Until the company I last worked for got some new PC's we used to struggle with desktop PC's with a hard drive with a whopping 3 GB, we had to clear the stored cookies am and pm to have any chance of it being fast enough to do anything useful with it. We also had dial-up when I first started there ... there was one client who I had the job of keeping an eye on until we got monitoring software as he used to spend up to 40 mins at a time looking and betting on online gambling/horseracing websites !
The monitoring software came into its own, as then each client had their own password to use any of the PC's so we could trace it back. One chap started looking on a very dodgy site, he was crafty as he kept two windows open, the one he was looking at was of some scantily clad girls... if he thought he was being watched, he would switch the windows, then shut the other one down... I was standing behind him one day and he didn't spot me quick enough... he denied everything, acted the innocent, downright accusing me of telling fibs about him... then I went and got the printout for that PC... his password along with a list of all the dubious sites he had accessed ... he was kicked off the course...
We also had some software installed for some of our dyslexic clients .. Dragon Naturally speaking ... we nearly wet ourselves one day as one oldish gent was shouting louder and louder as it was typing a lot of nonsense ... the louder he shouted the worse it was .. the reason was that he had such a broad accent the poor computer couldn't make any of it out! Out of curiosity I did once try speaking supercalifragerlisticexpialidicoius ... it near as got it 100% right !
I remember using a PC at Heatrae Industrial, this would have been c 1993-1999 with Windows 3.1
When the city library burnt down some years back the services were split across the city. The old HMSO offices at Anglia Square were used as part of the reference library.. they had two internet PC's. I asked the librarian if I could have a go on them and they left me to my own devices... at the time I thought I had managed to bust both of them as they "crashed", I now know all I had to do was re-boot.
Before I had my PC I used to go up to the Forum to use the PC's there (sorry I can't give a date), I used to print off quite a bit of stuff -very complicated as each print request I had to have a separate password as they had to be printed off on a public printer..., there were quite a few times when it wouldn't accept, or froze... the worst was when a particular librarian was on duty.. I quickly learnt to avoid doing printing when he was working as he would regularly lose all my print lists !Statistics: Posted by chenrezig — 27 Jul 2013, 15:45
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