Another former Charlotte Observer staffer, Joe Posnanski, writes a loving obit for The Cincinnati Post on his blog.
It's long, but it reminds me of the days of the sitcom newsrooms and of the hardware and software we used to produce the news. The Poz talks about Teleram, the place that stories arrived in the "mainframe" computer system, written by folks on TRS-80s, lovingly called "Trash-80s." Don't they look like enhanced Blackberries?
(Sidenote: the fragmented, miscoded stories in Charlotte went to Teleram Bad. I kid you not. Can't find a story? Check Teleram Bad.)
Joe's column shows how newspapers were a part of young people's lives back in the day. Perhaps the next generation of columnists are growing up with the parents blogging in the living room, instead of helping to roll and deliver the afternoon dead-tree product.
The Poz started as a clerk-reporter at The Observer many years ago. Now he has a couple of sports books and a column in Kansas City. And his family questions his judgment in spending time blogging, even though he has a Facebook group, "I'm a Pozcar Voter," with 33 members.
Shows how easily the addiction to telling stories finds a new TRS-80.
Image from Vintagecomputer.net
No comments:
Post a Comment