Date: Sun, 30 Jun 2013 02:43:54 -0400
Subject: [WSFA] Re: [wsfa-forum] Good Bye Alta Vista ...
From: "Elspeth Kovar" <ekovar at panix.com>
To: wsfa-forum at yahoogroups.com
Cc: "WSFA members" <wsfalist at keithlynch.net>
Reply-To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at KeithLynch.net>

Michael Walsh wrote:
> Some tech news:
> http://searchengineland.com/altavista-eulogy-165366

Scansion sucks but we really did lug it from room to room as needed

Singin' good bye, our Compaqs we loved you
The shared computer we lugged across the snow.
We've all moved on and are so far beyond you
It's still so strange we have to let you go.

Yeah, we shared one computer during essay writing period until my senior year when
several were installed in a room over in the science building. Naturally one of us stole
a key. But if your internal clock had you half awake until the time your
gentleman/gentlewoman friend said they'd be home and it was well past that it could be
irritating. You knew where they were, knew they'd simply gotten distracted, but the
internal clock needed to be reset and there was no phone in the lab.

No, our dorms didn't have phones in the rooms either, okay? There was a shared one
between the two ends of the hall. It actually worked out quite well. Mostly we were good
at ignoring conversations. If a tone indicated that someone was having a rough time it
was reported to the best person to deal with it. A call from a scholarship committee or
other such and the person on the phone promptly had a chair, pad of paper, and pen.

Regular calls were scheduled. My Boston-based sweetheart - some of you may even know him
- was one of the people who called at a standard time and people who called other
residents were given a heads up. Plus people knew that my Boston sweetheart would have
already talked to his roommate who'd been talking with his sweetheart in Gaitherburgh.
(The guys had free long distance via the Media Lab.) Which meant he'd have told me if I
was going to be bringing back sushi on Tuesday.

Sorry to have wandered off reminiscing. And while we, and our friends from other places,
did this strange thing called writing letters all papers were written out longhand as
well writing instead of scribbling made you stop and think, not to bad for that
particular bunch of college kids.

Of course the social benefits of having a common phone would have been outweighed by
privacy if anyone had come up with the idea of phone sex.

Thus endeth my unexpected natterings, to older folks who want to brag on how technically
advanced *their* school was (or skipping school entirely) and to the younger folks who
can't see how anyone could cope w/out having their own phone.

And, of course, I went to a rather strange little college.

Back to the boring stuff of being over at Mom's the next couple of days and mostly
offline. Hopefully I'll reappear in time for WSFA.

Elspeth