On Wed, 1 Nov 2017 06:55:16 -0700 (PDT), wrote:

On Tuesday, October 31, 2017 at 7:30:16 PM UTC-7, John B. wrote:
On Tue, 31 Oct 2017 06:39:21 -0700 (PDT), wrote:

On Monday, October 30, 2017 at 3:26:44 PM UTC-7, Frank Krygowski wrote:
On Monday, October 30, 2017 at 11:51:55 AM UTC-4, wrote:
On Monday, October 30, 2017 at 7:09:00 AM UTC-7, Frank Krygowski wrote:

How is that job application going?

Which one? I could get a dozen jobs were I to move from California. Since my wife won't go for that I have to watch Silicon Valley dissolving in the belief that you need a formal education to perform tasks that a technician could do.

Abbot Laboratories hasn't called yet. They are offering half the wage that their position would require. Do you suppose that is a serious job or an "it would be nice" position?

The electric car company to offer competition to Tesla seems to be falling apart now. They have advertised for engineering staff but never seem to hire anyone. They too have your really intelligent mindset that you need a formal education in order to screw everything you touch up.

Several other medical instrument companies cannot even read my resume because the headhunters will not submit a resume of someone that hasn't worked in three years. Again you cannot perform simple duties without a formal education.

Sounds like the places you've applied to want a formal education.

That's not illogical, you know. Yes, you tell us (and probably them) that you
are wonderfully smart and a high-performing worker. But they may reasonably
suspect that if you never earned a degree, you're not as smart or as motivated
as you claim.

Yes, I know there are exceptions. But based on what you say here, you're no
Bill Gates.

Where did that get you again?

:-) It got me a very interesting and satisfying career, lots of respect,
opportunities for interesting travel, and a good retirement in a desirable
community. I've had (and still have) opportunities to contribute to the
community. I've provided well for my family. And hey, I can even afford ground
beef!

- Frank Krygowski

Bill Gates? Let me guess - you think that he a Jobs were technical people.

Bill Gates was a computer programmer. Whether that is a "technical
person" or not may be open to argument.

I sincerely doubt that. Windows was purchased from a failing company and if memory served was Q-DOS and became MS-DOS and was almost unbelievably bad. But it WAS an operating system and I would write my own applications around it.


MS-DOS - was based on another system, 86-DOS from Seattle Computer
Products.

Seattle Computer Products had built a prototype 8086 CPU board but had
no operating system to fit it and were marketing the board with
Microsoft Basic. There was no 8086 based operating system at this
time. SCP developed a rudimentary operating system which they
initially called "Quick and Dirty Operating System" and later renamed
to 86-DOS. Microsoft initially licensed the use of the system, for
$25,000 and modified it to fit the IBM system. They later bought the
rights to the system, for $50,000. Due to the monies received from
Microsoft Seattle Computer expanded its memory business into
providing additional memory for PC products. The company had its best
year in 1982, reaping more than a million dollars in profit on about
$4 million in sales.

I think that Gates and Allen hired someone that actually knew how to program and that Gates never had enough smarts to even know what side of a keyboard the keys were on. But this OS ran on the IBM PC which almost guaranteed its success.

Well, of course you can believe anything that you wish but Gates wrote
his first software program at the age of 13. In high school he formed
a group of programmers who computerized their school's payroll system
and founded Traf-O-Data, a company that sold traffic-counting systems
to local governments.


Unix was also an OS for the PC but was never successful because no company maintained it. It was some student written affair that didn't make anyone money.

IBM initially offered the PC with the PC-DOS operating system and, I
think the UCSD p-System, although I'm not sure this was an original
offer. CP/M-86 was available about 6 months later. The PC-DOS system
added $40 to the basic cost of the system while CP/M-86 added $240.
About 96.3% of PS's were ordered with PC-DOS.

--
Cheers,

John B.