Waldenbooks generated book catalogs for it's stores on computer tapes that were sent to a third parties for generation and distribution.
I was learning lot's of stuff.... Things that mostly don't even apply anymore :) Thank goodness:
- Bursting - Post Processing of Printed output :Automated Stripping the Pin-feeds and Separating the pages of special forms, like Purchase Orders.
- Decolating - Automated Separation of multi-part reports and removal of the carbon paper.
- Cleaning Tape Drives - Wiping down vacuum columns and heads with carbon tetra-chloride
- Job Entry with Punch Cards, including sorting dropped card decks, duplicating damaged cards... etc.
I was also learning lot's of stuff, that is still with me to this day:
- Logic - in terms of analyzing what a job is doing and how to recover when it has failed. Things were still mostly batch. This was and is what I'm am good at.
- The value of procedures. Not everyone is skilled in the last point so it can be very helpful if someone who is, provides the detailed recovery steps. Even if you are good at it.... Procedures can be especially useful in the middle of a crisis. When time for analysis is limited Procedures Rule!!!
- The value of logs that describe what has happened.
- The impact of system performance.
- The need for metrics.
That's it for now.
