Welcome, I’m Bill Gustafson. I started with Burroughs Corp. in 1965 and while not starting on computers, I was exposed to programming and was around them.

I was trained on most things mechanical for a start, progressing to electro/mechanical devices with tubes, then on to devices with core memory and finally on to what was known as “small systems” a computer with chip memory, a teletype and many switches to communicate with it, a disk drive with the disk some 24” inches in diameter which became a stack some 10 platters high. My job at the time consisted of figuring out whether a problem was hardware or software and recommending fixes. I installed new computer systems in the state colleges of New Jersey and left the company after that.

I then bought a Northstar Computer which ran CPM for an operating system (CPM is a pre-Windows operating system) and wrote programs. This system had two 5.25” floppy drives with a hard drive for storage (this computer still exists, although it no longer runs). I finally got an IBM compatible computer, running Windows, in 1985/6 I think. I can remember spending 8 hours just to establish communication with another computer over the phone line.

Today I do build custom computers and maintain a number of business networks, including a very flexible one in my home. My goal here is to help and instruct. I offer you my time and patience in getting to the solution of your problems. Again, welcome to this Forum and let’s get that problem resolved.

Click the arrow to meet Jay.