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Re: DEC and The Americans

From "jack" <jkl8976@nospam.com>
Newsgroups alt.folklore.computers, comp.misc
Subject Re: DEC and The Americans
Date 2016-01-26 05:40 +1100
Message-ID <dgn8hsF637jU1@mid.individual.net> (permalink)
References <dgmpjsF24gvU2@mid.individual.net>

Cross-posted to 2 groups.

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"RS Wood" <rsw@therandymon.com> wrote in message 
news:dgmpjsF24gvU2@mid.individual.net...
> Anyone here familiar with that TV series, The Americans?[1]  If you're 
> not, I can recommend it - it's pretty well done drama, set in about 1982 
> Washington DC, where undercover KGB agents and the FBI are facing off.
>
> Thought I'd mention it because every scene shot within the Russian embassy 
> to the USA (ie, the USSR's building in Washington DC) features a lot of 
> prominent shots of DEC VT100 terminals gracing everyone's desks.
>
> At first I thought, typical Hollywood - they chose DEC because the 
> terminals look a bit more dated than the more modern PCs sitting on the 
> desks of the FBI, but poking around a bit [2], it might be accurate: the 
> VT100 reigned from about 1978 to 1982, so that would correspond with the 
> show.
>
> That got me thinking about how likely it would be for a diplomatic mission 
> to invest in DEC terminals (and presumably a mini somewhere in the 
> basement to which you could connect) to do business.  What would you do 
> with them?  Word processing, maybe database work, but would they have 
> invested in custom software for something or other - processing visas or 
> equivalent?  Then I thought, the Soviets had their own hardware around 
> that time - I'd think they'd have chosen something native to the USSR 
> rather than buying American hardware (which would run the [very real] risk 
> of backdoors).  In 1982 would VT100s still have been anchored in academia, 
> science and research,

Nope, it had moved out to all sorts of places other than that, lots
of accountants had them, before the PC and Apple II showed up.

> or would they have already made the jump to other sectors

Yes.

> - such as diplomacy and bureaucracy?

Dunno about diplomacy but certainly lots of the
bureaucracy were using them for word processing etc.

> Final thought (mostly because I just finished Bruce Schneier's _Data and 
> Goliath_ - a highly recommended read that will show you in no uncertain 
> terms just how deeply the modern surveillance state goes[3]): I'm 
> wondering if there isn't room for a new age of minicomputers.  If 
> surveillance scares customers out of the cloud, there's room again for 
> something serious in the workplace.  Other than software-as-a-service, why 
> run the risk of offloading all your data to some cloud provider (read 
> Schneier's book!) when you can keep it in house.

Sure, but not done with minis.

> It might look different, say thin clients and VMWare serving centralized 
> desktops and a couple racks of storage servers etc., but is the move to 
> the cloud so inevitable?

No its not, and you can run your own cloud too.

> I kind of like the idea of everyone going back to a terminal on their desk 
> and some behemoth of a machine in the basement, quietly keeping everything 
> in-house.

That's what your own cloud is. Not with a terminal tho.

> [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Americans_(2013_TV_series)
> [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VT100
> [3] http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/22253747-data-and-goliath
>

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Thread

DEC and The Americans RS Wood <rsw@therandymon.com> - 2016-01-25 17:26 +0300
  Re: DEC and The Americans Michael Black <et472@ncf.ca> - 2016-01-25 10:58 -0500
    Re: DEC and The Americans Dan Espen <despen@verizon.net> - 2016-01-25 11:47 -0500
    Re: DEC and The Americans John Levine <johnl@iecc.com> - 2016-01-25 16:47 +0000
      Re: DEC and The Americans Stan Barr <plan.b@bluesomatic.org> - 2016-01-25 17:41 +0000
        Re: DEC and The Americans mm0fmf <none@mailinator.com> - 2016-01-25 19:25 +0000
        Re: DEC and The Americans Walter Banks <walter@bytecraft.com> - 2016-01-25 16:15 -0500
      Re: DEC and The Americans Michael Black <et472@ncf.ca> - 2016-01-25 13:17 -0500
        Re: DEC and The Americans Stan Barr <plan.b@bluesomatic.org> - 2016-01-26 08:20 +0000
          Re: DEC and The Americans mausg@mail.com - 2016-01-26 11:32 +0000
          Re: DEC and The Americans "Charles Richmond" <numerist@aquaporin4.com> - 2016-01-26 17:23 -0600
        Re: DEC and The Americans Eric Pozharski <whynot@pozharski.name> - 2016-01-26 19:08 +0200
        Re: DEC and The Americans "Charles Richmond" <numerist@aquaporin4.com> - 2016-01-26 17:20 -0600
          Re: DEC and The Americans scott@alfter.diespammersdie.us (Scott Alfter) - 2016-01-27 19:40 +0000
        Re: DEC and The Americans Yeechang Lee <ylee@columbia.edu> - 2016-01-27 22:40 -0800
      Re: DEC and The Americans Eric Pozharski <whynot@pozharski.name> - 2016-01-26 21:16 +0200
        Re: DEC and The Americans "Jack Myers" <jmyers@n6wuz.net> - 2016-01-28 10:07 -0800
    Re: DEC and The Americans "jack" <jkl8976@nospam.com> - 2016-01-26 05:48 +1100
    Re: DEC and The Americans jmfbahciv <See.above@aol.com> - 2016-01-26 13:56 +0000
      Re: DEC and The Americans "Charles Richmond" <numerist@aquaporin4.com> - 2016-01-26 17:43 -0600
        Re: DEC and The Americans jmfbahciv <See.above@aol.com> - 2016-01-27 15:42 +0000
          Re: DEC and The Americans pechter@pechter.dyndns.org (William Pechter) - 2016-02-03 00:36 +0000
            Re: DEC and The Americans jmfbahciv <See.above@aol.com> - 2016-02-03 14:25 +0000
  Re: DEC and The Americans Rich <rich@example.invalid> - 2016-01-25 17:27 +0000
    Re: DEC and The Americans Anne & Lynn Wheeler <lynn@garlic.com> - 2016-01-25 11:18 -0800
  Re: DEC and The Americans "jack" <jkl8976@nospam.com> - 2016-01-26 05:40 +1100
  Re: DEC and The Americans "J. Clarke" <j.clarke.873638@gmail.com> - 2016-01-25 19:12 -0500
    Re: DEC and The Americans RS Wood <rsw@therandymon.com> - 2016-01-26 14:22 +0000
      Re: DEC and The Americans Morten Reistad <first@last.name.invalid> - 2016-01-26 16:20 +0100
        Re: DEC and The Americans Peter Flass <peter_flass@yahoo.com> - 2016-01-26 11:36 -0500
        Re: DEC and The Americans "J. Clarke" <j.clarke.873638@gmail.com> - 2016-01-26 18:37 -0500
          Re: DEC and The Americans Roger Blake <rogblake@iname.invalid> - 2016-01-27 03:58 +0000
            Re: DEC and The Americans Ahem A Rivet's Shot <steveo@eircom.net> - 2016-01-27 06:16 +0000
            Re: DEC and The Americans jmfbahciv <See.above@aol.com> - 2016-01-27 15:42 +0000
            Re: DEC and The Americans Charlie Gibbs <cgibbs@kltpzyxm.invalid> - 2016-01-27 18:14 +0000
      Re: DEC and The Americans "J. Clarke" <j.clarke.873638@gmail.com> - 2016-01-26 18:34 -0500
  Re: DEC and The Americans bleep@compy.0-0 (Colonel Bleep) - 2016-01-30 07:07 +0000
    Re: DEC and The Americans "J. Clarke" <j.clarke.873638@gmail.com> - 2016-01-30 09:43 -0500
      Re: DEC and The Americans Marek Novotny <marek.novotny@marspolar.com> - 2016-01-30 09:02 -0800
    Re: DEC and The Americans Alfred Falk <falk@arc.ab.ca> - 2016-01-30 20:36 +0000

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