[HECnet] VMS/RSX Guest accounts

Yes, there certainly was something about keeping those beasts behind glass doors where they could be properly worshiped and given due sacrifice by adoring acolytes.? Of course it was "Don't touch"; they cost millions of dollars buy and millions more to operate. But, believe me, after you've cleaned enough tape drive excrement so as to become a dark magnetic gooey mess, only to have them vomit tape all over the place again, decollated enough paper to look like a speckled hen while liberally being seasoned with ink from unruly six part forms, suffered through crashed disks and endured processors that seized up whenever anybody sneezed or the temperature went up by a tenth of a degree, it wouldn't hold much of a thrill at all. I hated it when call rotation came to me and I wore the pager that evening.? I swear between 20 to 50% of the time, my phone would ring at 2:00 in the morning and I would spend hours with somebody from Colorado on the KLINIK line.? Zzz.... For me, not only is the miracle that Dave can resurrect these monsters decades after they were in service, but that somehow he appears to enjoy doing it.? Maybe it's due in part that he doesn't have a couple hundred livid angry users making the phone glow red. I'm very thankful to program them again.? But I've had my fill of the machine room. Not that I won't float over there the next time I happen to be in that neighborhood.? Some of the memories /were/ wonderful.? Some.