Shaken-Not-Stirred Technology Mixed Right!

Welcome to the first installment of Shaken-Not-Stirred. My friend Matt Simmons poked me a bit to take the plunge and start writing the blog. I can not promise any sort of schedule for postings, but I can promise that the postings will make you think and if you are not careful might even pass on useful information.

I have been involved in technology since the 1970's, when as a high school kid I was repairing 2 way radio equipment for the state police. My first shot at computers was at university with the Dartmouth Time Sharing System in 1977. My first programing language was of course Dartmouth Basic, quickly followed by Fortran and PL1. My introduction to Unix came in the form of a discussion of this hot new system with Eric Raymond when we were on a fall camping trip in the Catskill Mountains in about 1979 or 1980. I got my hands on the TRS-80 Model 1, the Sinclair ZX-80 and the Radio Shack Color Computer as a ghost reviewer for a buddy that had way too much review work to do on his own in the early 1980's. My first Unix admin job was running an AT&T telephone PBX that ran using tape as random access storage instead of the then very expensive disks.

Yes I have seen my share of history in the world of computing and high technology. I have seen the good, bad, and ugly. I hope to help you avoid the bad and ugly, but those that do not learn from history are destined to relive it!

-Brett Wynkoop