COMPUTER MEMORIES, Chapter 01

JAMES T. HUMBERD — COMPUTER HISTORY

This is not a travel story exactly, this is a story of how it became possible for us to travel. Even my mother would not want to read all of this, but if you have an interest or are curious about the early days of computers (AS I SAW IT), starting in the early 1950s, this is the story, as I remember it. This is what I did, and what I tried to do in the Early Computer Days.

This whole thing is in more or less the proper sequence, with some Chapters containing a variety of subjects. The Tidbit Chapters are just to keep the stories short, rather than have a long, long story for each Tidbit. If they were long, they wouldn’t be tidbits, would they!

Read, ignore, question, or comment —

jimhum@sbcglobal.net

AFTER COMPUTERS
Due to a lot of work by my wife, who managed our apartment buildings, and President Carter’s inflation, I was able to get off someone’s computer industry payroll in 1978, after nearly 30 years of making my living in the computer business. I didn’t quit work, we just worked for ourselves, owning real estate and trust deeds. That provided enough money to live well enough (our opinion of living well), and permitted nine trips, comprising nearly 1,000 nights of travel in Europe. It’s been fun, both the 30 years in the computer business, and especially the nearly 55 years of working and enjoying life with my beautiful wife, Emmy.

I haven’t bothered keeping up with the computer industry, and these days I often feel like a Model T Ford mechanic trying to work on a new Cadillac. I have had a Macintosh computer on my desk since the mid-1980s, and mess around with book manuscripts, Travel-Tidbits, and Photo-Tidbits while watching the news, and a ball game or two.

We have published three books, “Invitation To France,” “… … To Italy,” and “… … To Germany,” about our travels. At the moment I am writing what I call “Travel Tidbits,” one-page stories of our travels, and preparing “Photo-Tidbits” that are being put on the Internet now, already nearly a total of 2,000, or more. These are at the Home page (Go to Google.com, and type “Jim and Emmy Humberd” and you will find many hits.)

What I will do with these, no one knows. One day at a writers meeting at the local Barnes and Noble, one lady was very agitated because she couldn’t get her book published and asked how I did it. I said, “It’s easy, just spend your children’s inheritance.” But I most likely have spent enough, so these Travel-Tidbits and Photo-Tidbits will just be for fun, unless the “right” person reads them.

As for the books, this will tell all you want to know. I wish I could give them away, can’t even sell more than a couple a year, but they didn’t give them to me. Of course if you know an agent or publisher who likes travel books … … … .