Progress But Not Enough

The Gay Struggle 

by Bill Holmes

It has been a pretty good run lately for the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender (LGBT) community. There is still a long way to go, hell we still have a long way to go with racial and women equality, but we are making progress. An active NBA basketball player has come out of the closet and acknowledged being gay, the first active athlete in a major men's sport. He has mostly received support from the athletic community. More states are sanctioning same sex marriages even as the federal government fails to give equal rights to all our citizens. The US Supreme Court will soon rule on the California ban of same sex marriages. According to polls a majority of the US population now accepts gay marriage or at least doesn't oppose it.  Many companies, governments and organizations are allowing insurance benefits to partners and spouses of all persuasions. The military now realizes that there are gays in the ranks and those service women and men can finally openly admit it. All this is good news but we are not through ensuring equal rights, opportunity and acceptance to the LGBT folks.

When I was growing up there was very little awareness of gays, in fact gay was not the normal word used to describe homosexuals. We had slang and slur words to describe them. I lived in Florida when Castro's victory caused many Cubans to immigrate to our country. The Catholic church provided much assistance to those immigrants including placing the children in Catholic schools. There were several placed in my elementary school. One of the first Spanish cuss/slur words I learned from those kids was their derogatory term for homosexuals. A term they used a lot not so much to identify a gay person but as a general putdown like SOB or asshole. Back then gays were not talked about, barely acknowledged to exist and certainly not accepted. The few guys I went to school with who were probably gay were called sissies. We made fun of them not because they were gay but because they were effeminate or couldn't throw a baseball or play football or like one I knew, fainted in biology lab. If there was a butch gay guy he would never even register on our radar. Guys didn't really know much about lesbians but there were a few girls that seemed a little masculine. Maybe the girls were more aware of lesbians in their midst. About 99.9% of gays in the 1950's and 60's were in the closet.

My awareness of gays changed while I was in college. I didn't decide to go to the University of South Florida (USF) until the last minute. I had been accepted to William & Mary and planned to go there. When no dorm space was available at William & Mary the full financial impact hit me. As an out of state student living off campus it was going to be damn expensive. I quickly went to my fallback choice of USF. Because it was a late decision I hadn't lined up a roommate so the school assigned one to me. It actually turned out very well. For whatever reason, I was assigned to one of the new dorms that consisted of suites rather than just a room with bunks, a couple of desks and a giant bathroom at the end of the hall. The suites had two single beds per bedroom (2 people), two bedrooms per study area (4 people) and two suites separated by a double bathroom (8 people). My first roommate was a guy from St. Petersburg who went home every weekend and decided to commute from home after a trimester or two. My second totally random roommate, Bob, was gay. Of course I didn't know that at the time. We got along fine but didn't hang out together socially very much. 

A couple of years later when I was going to move to Atlanta to pursue my fortunes it turned out that Bob was also going to Atlanta. He was going for a trimester or quarter, whatever term length we were on then, for a work-study assignment. He was going to work at the Centers for Disease Control (CDC). Since I had a studio apartment lined up I offered him a place to stay. It was a small furnished studio that I took over from a friend when he got married. It was a little crowded when Bob was there but since I usually worked at night and he worked during the day we weren't there at the same time very often. On weekends, if we happened to want to sleep at the same time, he slept on the spare bed/couch thing. Otherwise we both used the convertible sofa bed which was much more comfortable. That foldout bed stayed open most of the time even though it pretty much filled the room. Single guys in there twenties don't spend much time at home except to sleep, shower and shave.

By this time I had strong suspicions that Bob was gay but he didn't tell me and I didn't ask. It was our own version of the later military policy. We got along fine but still didn't socialize together very often. Part of that was because we were on different work schedules. At the end of the term, Bob went back to USF.

Over the next year or two, Bob came back to Atlanta two or three more times. He always stayed with me and I was happy to have him. He would pay part of the rent and he would also cook. Bob was of Italian heritage and his Mamma and Nonna taught him how to cook. He was good at it and liked to do it. At the time I was not a kitchen expert and welcomed some real food. Cooking in that small kitchen was a challenge. Besides being cramped, if you opened the window the pilot on the stove was likely to blow out. It's a wonder we didn't either blow ourselves up or die from asphyxiation. We didn't have an abundance of cooking equipment either.

Each time Bob came back to Atlanta he dropped more hints about his sexual preferences and lifestyle. A couple of times he invited me to go with him to his friend's parties. We lived in the Piedmont, Georgia Tech, 10th Street area which was full of hippies and mostly young people. Many of his friends also lived in the area. These parties were like all the other parties that 20 year old people went to circa 1970. Low lights, incense, alcoholic beverages, some pot and In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida playing on a record player or FM radio. I don't know if everybody but me was gay but the straight folks were definitely a minority. There were a few girls in attendance too but not many. None of the guys ever made a move on me. I don't know if Bob told them I was straight, if they knew from my demeanor or if I was just plain unattractive to them. There was never any tension or uncomfortableness. It was just a group of folks having a good time.

Bob also began leaving gay magazines around the apartment. Not out on the coffee table but in places I was pretty sure to find them. By then I was already sure Bob was gay but I wasn't very empathetic, sympathetic or supportive. I didn't care that he was gay and it didn't bother me and I wasn't afraid he would try to convert me or that his gayness was catching. It's just that I was wrapped up in my own life.

One night he came home pretty drunk and disheveled. I happened to be there which was unusual because I was usually at work or out with my friends getting drunk and disheveled. That night he broke down and blurted out to me that he was gay and how terrible he was. Bob had an Italian and Catholic upbringing. Neither Italians or the Catholic church are very tolerant of gays or their lifestyle. It was also circa 1970 and gays were not generally accepted and were discriminated against. Bob was racked with guilt and knew he was going to hell. We talked for a long time. For the first time we talked about the elephant in the room and although that pachyderm never bothered me it obviously bothered him. He cried and vented and talked about lots of things. I mostly listened and tried to be supportive but I probably did a poor job of that. I was too young and ignorant to be much help. The next day our routines were mostly back to normal but there were slight changes. We were a little more open with each other. Bob seemed more comfortable around me. Is it politically correct to say that he was a little gayer around me in private. There was no longer any need to hide it.

A few weeks after that Bob's work study term ended and he went back to USF. He graduated the next term and I lost contact with him. He went on to whatever career he had and I moved from Atlanta and that studio apartment. I'm sorry we lost touch and I'm sorry we weren't closer friends.

During our time together as college and Atlanta roommates I learned about gays. I learned that except for their sexual preferences gays are just like straight folks. They go through all the same emotions we go through but with a few extra burdens. In 1970 they had to stay in the closet if they wanted a career in all but a very few fields. They had to fight their internal demons and guilt because they had been told all their life that homosexuality was immoral and a sin. I learned that many gays didn't want to admit it even to themselves. Who would choose to be a member of an oppressed minority?

Conditions have changed for the better since 1970. Gays gave gained more rights and much of society is far more tolerant. Better is not good enough though. I suspect that LGBT people will eventually achieve all the rights that heterosexuals have. I hope eventually comes very soon.

The resistance to gay rights and gay marriage is based in religion, culture, prejudice, ignorance, unfamiliarity and a few other things. Like all denial of human rights issues, we will look back on these times and wonder what were we thinking. Remember, interracial marriage used to be illegal in many states not so long ago. It wasn't until the US Supreme Court ruling in 1967 that those laws were stricken down as unconstitutional. About 15 states still had anti-miscegenation laws on the books in 1967. The Nazis forbade Jews and gentile mixed marriages. South Africa had apartheid. At one time commoners couldn't marry royalty and on and on. Over the years we have eliminated those restrictions and now look back on many of them as barbaric. What were we thinking?

So why are different minority groups like the LGBT community still having to fight for equal rights? I wish I knew the answer. I understand if you have religious beliefs that are against homosexuality and don't want your church to perform or sanction same sex marriages. What I don't understand is trying to force those beliefs on others. Your religion may differ from Hindus too but you don't try to legislate against Hindu marriages (unless those Hindus are gay). Whether you want to admit it or not this is prejudice. Two men marrying or two women marrying will not harm you or your family any more than a black marrying a white or a Jew and a gentile tying the knot. You can believe that they are going to hell but your definition of damnation behavior doesn't dictate other's behavior or restrict their rights.

It's OK to have your beliefs and your prejudices. You can even espouse them in public. Just don't try to force others to have those same beliefs or to live by yours. If the actions or behavior don't harm you then mind your own business.

I hope Bob is alive and well. If he has a partner I hope he is able to marry if he chooses. I hope he has equal insurance coverage as heterosexual couples. If he chose to have children I hope he was able to. I hope he has all the rights that a US citizen and human being is entitled to and should have. Bob was a good man, far better than many people I've dealt with during my life. I think we only had one real argument or disagreement during all the time we roomed together. That disagreement had nothing to do  with our sexual preferences or lifestyle. How many people you have lived with can you say that about? I'm thankful that I had the opportunity to live with a gay man and be exposed to the gay community when I was young. It spared me from developing misconceptions and prejudices about LGBT's. It's not unusual that we accept that which we become familiar with. There's no need to rely on cliches when you have real life experiences.

Embrace your beliefs but don't impose them on others. Be tolerant of others. If you can do that you will be happier and less stressed. We are a country of many differences. Gender and sexual preference are just a couple of those differences. The LGBT community is a small percentage of our population. They will not take over the country. There aren't enough of them and they're not as well armed as many other segments of our society.

We've made progress but we're not done with the journey yet. One day I hope that a professional athlete can mention they are gay or are marrying someone of the same gender and everybody just nods and says OK. Business as usual. No lead story on all the newscasts for several days. No endless parade of experts and professional talking heads analyzing the impact on our survival as a civilization. No Twitter storm from those either in support or appalled. No Op-Ed pieces. And no blogs from old farts like me. I hope I'm still around when that day comes.

wjh

My Life With Technology - Chapter 2.1

Southbound 

by Bill Holmes 

After spending a few weeks helping to get the remote data center up and running in Dalton, Georgia I was on the move again. I had a couple of weeks back in Atlanta and then I was off to Valdosta, Georgia. That was a move from one end of the state to the other. Dalton is on the Tennessee border and Valdosta is straight down Interstate 75 on the Florida border. In 1970 Valdosta had a population of approximately 30,000. There were an additional 25,000 in the county. I lived in Valdosta close to ten years and went through several technology and life changes. Let's get started with getting started.

I only made two trips to Valdosta before the permanent move. Although I'd driven by it many times while going between Florida and Atlanta, I never stopped except maybe for gas on the interstate. The first time I went with my boss to meet the data center landlord and a few of the officers at First National Bank of Valdosta. They were going to be our first and largest customer. I much later learned that the meeting was actually my audition. If the bank leaders didn't like me they had the option to ask for another data center manager. I guess I passed the test. My second trip from Atlanta to Valdosta was primarily to find a place to live. My third trip was the final move. 

I found an apartment that was a big upgrade from my studio in Atlanta. My new place had vaulted ceilings (actually an uninsulated roof), a separate bedroom, a real kitchen and an area for a dining room set. There was one problem, I didn't have any furniture. I had been living in a furnished apartment since college. I owned a small TV, radio, some kitchen stuff, towels, bedding and clothes. Everything I owned easily fit into my luxurious yellow 1968 Buick Opel which was just slightly bigger than a VW Beetle. To get started I bought a card table and two lawn chairs for my dining room set, one real chair for the living room, a couple of TV trays and a lamp. My parents had a folding bed that they gave me. I also did what every self respecting single guy did during that time. I acquired a couple of cement blocks and some 1 x 10 or 1 x 12 boards and made a TV stand. As you can see I was living the high life.

For the data center we leased the second floor of what had been the FNB Valdosta building. The bank had built a new building two blocks down the street that had a parking lot and drive-in teller windows. The first floor of our building was occupied by a stock brokerage. The landlord was the manager of that brokerage. Our space was about twice as big as we needed but I think there had been some good old boy dealings involved plus it was probably cheap. Second floor office space in downtown Valdosta was not in high demand. At one time our space had been the bookkeeping department, the employee break room, a bathroom, some storage and the board room for the bank. The old board room had wood paneling and plush gold carpeting. We didn't even use that room at first. I had a few weeks to get the office ready. We had to have electrical and HVAC work done. The bank had recommended vendors  for those jobs and we followed those recommendations. We had to have the data line and regular business telephone line installed. I set up an account with the local office supply store. First National Bank of Atlanta (FNB) sent us surplus office furniture and a keypunch machine. The IBM computer equipment and the specialized supporting equipment, supplies and forms were ordered through FNB's purchasing department. I also had to interview and hire the staff and a janitorial service.   

This building had an elevator but it was old, small, not maintained and not included in our lease. The stairs were narrow and had a 90˚ bend. Somehow we had to get big, bulky, heavy and expensive equipment up to the second floor. The solution was to remove one of the windows and use a crane. The windows weren't wide enough, so part of the wall was also removed and a new window frame built. Of course there were utility poles and lines between the street and the building. The equipment would have to be hoisted over the power lines and then lowered to the window height. There were five pieces of IBM computer equipment. The 360/20 CPU, 1403 printer, 2501 card reader and 1419 check sorter that was shipped in two pieces. There were also a couple of big boxes for the cables. The CPU and sorter parts were the biggest and heaviest. To do this crane job we hired Bubba and Sons Incompetent Crane Service on the recommendation of the Valdosta bank and/or the landlord. The computer equipment was delivered to our site on a flat bed truck. The Bubbas attached a rectangle metal platform with railings on three sides to the crane hook. When the platform was brought to the window, the side without the railing was rested on the window sill, the platform tied off and the equipment rolled into the building onto a small wooden ramp that had been built. They got the card reader and printer in without too many problems although there were some close shaves with the utility lines. The fun began when they loaded up the CPU. They got it to the window opening OK and tied off the platform. When they got the unit part way into the building the platform kicked back toward the street. Luckily it stopped before the CPU went crashing to the sidewalk. We now had a 360/20 balancing between the window sill, a small ledge and the platform. Oh, did I mention that Bubba, Jr. rode the platform up and the CPU had his leg pinned. Of course he didn't have a safety harness on. After much discussion and cussing the Bubbas decided to get another smaller crane to raise up the front of the platform. By this time we had a pretty big crowd watching this drama. We also had the police and fire departments on the scene. The building was at the intersection of two major streets in Valdosta. Amazingly the Bubbas got the platform righted and eventually got all the equipment inside the building. That small ledge was clad in some kind of metal sheeting which was now dented and crinkled. The 360/20 had a bent cover panel and some gouges in the bottom frame. The IBM Customer Engineer (CE), that's what IBM called their hardware maintenance folks, had already called his bosses to find out how to file the proper paperwork for a smashed CPU and order a replacement. What should have taken a couple of hours wound up being an all day affair. I wish I had pictures but this was way before cell phone cameras. I'm sure there are photos somewhere. I looked at the building on Google Maps Street View but all evidence of our adventure is gone. The utilities are now underground, the windows and building facade have been renovated. 

Even after we got all the equipment inside we weren't home free. It took the CE a couple of days to get everything installed and tested. As it turned out it all worked OK in spite of the bumpy ride. No harm, no foul. Bubba, Jr. had a bruised leg but no serious damage except maybe to his pride.

The data line installation went smoother than it had in Dalton. It was all Bell/AT&T so there was less finger pointing. We got a real data phone (grey) rather than one modified on site. We still had the 4800 baud microwave oven size modem that we supplied.

In addition to normal office supplies and equipment, like adding machines, we had several pieces of specialized computer and check processing support equipment.

Carriage Control Punch & Tape

Carriage Tape in Printer

Printer Ribbon

Impact printers like the IBM 1403 used carriage control tapes to determine the length of the forms. The tape is a loop of reinforced paper with holes punched in it that indicated where the printer should stop after a carriage skip, as opposed to a carriage space. Stock fanfold paper (green bar) might only have a top of form punch in the tape, typically channel one. Other forms might have total and subtotal lines that could be skipped to. There were 12 channels on the tape, so a form could have 11 different skips plus top of form. The "skip to channel n" was under program control. Carriage tapes were typically the length of the form although for some very short forms we would double or triple the form length and duplicate the punches. The tapes had to be punched, cut to length and the ends glued together to form a loop. There was a special piece of equipment to punch the holes. There was special IBM carriage tape glue too, probably very inexpensive, but any strong glue that didn't get brittle or tape would work. We only had about four or five different forms so only about four or five different carriage tapes. Large data centers, like FNB Atlanta, may have hundreds. These printers also used special print/ink ribbons. The ribbons were about 15 inches wide and I don't know how long. The ribbon was continually moving and reversed direction when it reached one end. They were pretty expensive and you had your choice of black ink.

Check Tray

We also needed check trays and a check tray cart/rack to put them on. Our check trays were plastic with a sliding metal partition to hold the checks tight when the tray was less than full. They were similar to punch card or mail trays. The rack was placed next to the check reader/sorter so we could easily move the trays around as we processed and sorted the checks. Our cart only had three shelves, not the six in the picture below.

Check Tray Rack/Cart

 
We had a small manual desktop MICR printer so that we could make batch separators and end of run items.  Batch tickets (separators) were placed between each batch of items. The batch tickets were bright yellow and oversized. They had a special routing number preprinted on them that indicated to the sorter program to pull batch totals. We would print the dollar amount of the batch on the ticket. The sorter program would calculate the items and compare it to the batch ticket total. The difference would be printed, either plus or minus. If it was zero the batch was in balance. If not we figured it out. The end of run tickets signaled the program to pull totals for the last batch, total run and end the program.

There was one other diabolical piece of equipment for check processing and that was the jogger. A check jogger is a high powered vibrating rack. It was used to get the checks ready for the reader/sorter. It would get all the bottom right edges, the leading edge, of the items lined up so the sorter could feed them more easily. The compartments were approximately handful size. The area where you put the checks was wood to reduce the static electricity and maybe reduce the noise a little. I call it diabolical because it was so noisy. It even had a dial so you could adjust the intensity of the vibration and noise. It may have even had a This Is Spinal Tap 11 on the dial. The joggers, check sorters, printers and computer hum are the reason I now have tinnitus and hearing lose.

Jogger

We also had a forms decollator which removed the carbon paper, remember that, from multi-part continuous forms. We printed most of the reports on multi-part forms. The main account balance report (trial balance) was printed on four part forms. We removed the carbon paper before we sent the trial balance to the customer banks. Other reports were printed on two or more part forms. A couple of forms we left intact, depending on the bank, because they would make notations on them. We had a simple two part decollator so if it was more than a two part form we had to make multiple passes. There were fancy decollators that could separate up to six part forms. They were great when things went well, but usually at least one carbon paper ply would break or one copy of the form wouldn't stack correctly. You would have black hands and maybe a smudge or two on your face after decollating a few boxes of forms.

Decollator

Eventually we got all the equipment in place, the data line working and a staff hired. We made some test runs with fake documents and some FNB Valdosta items. The staffing was three people, including me, on second shift (3:00 PM to 11:00 PM), and one more on third shift (11:00 PM to 7:00 AM). More on that later.

There was another part to the startup of our data center, that was to get the account numbers, balances, service charges, fees and other information loaded into our systems in Atlanta. That was either done manually or programmatically in Atlanta. It depended on whether the bank had been processed by another provider or was still manual.

I realize that this chapter doesn't include a lot of new 1970 technology but it does include some adventures and points out some supporting equipment. Every piece of equipment wasn't transistorized or program controlled but they were all important.

Next chapter we'll fire up the new Valdosta data center for real. We'll get going on the journey that took me through the next ten years of my technology career. While I never again almost dropped a computer from the second floor, I assure you there were other exciting adventures. We will be stationed in Valdosta for several years but there will be many technology and other changes.

wjh  

My Life With Technology - Chapter 2.0

Detour to Dalton 

by Bill Holmes

Around 1971 I had a slight career change. I had been contemplating leaving First National Bank of Atlanta (FNB) for a variety of reasons. I had at least five different positions in about two years and had become something of a Mr. Fix-it. While it was flattering to have the bosses' confidence it was also exhausting. I was working tons of hours and all kinds of crazy shifts. It wasn't hard for me to get used to a straight second or third shift but it was hard to be constantly changing work hours. When you work at night there are still work related activities and meetings that require you to show up during the day. The bosses never schedule a staff meeting for 2:00 AM. Another problem is that the day shift people have no compunction about calling you with a question in the middle of the day while you are sleeping. Somehow that was OK but if I called them at 3:00 AM it wasn't. At one point the second and third production control shifts were having trouble communicating and handing off work. I was put on an 8:00 PM to 4:00 AM shift to ensure continuity. That is the worst shift in the world. Too early to have evening activities and too late for any after work activities. Luckily they reorganized the department soon after that from a functional to a shift management structure and I took over third shift. There were a few other reasons for my dissatisfaction. I don't remember if I actually turned in my resignation or just told them I was planning to leave.

Apparently word got around that I wanted to leave and I got a call from a manager I barely knew. He was starting up a new department that was going to open and staff processing centers around the state. His offer was that I would help set up and open the first remote center in Dalton, Georgia and then set up, open and manage the second center in Valdosta, Georgia. There was a slight pay raise involved too. It sounded exciting and the fact that I'd soon be about 250 miles from the closest boss was a bonus. Well, it was exciting but starting a new department and opening data centers didn't reduce my workload in fact it increased.

The data centers were to process checks and print reports for smaller banks around the state. The new centers would let us sell our processing services to banks farther away from Atlanta. This was similar to the services we were already providing but in a more distributed and far reaching manner. We were also able to eliminate many of the paper tape transmissions into Atlanta from distant banks. These remote data centers were basically input and output locations. The actual account posting was still done on the big computers in Atlanta. Each center would have a small computer (power, not size), check reader/sorter, card reader and printer.

This initial center was housed in the First National Bank of Dalton about 90 miles north of Atlanta. Dalton had a population of around 20,000 and the county 60,000 at the time. A little smaller than Atlanta. Dalton was and still is the carpet manufacturing capital of the world. FNB Dalton was a fairly big bank because of all the carpet mills. This was going to be a hybrid operation. FNB Atlanta would set up the center, train the personnel, lease the equipment and provide technical support. Kind of like a franchise. Day to day operations would be staffed and run by FNB Dalton people once they got trained and the initial kinks were worked out. I think the two banks had some other business relationships and in fact FNB Atlanta bought the Dalton bank several years later. FNB Dalton had just built a new four story building and they had included a small computer room with raised floor in the design. They also had a freight size elevator so physical planning and equipment installation was relatively easy. Now this computer room was a little unusual. One wall, the biggest, of the room was covered in red/white/black long shag carpet. It actually helped deaden the noise but it was a dust magnet. Processing checks, cards and running a high speed printer generates a lot of paper dust. The janitors had to vacuum the wall every so often. The whole bank building was a showroom for carpeting including what was at the time the largest carpet sculpture in the world. It was on the wall behind the tellers in the two story main banking floor.

But you didn't come here for the history of carpets so on with the more technical details. By the time I got involved, the equipment for the remote data centers had been decided on. Although Burroughs equipment was used for check processing in Atlanta it was decided to use IBM equipment in the field. There were a couple of good reasons for this. The remote centers would be communicating with an IBM mainframe back at FNB and it was much easier to get IBM support out in the hinterlands. Also these new data centers were under the management of the FNB Data Processing Department which had all IBM equipment.

The equipment configuration at the remote centers was an IBM 360/20 computer, IBM 1419 MICR reader/sorter, IBM 1403 printer, IBM 2501 card reader and an IBM 029 keypunch. In addition there was a leased data telephone line and a modem that was about the size of a toaster oven.

GTE  Phone prior to data phone mods

This was 1971 and data transmissions were pretty primitive. A leased data line was a point to point connection provided by the telephone company. They were actually very similar to normal telephone lines but with a little extra conditioning. It was not one continuous cable from point A to point B. These lines were of course analog, no digital internet or fiber optics. Because it was an analog network, it required modems to convert the data from digital to analog and back to digital. We used 4800 baud modems, blazing fast for the times. A baud is approximately equivalent to bits per second (bps) but there are many variables. It's not a straight forward conversion. Lets just say it was slower than your current home broadband internet connection and probably your cell phone. You could also talk over a leased line although you were limited to the one phone on the other end. Data line phones looked like a standard phone without the rotary dial and with a small knob/ button to switch between voice and data modes. You turned the knob to switch modes and you pushed it down to ring the phone on the other end. They were usually grey. We had an extra challenge in Dalton. It was a General Telephone (GTE) franchise area. GTE was not quite as up to date as the Bell Telephone franchises. Ironically I worked for GTE in a later life. Near as I can remember there was only one telephone installer in Dalton who knew how to do data lines. He had to take a regular rotary phone and modify it for a data line. The modification included drilling a hole through the outer plastic case right of the 0 (Operator) to install the data/voice switch, a real confidence builder. The other problem was that as mentioned Dalton had GTE local phone service but AT&T controlled the long distance lines and Southern Bell (an AT&T RBOC) the local service in Atlanta. As we all know, when two or more vendors are involved if there are problems there is often finger pointing and "everything on my end is OK, must be the other guy's problem". After many tries over several days the data line was installed and finally working.

I mentioned the toaster oven sized modem. This thing had dials and switches and lights and a VU type meter that measured signal strength. It was also manually adjusted.  Modern modems are self adjusting, balancing and equalizing but not this big guy. When it got out of wack you'd have to get on the line with the other end and play with the dials to get it back in sync. Much like tuning a radio to a far away station. The modems had a test mode which generated a signal loop between the two ends of the circuit. The meter indicated signal quality. Sometimes the line quality was especially crappy and it was almost impossible to get the modems to talk to each other at an acceptable level. By paying for a leased line, we had access to the guys who monitored the telephone networks 24/7. We referred to them as the long lines test board. You would give them your circuit number and they could run tests end to end. Of course you couldn't use the line while they were

checking it out. If there was a problem, they could usually isolate it to a segment of the long line network or the last mile of the local telco. If they determined a segment of the wired network, as opposed to microwave segments, was the problem they could burn it. That meant sending a blast of electricity through the wires which would heat them up and evaporate any moisture. That usually fixed the problem. The guys at long lines were pretty good. They mostly dealt with internal telco people so they were more candid. Since there were so few data lines we got to know each other pretty quickly and were on a first name basis. They would actually admit when there was a telco problem and then try to fix it. If they couldn't fix it from the test board they would dispatch someone or tell us to call the local telco. They's give us a trouble ticket number that we could pass on to the local guys which helped. We got pretty good service, of course we paid a whole lot more for our telephone line than a normal customer.

IBM 360/20

Our computer was an IBM 360/20. This was the smallest and cheapest computer in the 360 family. I think the ones we used had 8K of memory. The biggest 360/20's at the time only had a 16K memory. It was primarily designed to replace some of the old tabulating equipment. We used it to drive the check sorter, printer, card reader and handle the data transmissions. The Model 20 had no typewriter console. The operator communicated with it via dials, buttons and lights. It also had no storage device(s) so when we loaded checks on the sorter they were transmitted real time to Atlanta. The same when we were printing reports sent from Atlanta. That caused problems that I'll document in following chapters.

IBM 1419 MICR Reader/Sorter

The IBM 1419 MICR reader/sorter was probably overkill for this installation. It was IBM's premier sorter at the time and processed 1,600 documents per minute (DPM). It had 13 pockets, 0 through 9, A, B and reject, just like a card sorter. It was connected to the 360/20 for program control and data transmission. Like the Burroughs sorters, it could do numerical sorts offline from the computer.

IBM 2501 Card Reader

The 2501 card reader was the cheapest card reader available from IBM and read 600 cards per minute (CPM). It was used to load programs and read the cards punched from the sorter rejects.

IBM 1403 Printer

The IBM 1403 printer was an old but still viable device first used on the 1400 series computers that predated the 360 family. It was a chain printer that ran at 600 lines per minute (LPM). That was fast enough to keep up with the sorter and the transmission speeds.

I'll get into more specifics in the next chapters, but basically we would run the checks and deposits through the sorter and simultaneously transmit the data to the mainframes at FNB Atlanta and print a listing of the transactions. We would balance the run, keypunch the rejects and make any corrections/adjustments. We would then transmit the punched cards to Atlanta. Once everything was in balance we would give Atlanta the OK to post/process the bank. They would do that processing on their schedule. While waiting for that, we would begin to sort the items into account number order. Once the bank's checking accounts were processed, Atlanta would transmit the reports back to our printer. It was all pretty amazing for the times and also rife with problems.

Since this was a new venture for FNB we were on a rather limited budget. This was a little skunk works project by the Data Processing Department, not a big deal like the BankAmericard venture. There were two of us in Dalton on and off to set up the data center and then five days a week for a couple of months once we got started. During the set up we mostly drove back and forth from Atlanta and didn't stay overnight. It was a 90 mile trip one way via Interstate 75, a very good road for the times. We drove a little over the speed limit so it wasn't a long trip. Once we started live processing we needed to be there all the time. The other guy I was working with had relatives in Carbondale, GA, about 10 miles south of Dalton. The relatives worked in a carpet mill. We stayed in their spare bedroom rather than a motel. That wouldn't have been so bad except the spare bedroom had a double bed. They were all nice people but it was not the ideal situation. I much prefer sharing a bed with a female. FNB paid them something for our lodging. We would drive up to Dalton on Monday and stay until Friday night or Saturday morning then drive back to Atlanta. The following Monday we'd do it over again. After the first couple of weeks we did switch off on the Friday late shift so one of us could get back to Atlanta by late evening.

The first couple of weeks after going live were a cluster f#*k. I was the only one who understood the check processing procedures and could balance the runs, the keypunch operator was new to the machine, none of us were familiar with the 360/20, the data line was spotty at best, there were some programming errors that didn't show up during testing, the local IBM guys weren't familiar with the maintenance of all the equipment and the guys in the Atlanta computer room were learning remote processing too. Things happened that we never anticipated. There were a few supplies and pieces of equipment we forgot to include in the initial setup. We managed though and since we started with just one bank we had some slack in the schedule. I can not remember whether the Dalton data center ever processed other banks. I had some technical support dealings with them over the years but since it was staffed by FNB Dalton people I had far less contact with them than the other centers once I left.

Once we got up and running it was mostly a second shift operation. We couldn't get hold of the checks to process before 3:00 or 4:00 PM, later many days, and couldn't finish printing reports much before midnight. There wasn't much to do in Dalton at midnight. I think the town and/or the county was dry except for "private" clubs. Being foreigners we didn't belong to any of those clubs. We'd just find a greasy spoon, have a meal and then go to our luxury accommodations.

I knew this was a short term assignment and I would soon be off to start my own data center. That made the commuting and less than ideal lodging tolerable. I learned a lot which helped me avoid many of the same pitfalls. Of course being very resourceful, I managed to find a whole new batch of pitfalls and problems on my next stop.

That next step was to go back to Atlanta for a few weeks to work on the preliminary planning for the Valdosta center. I went back to Dalton a few times to help out but I didn't stay overnight. I made a couple of trips to Valdosta too during that time.

I'll go into more detail about our remote data centers in subsequent chapters. Pack your bags, we're getting ready to permanently move to the other end of Georgia.

wjh

My Life With Technology - Chapter 1.3

Check Processing

by Bill Holmes


Have you ever written a check? Have you ever wondered how it went through the system and eventually got back to your account?  This is my second attempt to document my experiences with check processing circa 1970. I got several paragraphs into this chapter before I realized that it was going to be too long and too involved. My objective with this series is to document dinosaur technology from the stone age, not explain how the banking system works. There will be some processing details documented, but not all the steps. Maybe someday I'll go into greater detail because I find it fascinating. I'll warn you before I post that article so the faint of heart can avoid it. So, let's begin.

As I mentioned in a previous chapter, I walked into the computer room of The First National Bank of Atlanta (FNB) for my first day (night) of work in 1968. Actually I walked into the fourth floor IBM computer room that day. I soon found out that there was a whole other computer room and supporting departments on the third floor. The fourth floor was mostly about IBM computers, tabulating (Tab), production control and keypunch. The third floor housed the check processing computer room and their supporting departments. Although called the check processing department or more commonly the transit department (transit) they obviously processed more than just checks. There were deposit slips and internally generated debits and credits. A few other applications, such as installment loan payments, were also processed. Regardless, the vast majority of items were checks.

In a way, we in the IBM environment were the client department or customer for some of the output from the third floor. They actually did most of the messy front end work for the checking account processing. At a bank, checking accounts are the biggest, highest volume application. Checks touched many departments from the front line tellers to the loading dock employees.

The third floor computer room and support departments was a whole different culture and environment than the fourth (IBM) floor. Their computer room was crowded, cluttered, noisy and dusty. Checks and forms and tapes were stacked everywhere. The fourth floor computer room was pretty clean with extra room and although often noisy it was nowhere near the decibel level generated by the check sorters. Only the tapes, disks and forms being used were out on the floor. The rest were either in the tape library, forms room or designated staging area. Dress codes differed too. The IBM computer operators wore company issued navy blue blazers with a department patch on the breast pocket. White shirts, ties, dress slacks and dress shoes completed the outfit. The transit guys didn't wear ties, too many places for them to get caught and cause strangulation, they didn't wear suit coats or company blazers and many wore tennis shoes. Wrangling checks all shift was a physical job. The sorters had to be fed and emptied constantly and the operators were on their feet most of the time.

Checks, deposits and other paper documents were processed by machines using Magnetic Ink

MICR Characters

Character Recognition (MICR). Those are the funny looking numbers and symbols on the bottom of checks, deposit slips and other documents. The ink used to print those characters contains iron particles that can be magnetized. Machines can read those magnetized characters just like machines can read magnetic tape or disks or the strip on the back of your credit/debit card. In 1970 the technology to read MICR characters was only about a decade old.

At FNB we used Burroughs MICR reader/sorters and computers to process checks. There were other vendors making similar equipment but Burroughs had a very large part of the market. I would say that Burroughs was the dominant company when it came to document processing. Those sorters were connected to Burroughs B 300 computers. In 1970, MICR reader/sorters could read, sort, endorse and capture items to disk or tape (online). They were also capable of sorting checks into numerical order without being attached to a computer (offline). The sorters large banks used for check processing ran in the 1,500 to 2,000 documents per minute (DPM) range. They all had at least 13 pockets and some a few more. I think there were two computers, four sorters and an assortment of tape and disk drives, card readers and printers in the third floor computer room.

Check Reader/Sorter on left

The transit department was all about getting checks in and out as fast as possible. A short and very abridged tutorial on check processing follows. Banks receive checks from all over the country and world. You might deposit a check from an employer or stock dividend or pension or even that Christmas check from Grandma that is drawn on another bank. Those checks have to get back to the issuing bank for the funds to be collected. The faster the check got to the issuing bank, the faster the funds were collected. It's true, time is money. Most cities and towns with more than one bank would exchange checks directly among themselves. For most out of town checks, member banks used the Federal Reserve Banks (Fed). There are 12 Fed districts some of which have branch locations in addition to the main bank. The Fed was the major check clearinghouse for the banks. Atlanta is a Federal Reserve city and the Fed was a couple of blocks away from FNB. Many smaller banks or banks outside Fed locations would send their checks to us to be cleared rather than deal directly with the Fed. There were many reasons for that arrangement. FNB would combine all those checks and include them with items we received in deposits or other transactions.

Microfilm Spool

Before any items were processed by the transit department they had to be microfilmed along with any adding machine or other listings that went with them. These were stand-alone manual units that could only be fed a handful of items at a time so it was labor intensive. The items were recorded on rolls of film that had to be developed just like your Kodak snapshots. Once the negative was produced that was the end. Prints were only made when needed either for internal bank reasons of if a customer requested a copy of an item. It was not easy to find the right spool of film to do research or print a copy. Any prints were made by microfilm reader machines and were actually more like a Xerox copy than a photograph print. FNB had an in-house department that developed the film. In later years the check reader/sorters could microfilm the items while they were being processed.

Single Pocket Proof/Encoding Machine

One of the check processing supporting departments was the Proof and Encoding Department. They were somewhat equivalent to the keypunch department. They put the dollar amount with MICR ink onto those items that didn't already have it. That was called encoding the item. Typically the first bank that handled an item was responsible for encoding them. The clerks in proof had a machine that encoded the items, kept count of debits vs credits and produced an adding machine listing. Large banks used single pocket proof machines. Smaller banks had multi-pocket machines since they typically didn't have high speed sorters to separate the items into the various categories. The proof operator would key the transaction amount and then a key to indicate the item type or pocket. The machine would print (encode) the amount, appropriate symbols and a transaction code if needed. A transaction (tran) code is a two or three digit number printed to the left of the amount to indicate the type of transaction. Tran codes were not put on checks from other banks. At FNB all debit tran codes were in 40's and all credits were in the 20's. A normal check was a 45 tran code or no tran code. A normal deposit was 25. Other numbers were used for items like non sufficient fund (NSF) charges or service charges. Once the items were encoded and balanced (proofed) they were sent to the Burroughs computer room.

Items would be held and aggregated until it was time to process them. That time was determined by various deadlines and schedules both internal and external. When it was time to make a run, the appropriate program was loaded into the B 300 and the sorter was fired up. As the items were run through the reader/sorter it would read all the MICR fields on the bottom. The items were also endorsed on the back with an FNB endorsement. Depending on the program the items were directed to different pockets. All the deposits would go to one pocket, all the checks drawn on FNB (on-us) to another, all checks drawn on the local bank down the street another, checks drawn on banks in the state another and so on. Of course there was a reject pocket for unreadable items. There were 15 pockets on the Burroughs sorters so there could be 14 different categories on each run plus rejects. If there were more than 14 categories, items for multiple categories or destinations would be combined into one pocket then a second pass would be needed to further break out the items. There were dozens of different programs depending on the type of items and time of day and/or day of the week. Item listings and totals were printed for each pocket and a master listing of all items. The master listing was used to balance the run. If you were lucky the sum of the master listing totals plus the manually added rejects matched the totals going into the run. We weren't lucky very often. If the run was out of balance you figured it out. There were numerous reasons to be out of balance. The input totals could be wrong, there could be missing or extra items, documents might stick together (piggyback), the machine could misread an item, a sorter operator might not clear a jam correctly and a thousand other reasons. The people who balanced the runs developed a real knack for it and could usually find the errors very quickly. At this juncture of my career it wasn't my job but sometimes those of us in Production Control would go downstairs to help out when work got backed up or if there was a particularly nasty out of balance problem. In my next career stop I got very good at balancing and will detail some of the tricks of the trade when I get to chapter 2.

Like I mentioned in the last chapter about credit card receipt processing, check processing also dealt with original source documents. They had to be returned to the customer in their statement or sent on to the issuing bank. Because of that, there were many methods used to repair damaged items or items with erroneous MICR encoding. We had stickers that would cover and erasing fluid that would erase the MICR numbers. Neither worked great. The stickers sometimes came off which caused jams or items to stick together and piggyback. The correction fluid worked best on newly encoded items. Even then, once the applicator got dirty you wound up with a magnetic smudge rather than a clean surface. For more seriously damage items there were envelops. The correction envelopes had a front that was made out of the same material that address windows in business envelopes is made out of. They had a regular paper back and bottom strip on the front. The problem here was that you just turned a single ply document into a three ply document. Check sorters were built to separate a stack of paper items. They had belts and rollers spinning in opposite directions and air jets to do this so sometimes they would crumple the three ply correction envelop item or rip the transparent front off.

The check sorters of 1970 were rather primitive compared to today's document processing machines. They were a kluge of rollers, belts, gears, springs, lights, electronics, air jets and several other parts and pieces. They were very high maintenance machines. Many parts were made to wear out and were replaceable by the operator. Other parts were more complicated to replace and required a repair technician on a scheduled maintenance time. Still other parts just broke on their own schedule. Despite all that, they were amazing machines. They could read, endorse and sort paper items of various sizes, thickness (paper weight) and condition at a speed of 2,000 DPM. This was a much tougher engineering challenge than manipulating punch cards. Checks got a lot more abuse than cards. They weren't just folded, spindled and mutilated. They were washed & dried, taped, torn, crumpled, stapled, glued and numerous other things some of which are unmentionable. We found blood, food, ketchup, gum and dozens of other foreign items on checks. Some of the substances we really didn't want to identify.

Burroughs made a card reader that had a similar feed mechanism to their check sorters. It could read cards that were in pretty bad shape. One night I was standing near it talking to a transit guy and mentioned that the cards were a mess. He said they weren't too bad and that you could run a sock through the card reader. After the cards were read, he switched the reader offline and ran his sock through it. He was right although I'm not sure how you originally discover that kind of thing.

The Fed had numerous deadlines throughout the day and night. They were also very strict about those deadlines. A minute late was the same as a day late or in the case of Fridays, three days late. Banks always wanted to get as many checks as they could in under those deadlines. It could mean the difference in getting credit for the checks a day or two earlier. That was money they could make interest on or save interest expense. Because we were only about two blocks down the street it was faster to take smaller bundles of checks to the Fed on foot. There were deadlines all through the 2nd and 3rd shifts. Now there were a couple of important deadlines that we always pushed as close as possible. The transit department would always have a couple of fast runners on staff. They were the designated foot messengers who ran to the Fed. It wasn't unusual to see one of these guys running through the lobby and out the door. For various reasons the doors to our building lobby that were closest to the Fed were locked after hours. The doors that were open all night were a block farther away on the other side of the building. That extra block could make the difference in a made or missed deadline. The lobby guards were instructed to unlock one of the doors on the side close to the Fed five or ten minutes before certain deadlines then lock it once the courier cleared the building. One night either there was a new guard or he was asleep at his post (not unusual). The courier hit the door at a full run and it was still locked. After some expletives he ran across the lobby and took the long route. We missed that deadline which cost the bank some money. The guards were much more conscientious after that night.

All during the day, checks drawn on FNB (on-us) and all checking account deposits were captured on tape. Those tapes were sent to the fourth floor IBM computer room to be used as input to the nightly checking account applications. Any unreadable items were sent to keypunch to create cards that were also input to the account processing. Of course there were checks and balances at each step. Eventually all the items for that business day had been processed and transit would send us final totals and give us the OK to start posting the checking applications. We couldn't start until the whole day's work had been proofed. That was called balancing the bank. It had to be to the penny. Now we were talking about a million checks a day totaling in the hundreds of millions of dollars. There were nights when that last dollar or dime or nickel or penny were damn hard to find, all while the clock was ticking. Everybody would pitch in to find the problem. We'd all go down to the third floor. I remember a few times when we were out of balance by a certain amount and someone would find an error for that exact amount. Everybody would give a cheer or give a sigh of relief only to soon discover that the error was going in the wrong direction. Now we were out of balance by twice as much. We always managed to find the error(s). As time went on the powers that be realized that we were holding up expensive machines, paying people overtime and missing deadlines for a penny or two. Eventually the guidelines were relaxed and we could start processing even when slightly out of balance. We still had to find the errors but could fix them with adjustments the next day. The irony of being required to balance to the penny is that it didn't guarantee that everything was correct only that there were counterbalancing errors. With the volumes we dealt with there were always errors.

Once the bank was in balance the check sorters had another job, they had to sort the checks and deposits for FNB into account number order. This was called fine sorting. Those items had to be sorted so they could be sent back to the customers with their bank statements. They would use whichever of the sorters were available and not being used for initial sorts. This process could be run with the sorters disconnected (offline) from the computers. They had various methods to break up work so they could use all four sorters if they were available. I don't remember how long our account numbers were but they were at least eight digits. That's a lot of passes through the sorters. For some of our larger customers like Georgia Power of Southern Bell, we would sort their checks into numerical order before we mailed or delivered their bank statement(s).

The Burroughs or third floor or transit or check processing department was a vital part of the automation of banking at FNB in the 1960's and 70's. They were mostly a data capture department that had big powerful computers (for the time) but did very little computing as we think of it. The computers were mostly used to control the MICR reader/sorters which in those days was pretty amazing. How can you read some printed characters on the bottom of a small piece of paper, capture the dollar amount, check the account number and determine which bank the check was drawn on. Then direct the sorter to put the item into the appropriate pocket. At the same time, print every item at least twice. Once for the category (pocket) the item was sorted to and once for the master list. If it was an on-us item write the needed information to tape. Check processing was not the most glamorous part of the emerging computer age but it was necessary. The transit operators were the blue collar segment of the data processing workers. Checks and cash were the primary methods of payments until recently. Check volumes grew every year until the mid 1990's. We still write billions of checks annually. An old banker once told me that without automation the bank would have had to use most of the 41 stories in their new building for people to manually run the business. The bank occupied fewer than 10 floors because there was a computer room on the third floor and another one on the fourth floor.

Check processing is a complicated undertaking. I've always been fascinated by the technology involved and the financial implications. Parts of it are obvious and logical but parts of it are art. Even one day's interest on a million dollars can be hundreds of dollars depending on interest rates. The prime interest rates in 1970 ranged from 7% to 8%. A bank that deals in hundreds of millions of dollars can make or lose a small fortune every day if they are good or bad at clearing checks. I was fortunate to be around and involved when banks stepped outside the century old box and began using the emerging technology to gain an advantage.

I will revisit check processing from different vantage points in other environments and circumstances in some of the following chapters. I will next be leaving the big city of Atlanta for the hinterlands but will not be abandoning FNB, technology or banking. Join me next time about 250 miles south of Atlanta after a short detour a little north. I hope you join me on my road trip.

wjh

Are Newspapers Dead?

by Bill Holmes

A couple of days ago a guy from the Fort Worth Star-Telegram knocked on my door. He was contacting former Star-Telegram subscribers to ask why they stopped their subscription and try to get them back. I didn't tell him anything he hadn't heard before and I didn't start a new subscription. A couple of months ago the local newspaper carrier had stopped by for the same reason with the same results. The reason these people stopped by was because I dropped my subscription about six months ago or maybe they dropped me.

I've subscribed to the local paper or papers wherever I've lived for most of my life. My parents subscribed to the morning and afternoon papers, remember those, when I was growing up. So you might say I was a dedicated consumer of newspapers. I usually at least looked at every page except classifieds and advertisement inserts. I read most of the sports, front and local sections. I used the coupons in the Sunday paper. The paper was part of my daily life and routine. I even went on a job interview once at the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

That changed for a couple of reasons in October or November of 2012. One reason is that my subscription ran out and I had forgotten to renew it. One morning there was a bill for one month in the newspaper at my front door. They had delivered the paper for a month after my subscription expired. There was no phone call from the Star-Telegram sales and circulation department or local carrier to ask about renewing. I was debating with myself whether to renew for another year, six months, go month to month or do an electronic subscription. I was also trying to decide whether to continue seven day a week delivery or some lesser schedule. Because I was still undecided, I just paid the bill and figured in a month I'd get another one. Well, a couple of mornings later there was no paper at the door. Again, no follow up from the Star-Telegram. I figured if they really didn't want me as a customer, I could live without them and so I did.

There were other reasons I decided to not renew my subscription or why I was even contemplating it. One was price. Every year there was a price increase, sometimes substantial. That would have been palatable except that the product kept getting smaller and worse at the same time. This was a double whammy, pay more for less. They combined sections, eliminated features, changed the layout, laid off reporters and columnists or didn't replace them when they left and apparently got rid of every proof reader. They also must have forgotten to renew the license for the spell check and grammar check software. Some of the weekday editions were the size of the paper in a small town like Mayberry, not the sixteenth largest US city which is part of the sixth largest metropolitan area (D/FW) in the country. Just as egregious is that every change or downsize was explained as a benefit to the reader. Less coverage was promoted at sleek and more efficient. Dropped features were explained away as outdated or no longer popular although several were brought back because there were so many complaints. I never did see an explanation for the errors in spelling, grammar, syntax, facts or layout. The "continued on page 9" at the bottom of a story often meant "continued in the vicinity of page 9, maybe".  

A second reason was it has become much easier to get the same information through other avenues, particularly the internet. Between TV, radio, Twitter, Facebook, Google+, YouTube, RSS feeds, websites, apps and email you can find news and information about almost anything. The question is how do you aggregate and consume that information and are you going to pay for it. Many of the major newspapers have an electronic edition that is the image of the printed paper including advertisements. That edition usually comes with a price. In the Star-Telegram's case a digital subscription is about a third the cost of the paper edition. Most newspapers also have free websites that may have fewer articles, maybe just headlines and summaries, limit the number of articles you can read in a time period  or they delay some articles and columns a day or two. I was already getting much of my news and information from other sources before I dropped the newspaper. Since then, I've found ways to replace all the newspaper content that I am interested in. It took a little effort at first but now it's pretty automatic and more current. I don't have to wait until tomorrow morning to read about something that happened at noon today. I get more in-depth information now if I want it via hyperlinks. I get more diverse slants on the issues. Very importantly, I get more comics that I chose and they are in color every day, not just on Sundays.

Another reason is that the value of other aspects besides news coverage has diminished. The classified ads have been replaced by craigslist, eBay and Monsters.com. The advertisements aren't that important as we do more shopping online. The giant stack of glossy inserts on Sundays has gotten less giant and relevant. You don't have to wade through the mattress, automotive, hardware, electronics and grocery inserts to find a sale on shoes. You now go to the Amazon, Zappos or Nike website. If you have ever bought anything from those sites, they probably send you a couple of emails every week informing you about all their deals. I've also found that all those coupons that used to come with the Sunday paper are not as valuable to me for a few reasons. Some grocery stores used to double and triple many of the printed coupons but no longer do. It's pretty easy to get electronic coupons now to download to your computer, phone or tablet. Those coupons can be printed, added to a store loyalty card or scanned right from your phone. There are fewer coupons in the paper and those that are seem to mostly be for pet food, cosmetics, drugs and non-food items or they are for large quantities of the item. I don't have a pet, don't use OTC drugs (except aspirin), don't need 24 rolls of paper towels or five packages of mac & cheese and I stopped using lipstick and mascara years ago. The Star-Telegram also had a customer card that was good for 20% off at certain restaurants and discounts at other businesses and events. The card was for those who had a six month or one year subscription. For a few years it was a good deal. There were a lot of restaurants and good special offers like half price and sometimes free Rangers tickets several times each season. The last year or two the program went downhill. Many restaurants left the program and no new ones were being added. The other discounts were fewer and for less interesting events.

All this added up to my decision to live without the daily printed newspaper. The indifference of the Star-Telegram cemented that decision. If the paper had called me back in September or October I probably would have renewed. If they had offered a better deal I might have stayed. If they had kept delivering the paper I might still be paying month to month. If they had developed their digital editions for Android as well as the iOS version I might have converted to that form of delivery. They didn't do any of that. It's interesting, the guy who stopped by the other day offered me a subscription for half price. I don't know the length of that deal, I didn't ask. It's too late now. He never even mentioned the electronic edition as another cheaper option.

Some of what I've written is specific to my situation and one particular newspaper. I fear though that much of it applies to many other newspapers. I think we need the information local newspapers provide but no longer need the once a day printed delivery method. Somebody needs to cover city hall and the school board and all the other local stories and issues. Coverage by professional reporters with editors, not amateurs with a cell phone a Twitter account and a blog. TV doesn't have the time or inclination to follow a story long term or in-depth. Most newspapers didn't adjust very well to the internet age. They ignored it or were slow to adapt. Many of their first attempts were weak. They couldn't decide between giving their content away for free or charging for it on the web. They didn't know how or how much to charge advertisers. Once they gave content away it was very hard to begin charging for it. The same for very low advertising rates. I think most realize that they are in a fight for there life now, they're just not sure how to stop the bleeding. There are now better newspaper websites and electronic editions. There is better use of social media. Very few have come up with the right business model or the right mix of print and electronic. Are all these efforts too little too late? The golden age of newspapers has past. Will they ever get the younger generations to be customers? They've lost too much influence. An endorsement of a political candidate doesn't mean much these days and certainly can't guarantee election like it once did. Will they be able to survive as smaller and less influential entities? There are no longer many metropolitan afternoon papers. There are very few cities with multiple papers. Many newspapers have folded. I feel sorry for all the reporters, columnists and other employees who have lost their jobs. They are paying for poor management across the industry.

If the newspaper industry lost me as a customer can they survive. Not that I'm important but my demographics are as an older (OK, old), educated, curious, long time and dedicated reader. One in the habit of starting and/or ending the day with a newspaper. I've changed my habits. I don't miss the printed version. After over 40 years of reading a printed newspaper almost daily I no longer do. A bonus is that I no longer have newsprint on my hands, clothes, the refrigerator door or anyplace else. I can also read my tablet in the dark.

One more thing, we need a new name if newspapers don't come in paper form.

wjh