Gordon Wolfe, Ph.D. wrote:
Cross-posted to both VM-ESA-L and Linux-390 lists. Sorry for the
duplication and the length.
Like Dennis Wicks a couple of days ago, I’m hanging up the green card
too. After a career spanning 36 years, I am going to retire on the
first of the month. I’ve been working with computers since I was 16,
and with VM since 1984. Now I’m going to go finish my fifth book (maybe
start a sixth), do a lot of bluegrass music, some general aviation,
restore my grandmother’s 1955 Oldsmobile and run my wife’s fiber-arts
business for her. And I’m going back to school and finally get an
education instead of the four degrees I got the first time.
Even though I will no longer be gainfully employed at The Boeing Company
any more, I will still continue to “lurk” on these lists for at least a
few months from my home e-mail address, and may even offer some free
(worth every penny) advice from time to time until I lose interest or
the industry changes so much I don’t know what you’re talking about.
I have been asked to present a couple of sessions at SHARE in Seattle
that I have given before. Since I live in Seattle, this is no problem
for me. I hope to see many of you there. If you want any advice on
hotels, restaurants or sights to see, drop me a line. If you can, take
the tour of the Boeing plant 40 miles away in Everett. Reserve early!
For those who are interested, my position will be opening up. Boeing
will actually have 2 positions in VM Systems opening, as soon as we fill
the position of Delivery Systems Manager. My last two managers quit
within three months of each other. Maybe it’s my deodorant? I don’t
know when the position(s) will open up. I doubt that hiring will be an
immediate priority for the new manager. But go to
http://www.boeing.com, at the top select “employment”, and at the right
select “Job Search”. This is “Information Technology” or possibly
“Computing Delivery Systems”, “Salaried Non-Management”, state of
Washington, “Experienced”. The job title is “System Design Integration
Specialist”, which might be abbreviated “Syst Desn Intgr Spec”. Search
keywords “VM” or “ESS” or “LINUX”, and maybe on the job classification
BCBDP4. This might be filled at a P3 or even a P2, so check those too.
I’d check once a week. These req’s don’t stay open very long when they
do open up. The last time we opened a req, we got 88 applications,
interviewed 6 and hired none of them. The position is still open.
For those of you who might be interested in my egotistical ravings about
my career, read on. The rest of you, (as we said in Mississippi)
“buh-bye, now!”
My first exposure to a computer was in 1963 when CDC donated a Bendix
G-15 to our high school. It had 2K of rotating-drum memory, had to be
programmed in hex, its only mass storage was punched paper tape and had
1500 VACUUM TUBES! We named it “Archibald” after a dimwitted janitor of
our acquaintance.
I worked with a lot of batch-style computers during college and in my
first jobs. But my introduction to systems work started as a graduate
student at UC Davis in the Crocker Nuclear Laboratory. We had a Dec
PDP-15 to do our real-time data acquisition of nuclear event data. But
every time we changed the electronics, we had to pull off the covers and
get our soldering irons out onto the backplane, and then reprogram the
operating system to recognize the changes. I also was part of a NASA
grant to do some work into the semiconductor properties of certain metal
oxides. That work became part of the body of knowledge that led to the
use of MOSFET transistors, which became the basis of Very Large Scale
Integrated Circuits.
After getting my degree, I became an Assistant Professor of Physics and
Astronomy at the University of Mississippi, but most of my publications
were actually in the field of computer science. There were these new
things called “microcomputers” on the market. This was –BEFORE- the
Apple II, the TRS-80 and long before the IBM PC. My original Southwest
Technical Products 6800 currently resides in the Boston Computer Museum
as their second-oldest microcomputer. I actually had to write a
multitasking Disk Operating System for this machine from scratch!
I finally decided I wasn’t cut out for academic politics and sold out to
the corporate interests for the big bucks. I joined an engineering firm
in New Orleans doing work in pollution transport. One day, the IT
people were having trouble with the synchronous RS-232 terminals on the
IBM 360/155 and I offered to help since I was bored with engineering. I
got my oscilliscope from the car and traced the problem to a multiplexor
card. This saved them money since they didn’t have a maintenance
contract. They were so impressed, I was offered the position of Systems
Programmer. The engineers wanted a more interactive system to work with
than the VSE that was running, so the DP manager and I convinced
management to upgrade to VM. In 1984 I did my first install of VM/SP2
with a VSE guest on our new 4331 and haven’t looked back since.
The New Orleans heat finally got to me in 1988 and My wife and I got
jobs with Boeing in Seattle, where we’ve been ever since. I’ve been
working with a fine team of people and had the opportunity to play
with…, er, investigate a lot of technology. At SHARE in Anaheim in 2000
I heard about Linux on the mainframe and worked a pirate project to
bring it up. Three months later, the boss said ”We need to investigate
this Linux thing. How long will it take you to get it up and running?”.
I had to reply that it was already up and running!
All in all, it’s been a fun ride. (Except for a couple of years when I
had a really bad boss.) I’m proud to have made a few small
contributions along the way. Buh-bye,now!
Gordon Wolfe, Ph.D.
"The Definition of a gentleman is a man who can play the banjo -- and don't!"
Mark Twain
Gordon Wolfe, Ph.D.
Best of luck in your retirement, Gordon. From what you said, it appears
that you will be busier than ever after you lose the gainful employment.
You will be missed.
Richard Schuh
