You're never too old

I never thought I could become a blogger, so it just goes to show 'you're never too old' to try anything. Someone else has written about the technology that was around when they started working. Now when I started working offices were still using large ledgers to enter their receipts and expenditure, and entries were made by hand. The only technology was the typewriter and the adding machine. A glorified adding machine (which also had a typewriter attached) was the accounting machine. I trained as an 'accounting machiniste' (notice the 'e').
This particular job meant that I could work National, Remington and Olivetti machines and it stood me in good stead working overseas.

My first brush with a computer was using an accounting machine with a roll of tape attached. Each tap of the typewriter made a mark on the tape which a large computer could read and translate onto a printout.

When I lived in London many moons ago, I worked with one of the first computerised hotel systems in Europe (once again using the accounting machine) at the Cumberland Hotel at Marble Arch. (a little aside here...Jimi Hendrix was booked into this hotel when he died. The morning after he was found dead (not in the hotel though) the manager came to my desk looked at Hendrixs' account and commented 'Thank God he's paid his bill'.

I don't know that I have progressed very far with computers since those far off days in the hotel when on night duty and the computer went down. My companion on duty and I had to restart the thing. It was large, taking up most of a small room across the hotel lobby. Most times we could start it but it was a matter of crossing our fingers and pressing numerous buttons and switches and ...hoping for the best.