Age

[Lyle Bickley]

I started my life in the computer business by joining IBM in 1961 after 
college.  I was initially a Field Engineer on the IBM 7090/7094.  The systems 
I worked on were located at Lockheed in Mountain View, CA, Ames Laboratory 
(NASA) and Stanford University.

I was subsequently promoted to IBM's Development Labs in Poughkeepsie, New 
York where I developed diagnostic software for the IBM 7040/44.  I 
subsequently wrote a diagnostic monitor for the (first) IBM 360/40 and then 
worked on the development of MVS - the operating system for System/360 
mainframe.

After leaving IBM I worked for the Federal Reserve System - running IT at the 
Philadelphia Fed. - and from there several other computer related jobs - and 
I finally started a consulting practice in 1988 specializing in network 
design and later (currently) computer related IP (intellectual property) 
matters.

My first "home" computer was a CDC-160A which I purchased (for more $ than I'd 
care to admit) around 1968.  I subsequently acquired a PDP-8/L, PDP-8/I, 
PDP-12, and a RPC-4000 (drum machine).  I donated all of the above to various 
museums - the PDP-12 and the entire DECUS PDP-12 library going to the 
Computer History Museum here in Mountain View, CA.

My current collection includes lots of various S-100 bus CP/M systems 
(Including IMSAI 8080, Polymorphic, etc.), Lots of Silicon Graphics systems 
(from PI -> Onyx Infinite Reality), Lots of Sun SPARCs (including a rare Sun 
portable of which only two prototypes were built), several IBM RS/6000's, 
several HP HP-UX systems, multiple VAXes, DEC PDP-11/23+, PDP-11/83, early 
Macintoshes, NeXT cube (w/Dimension Graphics), NeXT mono/color, Data General 
Nova clones, IBM AS/400, etc., etc.

I also have a lot of software for the above - including OSs for all of the 
above.

So I'd classify myself as one of, if not the oldest, "fart" on this list - 
with way too many computers... ;-)

Cheers,
Lyle
-- 
Lyle Bickley
Bickley Consulting West Inc.
http://bickleywest.com
"Black holes are where God is dividing by zero"