Cutting Edge Technologies Lost in the Din of the Roaring Twenties
Published 07/09 courtesy of Bamboo Solutions Community
Christopher was able to track down why my password wasn't working; as it turns out, he apparently moved my primary mainframe terminal several months ago, and I've been trying to put my password into that micro-oven he and Bethany bought for me last winter. That explains the constant beeping, and may have something to do with this rash I've developed.
At any rate, while Christopher gets the SharePoint 1910 emulator running on Vista Windows, I thought it might be nice to review some basic information concepts regarding its architecture. After all, you modern SharePoint types might think you and your fellows invented things like "user profile stores" and the what-have-you, but in actuality, legions of second generation Americans like myself have been toiling away on such concepts for generations. In fact, the early beta of SP1910 I mentioned in my previous net-log had an exciting innovation in just this field, that sadly never made it out of the early testing phase. Fortunately, I still have my photo collection and some old federal schematics, and Christopher was nice enough to feed them into the automated-paper-depository attached to this terminal.
The Very First User Profile Directory
As I mentioned, President Taft's original motivation to fund, research, and ultimately design such an elaborate endeavour was motivated by the need to store information for the nearly thirty five federal employees who worked in the then-nascent Interstate Commerce Commission. At the time, these records were handled via a complex storage and data recollection system known as "A.U.D.R.E.Y.", pictured here.
Audrey's the first one on the left, in the second row. She was amazing -- she could pull up information on different members of the department in minutes, even if you couldn't really spell the person's last name correctly (which was a serious concern, given the influx of unwashed masses arriving at the time). She had a bit of a temper, and several years later, quite rudely rejected my cousin Barnaby's invitation to the town dance in that particulary dry spring of '21, but she was effective, and required little more than a fair woman's wage and the occassional pat on the rump.
Everyone in the department knew, though, that Audrey was going to slow down eventually, and with disturbing rumors coming from Washington about the possible elimination of the 18-hour work day, it became clear to management that SP1910 was going to need a revolutionary new contact management system. Fortunately for me, I was an enterprising young student intern on the cutting edge of said technologies, and when the Department came calling after Wilson's post-war restoration of the project.
That's my good friend and mentor, Martin Shoemaker, trying to keep the old girl running once the data store had grown to over twenty. The A.U.D.R.E.Y-II program -- like much of SharePoint 1910 -- was a little ahead of its time, and unfortunately, we just didn't have the kind of access to a reliable molasses supply needed to keep a system like that cool for more than eight or nine minutes at a time. Eventually, since it was holding up the rest of the project, we ditched A.U.D.R.E.Y-II and moved onto the W.I.L.L.I.A.M-II prototype.
Let's see... yes, there's Billy's kid, third row, on the right, in what we used to call "The Server Farm" -- most of the data aggregation technologists worked as waiters during tourist season, as the pay was somewhat better. He wasn't quite as fast as Audrey, but he had less sass, and the new E.D.W.A.R.D. redundancy system (sitting behind him in this photograph) covered for most of the speed losses. Best of all, it kept those Department of Labor pencil-necks happy, as we could shut down one or the other for a few minutes around lunch.
Those were certainly exciting days. I found an old fishing pole from a trip W.I.L.L.I.A.M. and his father took with me to Lake Minnatauk after the second Great War, but Christopher says we can only make computered-photographs from paper. Rubbish.
Recent SharePoint Questions
- Customize "Send To" menu in Sharepoint 2007
- Site is opening only on Server but not on other clients. How to fix this?
- Handy & Free of Charge SharePoint Tools
- One Document - two sites
- What is the difference between a document library and a form library?
- What is Collaborative Application Markup Language?
- • What is the difference between SharePoint Portal Server and Windows SharePoint Services?
- Why should you use SharePoint?
- Displaying columns
- Best way to apply permission and access
more sharepoint questions
More Articles By
Develop Mobile Applications for SharePoint with Mobile Entree - CMSWire
Develop Mobile Applications for SharePoint with Mobile Entree
CMSWire, CA
By Barb Mosher | Jun 5, 2009 Seeing as how SharePoint (news, site) is so widely used within the enterprise today, it's…
Bamboos Year in Review: Marc OBrien Introduces the Bamboo Online Applications Division
Editor's note: Last year we introduced the Bamboo Year in Review feature, kicking off with a note
While writing the final sentences of my post on how to create a SharePoint blog last week, I realized that I needed to circle back and spend some time… Mobile Entrée is installed as a SharePoint solution and is deployed as a series of features.
Top News Stories Make your plans now to attend the Best Practices Conference this August 24-26 in Washington, D.C. to ensure that you don't miss out on sessions presented by some…Working with the Admin Links on your SharePoint Blog
More Articles Under "News from Around the Web"
Guest Blog by H3 Solutions Jason Hall - Mobile Entrée, Taking a Look Under the Hood
SharePoint on Your SmartPhone, Android Moves to Laptops, Best Practices Conference Speakers List
Google Wave - A Developer's Eye View (The Register)
Last week, Google announced Wave, a…Announcing the Best Practices Conference Speakers List!
Most Viewed Content
