Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!cs.utexas.edu!oakhill!tomj
From: tomj@oakhill.UUCP (Tom Johnson)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac
Subject: Re: APDA (need I say more)
Message-ID: <3123@oakhill.UUCP>
Date: 21 Mar 90 13:03:26 GMT
References: <10948@bsu-cs.bsu.edu> <5360045@hpccc.HP.COM>
Reply-To: tomj@oakhill.UUCP (Tom Johnson)
Organization: Motorola Inc., Austin, Texas
Lines: 30

In article <5360045@hpccc.HP.COM> dlw@hpccc.HP.COM (David Williams) writes:
>>mithomas@bsu-cs.bsu.edu (Michael Thomas Niehaus) writes:
>>I gave APDA a call today (to order some source code examples for the
>>CommToolbox).  Apparently their computer is down and won't be back up
>>until Wednesday.  They took my order by hand, and said that they will
>
>Gee, you'd think they'd be using 4D as a front end and could store it locally.
>
>>You would think that an organization operated by a computer company would
>>have better computer systems.  (Are they made by IBM by chance?)
>
>Yup and DEC. Too bad Apple doesn't use reliable HP Minicomputers
>instead of bogus ol Big Blue boxes and Vaxen. ;)
>
A long time ago (in a galaxy far, far, away...) I worked for DEC in a sales/
field service office.  At the time, I believe DEC was the 2nd largest
computer company in the U.S....we filled in time cards (by hand) which
were then banded together with a rubber band and sent to a "clearing house"
in Illinois to be keypunched (showing my age, eh?), subsequently the tapes
were forwarded to Maynard, MA to be run on the payroll computer.  Pay checks
were then sent **back** to the clearing house where they were split into
offices (by hand), and sent to each office.  This is why there was about a 
week and a half delay from the close of a pay period and the arrival of the
paycheck.  Ain't high tech neat?

Tom J.  (tomj@oakhill.UUCP)

(Standard disclaimers apply)  P.S. This has no bearing on DEC as a company,
and is only a review of its old accounting practices...probably no longer
true anyway.