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> the social experiences of being in a lab. Not sure, if I miss that. I read about hacker culture and such, but my own limited experience of the early ninetie
by guenthert 2y ago
> the social experiences of being in a lab.
Not sure, if I miss that. I read about hacker culture and such, but my own limited experience of the early nineties of the labs of a large university weren't all that romantic.
I recall that some more experienced users poked fun at newbies (who didn't know of xauth) by making their workstation bloke like a sheep. While that was fun, there was no other interaction, quiet, anonymous and uninviting like a library reading room.
Once me and a team mate shared a whole lab with only one third guy. My mate had a cold which he neglected and during the session passed out, hitting his head hard on the desk. I had to shout at the third guy to solicit his help. He seemed to be content hacking on his terminal and let my mate die as long as he'd be quiet about it.
In the same lab (might have been the same session earlier, I don't recall) one fellow not being member of my team ran `crashme` on the shared server (pre-Solaris SunOS, iirc). He apologized with the words (paraphrasing) "I didn't expect it would actually crash" when the server in fact did. We were not amused.
Mid nineties the labs got deserted as most everyone was working from home.
- entropyie 2y agoHad a great lab experience in the early 2000's, loads of people helping each other, sharing ideas, the odd practical joke but nothing nasty. Labs were always busy too. Dual booting Solaris and NT4 PCs, plus an embedded device for assembly class. We also had free use of the ancient dot matrix printer with continuous holed paper... I still have some code listings somewhere in a drawer. I miss those days sometimes, working remotely.