Using the Internet in 1955 Helped My “Girls.”

Bloggers and other propeller heads always find a way to sneak in when they first started on the web.
It’s the Al Gore syndrome. “I am now cool because I used the internet when nerdy wasn’t geeky.”
My turn.
This is me and my first web page at the Oh Susanna! Home for Wayward Girls.
I didn’t have a complete web “site” yet because ASCII was in beta. I was using my own language TELMII. One of the boys that hung around was working something he called Hypo Test Market Linguistics. I laffed and laffed over that one!

These were interesting times.

“The girls” loved learning. Rather than pay them when other men came to enjoy their skills. I would charge the men tuition and then give the girls a cut. Notice on the left side of the picture, the girl with a machine we lovingly referred to as the “cash register.”
When I would review my latest webpage - usually an analysis of hourly rate vs girls skill level less operating expenses - the girls would keep their own statistics.
I didn’t think anything of it at the time because in the business I ran, the customers liked things tight, and the girls seemed to think bigger was better… but notice their data entry platform. I guess I should have kept it paper thin as shown. Instead I had my vendor add a lot more crap to make it thick and larger. Engorged if you will.
When the girls reached a quota, they would yell out “Spitzer!” and all the girls would squeal with delight as the bell rang on the cash register. The girl would get a cash bonus.
I should have kept current with web developments while I was spending 15-30 at Playa Del Broderick Crawford in Alabama.
But I didn’t, I put away the fifty inch display and retired the custom teak laser pointer I used. ASCII came out of beta and I forgot about TELMII.

I wonder what happened to everybody from Oh Susanna! Home for Wayward Girls.

7 Responses to “Using the Internet in 1955 Helped My “Girls.””

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1 Gretchen
Mar 28th, 2008 at 10:22 am

Hee. What a groundbreaking pioneer you were! I remember back before PCs in the workplace, when I used to operate a Wang word processing machine. Damn, those were good times. So many dick jokes, so little time.

Also: mag card machines, Telex instead of fax, carbon paper, ditto machines (remember all that purple ink?).

Damn, we are really showing our age.

Gretchen’s last blog post..Epicenter.
2 goinglikesixty
Mar 28th, 2008 at 11:03 am

@Gretchen: No, I just remember reading about those on the internet. Let’s don’t get started on “machines we remember” this would turn into Enderland’s blog IRememberJFK.com
3 Gretchen
Mar 28th, 2008 at 11:17 am

Booger. Stuff from that era is ALL I can remember; I can hardly remember last week, but I can sing several cigarette advertising jingles word-for-word.

But back in the fifties, didn’t they call it the Information Superhighway?

Gretchen’s last blog post..Epicenter.
4 goinglikesixty
Mar 28th, 2008 at 12:20 pm

@Gretchen: no back then it was call “radio.” LSMFT is all I can remember from cig commercials. Oh, and Winston Tastes Good Like A Cigarette Should.
5 Kirk M
Mar 29th, 2008 at 3:36 pm

Can you say; mimeograph? Used to crank out the church bulletins by the hundreds when I was a kid. Same thing as a ditto machine.

Punch cards? Paper tape readers/writers?

and

“I’d walk a mile for a Camel” and “Taste Me, Taste Me” (Doral) Yeah, go ahead…I’m ready.

Kirk M’s last blog post..Lights Out!
6 Going Like Sixty
Mar 29th, 2008 at 4:18 pm

@Kirk: Stop it! This isn’t a fair fight. You’re too old. Did any readers actually get a telegraph message?

keepingyouinstitches’s last blog post..“Bitchin’ bathing suits at Sam’s”
7 Kirk M
Mar 29th, 2008 at 5:26 pm

Telegraph messages? Yah, until I developed a bad case of Carpal Telegraph Syndrome and then I had to bring on another author…with a good wrist…she worked out fine.

Kirk M’s last blog post..Lights Out!