In 1989 I was working with Tandem Computers in Frankfurt am Main, Germany, as the manager of
the OS and Hardware group of the European Systems Support Group (ESSG). Many of us used to
have lunch together at a Greek restaurant, the “Talhütte”, and we discussed lots
of work issues there, which irritated some people in the department who wanted to stay in
touch but didn't want to spend lots of money on lunch. In November 1989 I had just got my
first laptop (a NEC
Multispeed), so for the fun of it, I kept “minutes” of the
“meetings” for a week, until some attendees got upset about it. Revisiting, I
find that some of the issues are of interest, so here they are.
The times were interesting: the
“Deutsche
Demokratische Republik” (DDR), or “German Democratic Republic” was
collapsing. The 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake, one of the biggest in recent history, had happened
California in October. Coincidentally, Tandem introduced a new computer, the Cyclone, in
San Francisco on the same
day. Ralf Lichtenstein (here referred to as “Frankenstein”) was in Cupertino at the time, and we made
repeated mention of the fact: Ralf had a reputation of bringing on catastrophes. On the
work front, Tandem was in the process of introducing its Integrity S2 machine, the first real
Unix machine from Tandem, and we were one of the first departments to get one. We were thus
also trying to learn Unix and connect to USENET.
The customers in question are for the most part large world-wide organizations. In the
interests of confidentiality, I've changed the names.
A sign of the times: today, in the evening, was the Fall of the Berlin Wall.
We don't seem to have mentioned it directly.
SENT: 89-11-09 14:06
FROM: LEHEY_GREG (Greg Lehey)
TO: DL.ESSGALL @ESSG
SUBJECT: Jenny's meeting minutes, 9 November 1989
Meeting at Jenny's, 9 November 1989
Present (order of seating):
Robersi Tomato
Renate Sueberkrueb
Rainer Esslinger
Kathy Wright
Erich Taschner
Michael Sube
Grog Lehey
Peegee Whone
Agenda: none
Items discussed:
1. Roberto has a new car, a white Audi 100. He gave out a round (2
ouzos, 3 buckets, 2 pils, 2 mocca). Car is standard except for
sunroof and 13x HP engine.
Contact: Robersi Tomato
2. Customer A is intending to install an enormous complex of networks.
Erich in particular is concerned that the bloody thing will never
be supportable.
Action: Erich Taschner
3. Customer B has problems with FEWRONGIDs with X.25 over Expand.
Grog and Hanna to go to HPRC to talk about the feature/bug problem
with Harald and Fufu.
Action: Grog Lehey
4. Roberto doesn't know when to go to Braunlage. Suspect _TRANSFER_
data corruption.
Contact: Robersi Tomato
5. Water is getting more popular as a drink. Today, it was ordered
by Michael, Grog, Rainer and Kathy.
Contact: Dr. Feldmann
6. Peegee complimented Jenny on her nail polish.
Contact: George
7. Maria was called out this morning at 4 am by a TMF problem at
Customer C. The
interesting thing is that Customer
C called Computercall directly,
and CC called Maria anyway.
Action: Keith Collings
8. Hans Kuntz was talking about experience with mobile phones. In
particular, they seem to suffer from difficulties in buildings
like ours, and the Bundespest doesn't seem to have enough capacity
available.
Contact: Erich Ditzel
9. There will be an OS group meeting this afternoon at 2. All OS and
hardware people are welcome. If others want to be guests, please
establish
Action: Grog Lehey
10. We still don't have a responsibilities list for S2. There are
about 2 1/2 pages of product numbers.
Action: Grog Lehey
11. Did anybody see this crazy film on TV last night, where a
submarine kept filling up with snakes? If you have an explanation,
please
Contact: Peegee Whone
12. Georgia Stigall has a solution to the bad SUTs problem. Just
ensure that the central sites file is correct.
Contact: Georgia Stigall
13. We need a 340 MB disk drive for the LXN. If you have one,
Contact: Grog Lehey
14. We discussed ouzo quality with Jenny. We're not sure she's not
trying to test our palates.
Contact: Grog Lehey
15. Should the Eiffel tower be repainted? What colour?
Action: Serge Skarbnik
16. Ralf is coming back next week.
Contact: Uschi Mack
17. Grog is looking for a miniature hole punch for his pocket folder.
Contact: Grog Lehey
18. We have determined that we talk about a lot of important things at
Jenny's. This is useful, the minutes are useful, this should be a
business expense. We need to make this clear to the bean
counters.
Action: Peegee Whone
19. We need a new head count for keeping minutes of Jenny's lunches.
Action: Peegee Whone
20. Ivana Fidler has Andrea's phone number, but hasn't given it to us.
Action: Ivana Fidler
21. Ivana has a broken rib. Peegee suspects interesting cicrumstances,
since she won't say how it happened, but that her boyfriend did
it.
Contact: Ivana Fidler
22. Customer D in Frankfurt has a
situation. The corresponding TPR was entered
against Customer E
Nederland BV, of no particular address.
Action: Param Kalra
23. The Cizet V16T is a new car built by ex-Lamborghini employees. It
has a transverse V16 engine with gearbox drive at the centre.
Contact: Peegee Whone
24. The OS group has planned to spray Grog with Coca Cola more often.
Action: Michael Sube
Kathy Wright
Craig Gaydos
Robersi Tomato
Ralf Frankenstein
TBH
TBH
Next meeting: Friday, 10 November, 12:15 pm
------------------------ ORIGINAL ATTACHMENT ------------------------
SENT: 89-11-10 14:18
FROM: LEHEY_GREG (Greg Lehey)
TO: DL.ESSGALL @ESSG
SUBJECT: Jenny's meeting minutes, 10 November 1989
Minutes of Jenny's meeting, 10 November 1989
Attendees: Michael Sube
Erich Taschner
Tony Clark
Grog Lehey
Rainer Esslinger
Robersi Tomato
Xandy Stams
Peegee Whone
Topics:
1. Long discussion of Newton's laws of mechanics as applied to modern
cars.
Contact: Erich Taschner
2. Customer F has IXF problems
over X.25 with EM 3270. Xandy and Erich to go to Paris on Monday.
Xandy would prefer Maria to Erich, but this is nothing personal.
Contact: Xandy Stams
3. Customer F is the biggest bank
in the world outside Japan.
Contact: Grog Lehey
4. ESSG's S2 machine is going to Customer
G. The background (rumoured):
Customer G is a French system integrator, and had an important prospect,
some Maltese military setup or another (how many are there?).
They contacted our man in France, Patrick Toledano, who doesn't
speak English very well but won't admit it. They asked to go to
Austin to see the machine, and he understood that all was well,
but it turned out that nobody was expecting them, and it was the
week of an exhibition in New York, and nobody was there. They
finally found a tired developer to talk to them about the machine,
but there was no machine to be seen. Exit militarys pissed off,
enter Customer G even more pissed off. So we have to deliver by 17
November or lose Customer G.
Contact: Grog Lehey
5. ESSG is considering sending some people on site when the Customer G
machine arrives, to ensure that no further cockups occur.
Action: Grog Lehey
6. Peegee was seen at work with a tie, and came late to lunch. Rumour
has it that he was to be talking to bankers again. Many attempts
at word play on these facts.
Contact: Peegee Whone
7. Ralf Frankenstein due back this weekend. In view of the claim that
they are expecting another earthquake in California this weekend,
we think he may choose to wait for it.
Contact: Uschi Mack
8. New definition of Shift to the Left: the East Germans moving to
West Germany. The politicians amongst us proved that this was, in
fact, a logical right shift.
Contact: Auke Veenema
9. Discussion of heat pumps and natural swimming pools
Contact: Rainer Esslinger
10. An army Leopard tank went to a private workshop for some engine
repairs. When it was finished, the engine worked, but the cannon
was missing. "What did you say was on the roof of your car, sir?"
Contact: Xandy Stams
11. Customer B has found an interesting bug in the File System,
which has been there as long as Expand. Can cause FEWRONGIDs
on remote OPENs. We have identified a fix, but need to convince
Steve Schmidt that it is needed in Cxx.
Contact: Grog Lehey
12. Tony Kumar's fly-by-night ticket service has a sting in the tail.
They come back a year later asking for more money.
Contact: Grog Lehey
13. Konrad Zuse has come full circle and is building another Z-1 in
Berlin.
Contact: Rainer Esslinger
14. History lesson about the Zuse machines
Contact: Erich Taschner
15. Customer H's Pathway
problems have hit production systems. Ulli Fuhr is currently
about to check whether the new fixes include all the ones they
are currently used. Not helped by the fact that Renate wants to
cold load this evening.
Contact: Erich Taschner
16. Belle Dale's (brother and sister) in law have fled India and are
currently in a refugee hotel in the Odenwald. Peegee was there,
not with the bankers, with Dale, trying to get their flight to
England sorted out. Not helped by the fact that 1) they don't
speak English or German and 2) brother-in-law doesn't wear a
turban, thus presumably alienating Param.
Contact: Peegee Whone
17. Belle is reported not to be in the best of health. Further info
not supplied.
Contact: Tony Clark
18. Customer G: Peegee says
that Moos is concerned that the amount of memory supplied in the
S2 machine will not be enough for serious benchmarking. Grog to
contact Virgil.
Action: Grog Lehey
19. Tomato claims that his new license plate is F-AC 256, but he is
not sure that he will even minimally met standards.
Contact: Robersi Tomato
*** urgent update *** Tomato now claims it's only F-AC 236. He's
still not sure he can cope.
20. Peegee expressed disappointment that Jenny has removed her nail
varnish. He carried a knife for her.
Contact: George
21. We are trying to work out a plan to sell the Berlin Wall to
Disneyland, thus solving the DDR's financial deficit in one swell
foop.
Contact: Rainer Esslinger
22. Xandy and his band have made a cassette and given a copy to Jenny,
who is impressed.
Contact: Xandy Stams
23. Either Rainer is drunk or Jenny looks like a green penguin.
Contact: Rainer Esslinger
24. MaF got D00 up on \FIX. It's down now, but that's because we
wanted to connect to the net again (Wench is adamant that no D00
system should be connected to the net, yet).
Contact: Manfred Fidelak
25. XXX XXX (XY) and Ellen Kercher (XX) coming to interview today,
both for Unix positions. XXX XXX is from Tandem and has NOT told
his manager, a thing which aroused less than positive comments.
Contact: Xandy Stams
26. Kees Kuijt, ex Altos, does not want to work for ESSG in Frankfurt.
Contact: Grog Lehey
27. We have worked out a multi-ouzo TMR model: take three glasses of
ouzo, and drink one. It is obvious that the empty one has failed.
Drink another, and it is obvious that the full one is failed. This
shows a) the follies of TMR with multiple failures and b) the
follies of drinking too much ouzo.
Contact: gRgo LeehY
28. Should we go to the GmbH Christmas party? People were upset that
it was on a Thursday, and suspected ulterior motives. The
pacifists and the boozers were for going to the party.
Contact: Xandy Stams
29. The extra two days of holiday this year will be: official, 1/2 day
Christmas Eve, 1/2 day New Year's Eve. The other day is at your
discretion up to the 31st March, to make sense should not overlap
with any other day of holiday. Check your pay slips, but it
appears that they have forgotten to enter it there.
Action: Grog Lehey
30. Jenny may not be moving to the new Sports Centre after all, but
may chose to renovate the old hut.
Contact: Jenny
Next meeting: Monday, 13 November, 12:15 pm
------------------------ ORIGINAL ATTACHMENT ------------------------
SENT: 89-11-13 14:25
FROM: LEHEY_GREG (Greg Lehey)
TO: DL.FP @ESSG
SUBJECT: Jenny's meeting minutes, 13 November 1989
Minutes of Jenny meeting, 13 November 1989
Present: Rainer Esslinger
Robersi Tomato
Peegee Whone
Grog Lehey
Michael Sube
1. People are missing the Schaller minutes
Contact: Rainer Esslinger
2. Tomato is chasing D00 internships at Corporate
Action: Robersi Tomato
3. Peegee has difficulty breaking Mac copy protection.
Contact: Peegee Whone
4. The special Berlin classical concert on TV yesterday showed the
principal oboist of the Berlin Philharmonic playing a boxwood oboe
with golden keywork. Question: was it made by Guntram Wolf?
Contact: Guntram Wolf
5. How do you issue 4 million visas in a hurry? The logistics must be
appalling.
Contact: Michael Sube
6. Who is paying the 400 000 000 DM Begruessungsgeld? You and I!
Contact: Peegee Whone
7. So finally most of the BRD uses cars with low pollution engines.
And what happens? Thousands of Trabbis come over to increase the
pollution again.
Contact: Peegee Whone
8. The fact that Customer G gets our S2 should not mean that we get ours
any later, since it is going to HPRC first. The date is still firm
at the 11th December.
Contact: Grog Lehey
9. Solutions discussed for Customer K's spooler problems. Seems that
their print process does not abide by Tandem specs, a feature it
shares with Tandem's print process.
Contact: Rainer Esslinger
10. Discussion of file system errors 218 and 222.
Contact: Grog Lehey
11. Uschi Mack called. Ralf was so disappointed that there was no
earthquake that he took a cyclone instead. Now expected back on
the 16th November.
Contact: Grog Lehey
12. Moos Bulder is in Paderborn, not in Austin.
Contact: Grog Lehey
13. XXX YYYY, whom we interviewed on Friday, is arguably the
ugliest person we have ever seen. She is also not interested in
systems, so we are not interested in her. About the only thing of
interest was that she told us that IBM does its AIX development in
Austin TX, presumably down Burnett/FM 1325.
Contact: Grog Lehey
14. One of the arguments about XXX's ugliness was that there is an
Italian (female) MP who is at least as ugly. Her name is not
Cicciolina.
Contact: Robersi Tomato
15. Getting a visa for the DDR requires registration 8 weeks in
advance. Fly and fixers please note and predict failures in time.
Contact: Peegee Whone
16. Belle Dale's in-laws stayed in Germany and did not go to England
with her. This was a transcription error in the minutes of the
10th. They did go to a Sikh temple in Param's garage, but there
was only a single person there with a turban on.
Contact: Peegee Whone
17. So nice, so nice, we do it twice: Francois Mitterand likes Germany
very much - so much, in fact, that he would rather have two.
Contact: Rainer Esslinger
18. Grog is off to England next week in the next stage of finding
people to fill his head count.
Contact: Grog Lehey
19. Rhod Davies hasn't said no yet. He reminds us in appearance of
Felix van Laethem.
Contact: Peegee Whone
20. Peegee is still gloating about expired TPRs. The suggestion was
made that they should be assigned to Peegee pending resolution of
response required date.
Contact: Grog Lehey
21. Jenny gave us a round of coffee.
Contact: Jenny
22. Michael admired Jenny's fingernails, which were varnished again,
thus pre-empting Peegee.
Contact: George
23. Datemail is not universally known as a way to send reminder mail
messages. Anybody not using it should
Contact: Grog Lehey
24. Ouzo from Rhodos can knock your block off.
Contact: Peegee Whone
25. Fritz Joern can calculate pi to 500 places. We tend to manage that
many in the course of a few lunches.
Contact: Rainer Esslinger
26. Peegee broke Jenny's watch, then blamed Elias for it.
Contact: Peegee Whone
27. Elias was not amused
Contact: Elias
28. Elias is the next new hire in the subsystems group
Contact: Xandy Stams
29. Jenny offered to cut Peegee's hair
Contact: Jenny
30. Steve Hodge is currently somewhere attempting to ensure market
acceptance of SNAX-CDF.
Contact: Heave Stodge
31. Roberto's car (F-AC 236) can't get it up. It took the petrol gauge
5 minutes to show the correct value.
Contact: Robersi Tomato
Next meeting: 12 November, 12:15 pm
------------------------ ORIGINAL ATTACHMENT ------------------------
SENT: 89-11-14 14:46
FROM: LEHEY_GREG (Greg Lehey)
TO: DL.FP @ESSG
SUBJECT: Jenny's meeting minutes, 14 November 1989
Meetings of Jenny's meeting, 14 November 1989
Present: Robersi Tomato
Rainer Esslinger
Michael Sube
Peegee Whone
Grog Lehey
Juergen Lang *
Ton Vrouwe *
Renate Sueberkrueb
*: Guest
1. unido has problems sending mail documentation. They will find a
photocopier Real Soon Now.
Contact: Michael Sube
2. Essensmarken are dying out. The DM 55 that Datzperson is proposing
will not quite make up for them, at least for those who don't
travel.
Contact: Peter Dutzmann
3. God decided that the world was a failure, and that he should
destroy it. In view of the number of people living on it, however,
he decided to call in the three most important politicians for
breakfast: Bush, Krenz and Gorbachev, not necessarily in that
order. They had breakfast together, and God told them the way it
had to be, no arguments, nothing, the world would end in two weeks
time. Off they went back home.
Bush: "My friends, I have good news and bad news. The good news
is, God has called me personally to his side, showing again that
God is on Our Side. The bad news is, the world will end in two
weeks' time"
Gorbachev: "Comrades, I have bad news and more bad news. Firstly,
there is a God. Secondly, he told me that the world will end in
two weeks"
Krenz: "Genossen, I have good news and good news. Firstly, God has
recognised the GDR as one of the three most important countries in
the world. Secondly, I have positive confirmation that there will
be no more demonstrations in two weeks' time".
Contact: Peegee Whone
4. Peter Datzmann now recognises that Germany is the centre of the
world. All we need is a little time, the Americans will leave,
the Russians will leave, Germany will reunite, and Germany will be
the leading power in the world.
Contact: God
5. We should move ESSG to Berlin. Rentals in East Berlin average M
120 per month. At the current exchange rate of 10 to 1, this is DM
12. You could rent a whole street in Berlin, another thing (apart
from the initial letter) it has in common with Birmingham.
Contact: Rainer Esslinger
6. We should do another Cyclone announcement in Berlin. If it has the
same effect as the last one, there will be an earthquake, the wall
will collapse, and Berlin will have a good autobahn right in the
middle of town.
Contact: Rainer Esslinger
7. Another way of creating an earthquake might be to get a whole lot
of tables in the middle of Berlin, put 2000000 Chinese on them,
and get them to jump off.
Contact: Rainer Esslinger
8. Michael has LXN sendmail objects, but not documentation or source.
Needs to contact Jack the Ripper.
Contact: Jack the Ripper
9. Discussed algorithms for breaking data streams containing ESC
sequences.
Contact: Rainer Esslinger
10. How many nowaits will DP2 accept? Why?
Contact: Grog Lehey
11. Michael prefers the little black ones to the fat green ones.
Contact: Michael Sube
12. Tomato wants better shaped olives, will enter an RFE to the Black
Hole.
Contact: Robersi Tomato
13. Rainer is trying to make jokes about the OS group. He needs help.
Contact: Rainer Esslinger
14. Guy Haas suspects that our meetings are really in some Kneipe or
another.
Contact: Guy Haas
15. Torben Holm changed the SUPPORT.PRS remote passwords. He will give
out a round of Gammeldansk.
Contact: Torben Holm
16. Torben didn't turn up to lunch. Jenny doesn't have Gammeldansk.
Contact: Jenny
17. Craig spent a lot of time trying to break into USERID to find out
the SUPPORT.PRS remotepasswords. Xandy had a program.
Contact: Xandy Stams
18. The Chaos Computer Club should check our security arrangements.
Contact: Rainer Esslinger
19. Call the hotline number for any old shit.
Contact: ESSG hotline
20. Erich-P, Erich-M and Hanna are on a PTT sightseeing tour with a
lot of American X.25 people.
Contact: Bad Penny
21. We agreed to copy guests on these minutes.
Contact: Grog Lehey
22. We didn't agree to copy other people mentioned in the minutes.
Contact: Peegee Whone
23. Peegee won a watch in a competition. He really wanted a BMW.
Contact: Peegee Whone
24. At the request of Rainer Esslinger: "When you take a photo of a
group of managers, you don't need negatives".
Contact: don't bother
25. Peegee and Renate are making a mutual admiration tape.
Contact: Evelyn Whone
26. Rainer gave a round out after a total failure to incite our guests
(primary and backup) to do so. Content: 1 Pils, 2 Ouza, 2 Mocca, 2
buckets, 1 nothing (served in a boot).
Contact: Rainer Esslinger
27. We should connect a modem line to Jenny's
Contact: Erich Ditzel
28. Susanne Schauss ordered the wrong S2 machine, causing jumping up
and down in Austin.
Contact: don't bother
29. Dave Zirker has been reincarnated as Mr. SUT Quality. He will be
here tomorrow so that Renate can tell him what a SUT is.
Contact: Renate Sueberkrueb
30. Ken King is Mr. (bar nothing) Quality. He takes weeks to answer
his mail.
Contact: Ken King (how?)
31. When you go on a quality training seminar, you get paired off with
some unlikely person and then given a case study. When you leave,
you discover that it's for real. All the responsibility and none
of the authority.
Contact: Ilene Birkwood
32. Rob Summerfield (another quality person) went to Barclays.
Unfortunately, he didn't know what their problems were.
Contact: Rob Summerfield
33. Peegee saw Jimmy T. in Cupertino last time he was there. Should we
copy him on the minutes?
Contact: Jimmy Treybig
34. Rainer wants Reinhard Bruns (quality man) to go
to Customer K to
explain our situation. Peegee doesn't think this would do the
company any good.
Contact: Peegee Whone
35. Customer K is pissed
off because of missing manuals, and the fact that, although their
CLXs have *only* reel-to-reel tapes, all SUTs from Manufacturing
and Neufahrn come on cartridges.
Contact: Rainer Esslinger
36. Chris Varr should have changed the central sites file so that Customer
K get the right kinds of tapes.
Contact: Renate Sueberkrueb
37. Order processing is screwed up
Contact: don't bother
38. Situation processing is messed up because the various members
report to different organisations, and we don't meet until a long
way up (at least as high as Rob Hoogstraten, if not Bob Marshall).
We need an action team reporting to one not-too-high entity, we
need somebody with the authority to resolve a problem.
Contact: Rainer Esslinger
39. We need a laptop on-site for writing the minutes.
Contact: Grog Lehey
40. Peegee lost his handbag, and suspected it was in Grog's. Grog
said, "It's too long". Peegee: "Nobody's ever said that to me
before".
Contact: Evelyn Whone
41. Peegee was right.
Contact: Peegee Whone
------------------------ ORIGINAL ATTACHMENT ------------------------
SENT: 89-11-15 16:16
FROM: LEHEY_GREG (Greg Lehey)
TO: DL.FP @ESSG
CC. RAVENSDALE_STEPH @EUROPE,VROUWE_TON @HOLLAND,ZIRKER_DAVID @THAMES
BARTLETT_WENDY @TSII
SUBJECT: Still more Jenny's meeting minutes, 15.1 November 1989
Jenny's meeting minutes, 15 November 1989
Present: Craig Gaydos
Rainer Esslinger
Robersi Tomato
Grog Lehey
Michael Sube
Ton Vrouwe
Peegee Whone
Renate Sueberkrueb
David Zirker
Kathy Wright
Xandy Stams (late)
1. We have to do something about Backup and Restore code. It's
cleverly written, but we don't have documentation, and we had no
answers from Development. Craig says 400000 customers have
complained about the error messages, though he is not
completely sure about this number. Crossref and maps would
really help. Craig suspects that they are trying to hide info to
make it look like C.
Action: Craig Gaydos
2. Michael has almost installed SMTP on solo, but has trouble
because it insists on downshifting his names.
Contact: Michael Sube
3. Craig broke the on-call beeper yesterday. It wouldn't stop
beeping on the way home, so he threw it on the floor, and it
finally stopped.
Action: Craig Gaydos
4. We still need to look at the question of portable phones.
Contact: Grog Lehey
5. Ralf is due back tomorrow, but we still haven't had an
earthquake.
Contact: Uschi Mack
6. Peegee is meeting with Dave Zirker. Rumour has it that
Neufahrn SUTs are only used to verify system function.
Contact: Ton Vrouwe
7. Craig's Mac has been approved. Now he doesn't have any excuse not
to support it.
Contact: Craig Gaydos
8. Macs are still too expensive in Europe. Craig is sure that
people won't buy them.
Contact: Craig
9. If you are suffering from engaged lines, call 101 (the German
operator number), the PTT can get through more easily than you
can. Of course, it costs (much) more.
Contact: Rainer Esslinger
10. Craig described his work plan, to the amusement of all.
Contact: Craig Gaydos
11. Currently operator calls to the DDR have a 12-hour backlog. The
backlog expires at midnight. Real emergencies have highest
priority (Grandma has died, etc.).
Contact: Rainer Esslinger
12. Eberhard Dongus has the wrong phone number in TELE, the
operator doesn't answer in the Berner Strasse.
Contact: Grog Lehey
13. Some customer in France wants to declare a situation because he
can't get a C10 system up. Craig doesn't know who the customer
is.
Contact: Craig Gaydos
14. After 6 months of screaming, Craig delivered a B40/V80 EBF to a
French customer whose name he forgot. He contacted Carl
Niehaus to get the job done, and they found a B40/V80 system
within a day.
Contact: Craig Gaydos
15. These meetings are getting too serious. On the other hand, we
shouldn't include jokes in the minutes, since that way,
Peegee can't go to High Wycombe and tell it again.
Contact: Peegee Whone
16. Some people find that the minutes are not serious enough. But
then, neither is the meeting. We agreed not to falsify the
minutes.
Contact: Grog Lehey
17. The OS group will have a meeting tomorrow (16 November) at
10:30 am in Grog's office. All invited, bring your own
coffee.
Contact: Grog Lehey
18. HDM want to install XL8s under B40/DP1.
Contact: Grog Lehey
19. Craig wanted to know which city Heidelberger Dreckmaschinen is
in.
Contact: Grog Lehey
20. B40 support will finish (shoulder shrug).
Contact: Peegee Whone
21. Reppo is off to Customer D this afternoon.
Contact: Reppo Littlejohns
22. Mike Lack and Reppo both deny any understanding of TMDS. We
don't blame them.
*** Update *** Reppo thought we had to support this crap. He does
understand how to use it and to work around its
limitations.
Contact: Grog Lehey
23. Banco popolare de Bergamo intends to use S2s instead of PCs.
Roberto has a villa in the mountains nearby, and desperately
wants to run a Beta test there.
Contact: Cesare
24. David Zirker thinks Spain has more sales potential than Italy at
the moment.
Contact: David Zirker
25. Craig didn't put his name down on the white board last week, but
refused to give one out. He thinks it should be
voluntary, but the general feeling was that this was a reason to
volunteer.
Contact: Craig Gaydos
26. Wench has replied to Tomato agreeing about internships. We
still need to sort out who pays.
Contact: Robersi Tomato
27. Jenny gave one out: dessert.
Contact: Jenny
28. Peegee gave one out, since he felt that somebody should stand up.
Contact: Peegee Whone
29. Grog turned down Jenny's offer.
Contact: Yvonne Lehey
30. Xandy decided to have a liquid lunch.
Contact: Xandy Stams
31. We need an old TNS/I at Jenny's so that the minutes computer
doesn't run out of batteries.
Contact: Michael Sube
32. Craig claims that DEBUG sometimes gives a SYN? error when
accessing between the end of the segment and the end of the
page.
Contact: Craig Gaydos
33. Craig has become religious.
Contact: Craig Gaydos
34. We need an idler program which shows the screen as it is
filling up with water, with fishes swimming around.
Contact: Grog Lehey
35. Alternatively, a program for extracting ouzo from a PC would also
be a neat idea.
Contact: Michael Sube
36. The Guardian file server on the LAN is brain-damaged. It
doesn't understand EXPAND (NIH), and insists on supplying all
disks as the top level directory contents. We need something more
adjustable, so that we can use XTREE on a single drive, or run a
program from a different T/16 node.
Contact: Grog Lehey
37. Xandy is getting old. He didn't know who Melissa Etheridge is.
Contact: Xandy Stams
38. Suggestion of the week: update of MSS database should be done in
Austin, because it couldn't be done any worse than now (Austin
could, however, disprove this theory).
Contact: David Zirker
39. David Zirker hasn't done anything about career planning.
Contact: David Zirker
40. Braunlage is overbooked. We may have to share rooms. Peegee has
already produced a list, but is not sure that it will be
respected. Grog thinks the list should be about 3 or 4 long,
Peegee is more tolerant.
Contact: Stephanie Ravensdale
Next meeting: 16 November, 12:15
Agenda: Pastitzio
------------------------ ORIGINAL ATTACHMENT ------------------------
SENT: 89-11-16 15:48
FROM: LEHEY_GREG (Greg Lehey)
TO: DL.FP @ESSG
CC. DITZEL_ERICH @FRANKFT
SUBJECT: Jenny's meeting minutes, 16 November 1989
Jenny's meeting minutes, 15 November 1989
Present: Robersi Tomato
Michael Sube
Xandy Stams
Erich Ditzel
Erich Taschner
Grog Lehey
Ton Vrouwe
Renate Sueberkrueb
Kathy Wright
1. Erich, Erich and Xandy are antisocial. They decided to hold a
private meeting.
Contact: Erich, Erich, Xandy
2. Grog still hasn't lost weight. Michael thinks this is normal
for 5 ouzos per day.
Contact: Michael Sube
3. Kathy and Renate wanted to start a private meeting, but
didn't have an agenda.
Contact: Renate Sueberkrueb
4. Rainer Esslinger joined the renegades. The choice was based
on beer distribution.
Contact: Rainer Esslinger
5. Renate worked out an agenda, but will hold the meeting later.
Contact: Renate Sueberkrueb
6. Michael is still working on X.25. It isn't working on the
LXN.
Contact: Michael Sube
7. Michael is also having trouble with sendmail. So nice, so
nice, we do it twice.
Contact: Michael Sube
8. The OS group in Frankfurt will be all out next week. Wondo
will be the only OS person. Michael will be in Paris with
Customer G, Kathy, Craig and
Tomato will be in Amsterdam learning quality, Grog will be in
England interviewing the UNIX candidates.
Contact: Grog Lehey
9. A customer in Muenchen tried to create a split brain. They
were successful.
Contact: Kathy Wright
10. What do we do with expired 6528 TPRs? The buck stops here.
Contact: Grog Lehey
11. What happens if a missing info TPR expires? Grog says, send
it back and get them to re-enter the TPR when the info is
available, promising preferential treatment.
Contact: Peegee Whone
12. Laptops on a plane make a hell of a noise. Plane engines are
obviously too quiet.
Contact: Kathy Wright
13. Suggestion for making take-off delays not so big a deal: get
one of the passengers absolutely blasted and get him to put
on a show.
Contact: Kathy Wright
14. Erich Ditzel thinks that taking minutes is too much like
being in a meeting.
Contact: Erich Ditzel
15. Kathy likes the big green ones
Contact: Michael Sube
16. Tomato impressed Renate. He remembered what happened the day
before yesterday.
Contact: Renate Sueberkrueb
17. Do customers know that CEs perform primary switches during
PM? Do they care? Do they understand?
Contact: Robersi Tomato
18. We have solved the Jenny's computer problem: on the 8th
December, we will install an S2.
Contact: Grog Lehey
19. Subsequently, we will all commit ritual suicide.
Contact: Robersi Tomato
20. Ouzo came from the renegades. We're not sure we're grateful.
Contact: Rainer Esslinger
21. New maths: "The second of the three is the first".
Contact: Ton Vrouwe
22. How do we get to Braunlage? The majority favour helicopter.
Contact: Michael Sube
23. We have a solution to the Braunlage overbooking problem. We
have established that 100 people want to share a room with
Maria Olivero. That leaves one room per person for the rest.
Contact: Michael Sube
24. How much money do you need when travelling to Holland? Hfl 15
Contact: Grog Lehey
25. Turning the hard disk off on a laptop doesn't necessarily
save the battery.
Contact: Grog Lehey
Next meeting: 17 November, 12:15
Agenda: Leg of lamb
------------------------ ORIGINAL ATTACHMENT ------------------------
SENT: 89-11-17 13:41
FROM: LEHEY_GREG (Greg Lehey)
TO: DL.FP @ESSG
CC. VROUWE_TON @HOLLAND,OLIVERO_JIM @THAMES,HAUSMANN_MADDI @PRUNE
DITZEL_ERICH @FRANKFT
SUBJECT: Jenny's meeting minutes, 17 November 1989
Jenny's meeting minutes, 17 November 1989
Present: Ton Vrouwe
Michael Sube
Dieter Wolf (not on a diet today)
Torben Holm
Robersi Tomato
Grog Lehey
1. A Texan finds oil in his back yard and goes to Dallas to find
how to invest the money. They send him home and tell him to
come back in a week. Then they told him: buy a jet bomber for
$50000000, bombs for $4000000, hire a pilot for $1000000.
When he asked why, he was told: "If the Jews do it, it must
be a good investment". Even Grog understood after a while.
Contact: Robersi Tomato
2. Another breakaway meeting: Erich, Erich and Monika
Contact: Erich, Erich, Monika
3. Erich Taschner thinks that using a laptop for the minutes is
a breach of German Arbeitsrecht.
Contact: Erich Taschner
4. Why are we hiring UNIX specialists in England? Because we
can't find any in Germany.
Contact: Grog Lehey
5. IBM had flat screen displays 20 years ago, and they were more
legible than modern ones. Projected price: $5 to build it. So
what happened to it? Grog suspects that the power consumption
was the problem.
Contact: Robersi Tomato
6. Is there a 6530 emulator for Suns?
Contact: Michael Sube
7. Michael would like to have a son, not so interested in a
daughter.
Contact: Michael Sube
8. Frankenstein is back. No more earthquakes in California for a
while.
Contact: Uschi Mack
9. Tomato is worried about what could happen while Frankenstein
is in Frankfurt.
Contact: Robersi Tomato
10. Good news: single stroke answers two TPRs. Bad news: the IPM
referred is not available.
Contact: Robersi Tomato
11. Two-stroke cars such as the Trabbi need oil in their petrol.
This doesn't need to be pre-mixed, however: there is a mixer
in the filling cap.
Contact: Grog Lehey
12. We are heading for a conflict in keeping minutes: some people
are getting pissed off. We need a vote as to whether we
continue or not. Your opinions, please.
Contact: Grog Lehey
13. Tomato likes the minutes. That way he gets to find out what
people said in German.
Contact: Robersi Tomato
14. Dieter likes the little black ones and the big green ones.
Contact: Dieter Wolf
15. There will be enough rooms in Braunlage. Not sure what we can
do for Maria.
Contact: Jim Olivero
16. Lufthansa is planning to stop inland flights, since the delay
makes it slower than trains.
Contact: Dieter Wolf
17. Amexco travel saves you time, but costs money. Used to be you
could get a room at the Maidenhead Crest for #39, and Amexco
could get you the same room for only #65. At least at the
Crest they now alter the rate.
Contact: Grog Lehey
18. Grog is going to England on Monday, to France on Friday.
Craig, Kathy and Tomato are going to Amsterdam, Michael will
be going to Paris in the afternoon. Ton and Frankenstein will
be running the OS shop next week.
Contact: Rob Hoogstraten
19. Tomato will be in the office *some time* next week (beer bust
at the latest).
Contact: Robersi Tomato
20. Jean Fernandez of the Black Hole only has 22% TPRs expired.
This is because her job is to reassign them.
Contact: Grog Lehey
21. Ton gave one out (2 Mokka, 1 bucket, 3 ouzo). Dieter didn't
understand. Neither did Torben.
Contact: Ton Vrouwe
22. Jenny gave one out (fruits). Everybody understood.
Contact: Jenny
23. Epson Equity LT has a problem: to set the time, you need to
enter a diagnostic routine.
Contact: Manfred "Mr. Time" Fidelak
24. Dieter has rearranged his office. He obviously doesn't have
enough to do. We were generous and offered him something to
pass the time.
Contact: Dieter Wolf
25. OS/2 is too complicated in the user interface, that's why it
is catching on so slowly.
Contact: Grog Lehey
26. OS/2 is getting new applications. There is one already -
Microsoft Excel.
Contact: Ton Vrouwe
27. New idea for palmtops: inflatable keyboard.
Contact: Dieter Wolf
28. Maddi needs a man.
Contact: Maddi Hausmann
29. Maddi needs three men, so that she can tell which one fails.
Contact: Michael Sube, Michael Sube, Michael Sube
30. (left over from yesterday) German cars are the way they are
because they are designed by robots and built by Germans.
Contact: Ton Vrouwe
31. We need somebody to keep the minutes on Monday. We
volunteered Peegee.
Contact: Peegee Whone
Next meeting: 20 November, 12:15
Agenda: Giros
