End of an era: NASA shuts down its last mainframe

The great thing about being my age is that I got to witness the start of home computing and the birth of video gaming. I remember how exciting it was to go to the department store and play "Pong". My dad wouldn't buy it because he heard it would wreck our tv screen, so I only got to play the display model. My very first home computer was a Timex Sinclair. My aunt and uncle got it for me. I used it only once, because it took me the better part of a day to type out my program on it. What a pain in the butt that "keyboard" was! My folks were too poor to afford any home computers until I started college so I did miss out on the early Apple computers and the Commodores. I did eventually get an Atari 800XL when it was on a clearance sale and that is what I typed up my college papers on. At the time I thought I was in heaven to be able to have that, after what I went through typing up an 85 page research paper in high school on an old portable electric typewriter. I'd started the paper on my dad's old 1950's manual non electric typewriter!

I think of how I wrecked my back and knees lugging textbooks and binders around campus in the 1980's and took notes with the aid of a four color Bic pen and my Sony Walkman recording cassette player and compare all of that to what college kids have now and I am green with envy, yet again, happy I was alive at the beginning because I appreciate the present so much more and take nothing for granted.

I just implore this current younger generation to not squander their intelligence and great tools the way my generation did. Take these great gifts and think of how to apply them to make daily life better for all the average people out there. Solve the problems my generation couldn't or wouldn't figure out how to.

When I was in college Wall Street was the big movie and Alex P Keaton and Gordon Gecko were the ideals my fellow business college peers aspired to. They really did believe greed is good. It was a very materialistic time. I remember feeling out of place because I didn't care about money. I grew up without it and knew there was more to life than endlessly coveting. My generation got the Lexuses and the granite counter tops and the stainless steel appliances but we lost the moon, Mars, and world peace.

reply to post by Arbitrageur


That is because by the time he posted that and you replied, the technology already advanced.

reply to post by PuterMan


I read the entire US government is shutting down mainframes.

The thinking in 2012 is to switch to cloud computing.

reply to post by Eurisko2012


I know private industry is making that migration. I've got friends and family making that switch right now for various reasons in their respective companies.