Quote:
Originally Posted by jtlownds  Hi Randy,
If you came across on SR80, you probably drove right by my house. The afternoon before the tornados, I was playing a dixieland gig in Venice. When I started home, around 5:00PM, The weather was beginning to look pretty bad up there, but we didn't even get rain out of it in LaBelle.
Where did the "Univac Jr" handle come from? I worked as a consultant for UNIVAC for about 10 years, back before it became Unisys.
Hope the guys up in the tornado area are OK. |
Hi Jim
Yes I did drive that way. I just live one light north of Southern Blvd. in WPB so it is a straight (and curvy) shot for me. Send me a PM heads up when you play near me so we can meet. I’d love to hear you play and would be very interested in stories about working as a consultant for UNIVAC.
Univac Jr. comes from a couple things. I am originally from Iowa and my best friend growing up was John Gustafson who later rebuilt the Atanasoff-Berry Computer.
http://www.scl.ameslab.gov/ABC/ABC.html
As a kid he was computer crazy long before there were PCs and Apples or even Atari and it was not so cool to be a computer nerd. Through him I became interested in all things computer. Later in 1995 my father gave me an old server from a friend of his which I rebuilt into a Windows NT and 95 machine. It had a huge case and had a Pentium Pro 200 and it had quite a lot of RAM in it for the period. I named the computer Univac Jr. because of my love for the history of computers and because it was a lot bigger than your average home computer! Because of what that computer could do I became interested in 3D animation and ran Softimage and later 3d Studio MAX and MAYA on it in NT. I used the handle "Univac Jr." in the 3D bulletin boards and later 3D forums like this one.
I ended up winning an animation contest, which led to a great paying job for a German company called CONCEPT as lead animator. I actually quit playing music for a living for the first time in my life. But a series of misfortunes in my family life led me to quit doing that for a living or even for fun and eventually I returned to the darkside of double bass. When I joined this forum I used my old "Univac Jr." handle but I've decided to go with my real name, as it is more personable which I think is part of the strength of this forum. How much of a community it is. Sorry that got so long.
