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July 01, 2008
My first encounter with databases.
My first encounter with databases came in about 1990, when my parents bought an exciting computer, a new-to-us operating system called Windows and a huge hard drive – 30 megs! My dad wanted all the bells and whistles, so he bought a text-based database program along with a lot of other software. We had about 200 VHS tapes of various shows and movies my parents had recorded off of TV.
My dad gave a number, 1 to 200, to each tape, then spent many hours over several weeks popping them into the VCR and fast forwarding at high speed to see what the tape contained. He created a database that contained the tape number, what TV shows or movies were on that tape, and under which category it fell (category examples included “miniseries,” “kids TV,” “kids movie” “romance movie,” etc.). It was an extremely useful tool for several years, because we could get on the computer and quickly find out where a particular movie was stored, or we could just search by category when we didn’t know what we wanted to watch, and pick and choose that way.
Eventually we got a new computer, and the software didn’t work on it. For years, we continued to refer to decaying reams of paper that contained the printed index of our movie library. Then gradually the VHS tapes lost their magnetism, the world moved on to DVDs, and the first database I encountered became obsolete.
(Cut and paste from the "introduce yourself" section of my database class' first assignment, which I stayed up late tonight to complete.)
Posted by Courtney_Sherwood at July 1, 2008 11:33 PM
Comments
I love these little vignettes from your life. Thank you for sharing them!
Posted by: Dan Muzyka at July 4, 2008 01:25 PM