man scheduled to run the machine was ill. The installer couldn't wait and suggested to the boss that Kens seemed like a good candidate for the job. The boss agreed and Kens got the job while finishing high school. When I arrived as the new kid in the shop, the Linotype company had just done an article on Kens and the machine for their magazine. He had operated the machine continuously except for a few months during WW2 when he lost a leg but returned to the job when he recovered.
With their combined knowledge and experience, they were a formidable pair and always willing to share that knowledge. In the late 60s and early 70s the printing industry was changing rapidly from letterpress to offset printing and I've always wondered how they would have reacted to the technology that I now use. What would have taken them hours of tedious detailed work, I now accomplish with the computer's assistance in a few keystrokes. I like to believe that they would embrace the technology and push their skills to new highs.
And to not neglect the photography side of this forum, I'm in the process of photographing nearly 300 different composing sticks for an upcoming book project. That includes lots of closeups of the mechanical details of what are now mostly relics of the past. I've always done a lot of product photography and can hardly imagine what it would be like step back into using film for this current project!
Dennis
Aug 1, 2019 09:42:15 #
[quote=Graham Thirkill]=-=-=-=-=-=--=
dpullum, thanks for your addition to my thread. Hence the quote, "Simplicity is the art of design".....
and that is very true,
Cheers and Beers
Graham
My classic addition to "Simplicity is the art of design" was the early word processor WordStar. It came with my first computer, an Osborne I, which ran on the old CP/M operating system. The computer only had 90k (not KB or MB like we live with and expect now) of memory, as did the WordStar program. WordStar only had three files, and it would swap them in and out of that limited memory, which had to also hold not only the operating system, but also the file you were creating. All that in just 90k!
The Osborne I, CP/M, and Wordstar were classic "Simplicity is the art of design!”
I would challenge any programmer today to write that kind of code.
dpullum, thanks for your addition to my thread. Hence the quote, "Simplicity is the art of design".....
and that is very true,
Cheers and Beers
Graham
My classic addition to "Simplicity is the art of design" was the early word processor WordStar. It came with my first computer, an Osborne I, which ran on the old CP/M operating system. The computer only had 90k (not KB or MB like we live with and expect now) of memory, as did the WordStar program. WordStar only had three files, and it would swap them in and out of that limited memory, which had to also hold not only the operating system, but also the file you were creating. All that in just 90k!
The Osborne I, CP/M, and Wordstar were classic "Simplicity is the art of design!”
I would challenge any programmer today to write that kind of code.
Aug 1, 2019 14:47:31 #
drucker
Loc: Oregon
As I write this, the red slip-cased manual for WordStar Professional (1979) sits on a shelf about three foot away. I too started using WordStar under CP/M on a "homebuilt" computer. I haven't had the heart to toss it, so it remains as a reminder of days long past . . . just gathering dust.
How many know that the Control-C (copy), Control-V (insert) and other widely used keyboard shortcuts were popularized by WordStar -- before the introduction of the "F"-keys to the computer keyboard.
WordStar essentially owned the word processing program market but were caught flat-footed by an advertising blitz by upstart WordPerfect that advertised that you didn't need to memorize all of the control codes used by WordStar -- just use the newly invented "F" keys! Never mind that you had to memorize what F-key did what to avoid constantly referring to the keyboard templet.
I and many others believed that WordStar was the better overall program but the marketing program worked and WordStar faded into oblivion. I continued to use it for programming long into the MS-DOS era.
How many know that the Control-C (copy), Control-V (insert) and other widely used keyboard shortcuts were popularized by WordStar -- before the introduction of the "F"-keys to the computer keyboard.
WordStar essentially owned the word processing program market but were caught flat-footed by an advertising blitz by upstart WordPerfect that advertised that you didn't need to memorize all of the control codes used by WordStar -- just use the newly invented "F" keys! Never mind that you had to memorize what F-key did what to avoid constantly referring to the keyboard templet.
I and many others believed that WordStar was the better overall program but the marketing program worked and WordStar faded into oblivion. I continued to use it for programming long into the MS-DOS era.
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