#the last like official real scheduled job I had was at a printer place in an office store that had these OLDDDDD SLOWWW computers at the

[milo-is-rambling]

I miss having money I do not miss working do you see the problem here

[theonyxpath]

Well, in a manner of speaking, Luke. This week wraps up our Lunars Kickstarter for a deluxe edition of this Exalted 3rd Edition sourcebook. The 72 hour warning just went out today, and we’re already seeing a dramatic upswing in pledges!

Look below in the Kickstarter section of The Blurbs! for more info and links!

Looking forward to see how it wraps up, and thrilled so far with how it has been going. Next up, we’ll be taking a couple/few weeks off and then starting the Contagion Chronicle Kickstarter for our Chronicles of Darkness “crossover” chronicle book.

More news on that as we get closer to the start, but if you want to get started with early Contagion Chronicle info, go ahead and check out the link to Matthew’s character creation session in the Onyx Path Media section of The Blurbs!, below.

Wraith20 Book of Oblivion art by Ken Meyer, Jr

Meanwhile, last week I placed Print On Demand proof orders for five different projects, and I expect to put out a couple more in this coming week. They’ll come my way whenever the PoD printers get them done and out, but it is still really great to know so many of our projects are nearing the finish line.

(PoD Proofs are the books printed out just like they will be for any of you who order them from DriveThruRPG, just early so that I can look through them and make sure there aren’t any printing errors.)

In the Monday Meeting this week, we reviewed our thoughts about next year’s brochure and found them good. Thanks to all of you who sent me your thoughts, either in the comments or directly!

We’ll be setting up a separate meeting group to handle what we’ll actually be putting into the brochure, it’s size, how many we’ll print, all that stuff, now that the strategy has been set in the larger Monday Meeting.

Signs of Sorcery art by Alex Shiekman

Having just had a full schedule review meeting last week, this week’s reports on the projects were done in record time. We had a few discussions on switching a few of our developers around; mostly because of some of their life issues.

This is really an important part of what we have been trying to do for years at Onyx Path, and which has been working out very well with our in-house dev crew being able to pitch in and resolve issues this last year, in particular. If a creator needs to ease back, or even drop out for a while, we want to work with them to make the transition something that is actually a good thing, or at least minimally disruptive, as they tackle the challenges of their “real” lives.

If you listened to last Friday’s Onyx Pathcast where our crew interviewed Rich Dansky, you’ll hear him mention how the chance to develop Wraith20 had him dancing with joy. But, you’ll also hear him talk about the real-world losses that occurred while Wr20 was being worked on: he lost three cats, both his parents, and went through a divorce.

Through all that personal upheaval, we were prepared to reconfigure the development of the project in whatever way Rich needed, and ultimately Matthew was able to help Rich finalize the project by providing both creative and process support.

EX3 The Realm art by Gong Studios

It might have been easier to just drop Rich when the rest of his life, day-job included, started to slow down progress on the project, but I am very glad that Onyx Path is able to maneuver to support creators like Rich through their tough times.

It’s not easy and does not come without cost. I know we have lost fans who wanted/needed their KS’d books earlier, and while most of our backers understood the reasons, some didn’t. Nor are we always perfect in how we work things out.

But we’re trying, Ringo. We’re trying real hard….

Changeling20 Players Guide art by Ken Meyer, Jr

It’s what we do so we can take all of you to the many amazing game lines, the…

Many Worlds, One Path!

BLURBS!

KICKSTARTER:

With our Kickstarter for the Deluxe version of EX3‘s Lunars heading into the last three days, we are well over 400% funded and have over 2175 backers! Multiple Stretch Goals have already been achieved, and we’ve just gotten started. So c’mon and get your beast-form on and join the fun!

The Story Told Podcast has a wonderful interview about Lunars: Fangs at the Gate: https://thestorytold.libsyn.com/bonus-episode-5-exalted-lunar-ks-interview-with-eric-minton

ONYX PATH MEDIA

Illustration by Michael Gaydos

This Friday’s Onyx Pathcast is a Sell Me On episode where our titanic Trio take the suggestions they received from our listeners on Twitter, and give five minute spiels on the wonders of ten Onyx Path game lines. If you ever wanted to know why one of these lines is cool – this is the episode for you!https://onyxpathcast.podbean.com/

And Here’s More Media About Our Worlds:

If YOU have a podcast, YouTube or Twitch channel, or talk about games on a blog or other website, and want to perform actual plays or make reviews of our games, please reach out to the Gentleman Gamer on the Onyx Path forum. From there we’ll share emails and get you started, so when you do start producing content we’ll be able to promote it on our blog and YouTube channel!

In case you missed it last week, we hosted an Exalted character creation session for Lunars: Fangs at the Gate. Here’s the link to the video Neall Raemonn Price, Dixie Cochran, and Matthew Dawkins put together: https://youtu.be/cRr9WZHa2PA

Matthew’s also been busy running They Came from Beneath the Sea! for the folks at Red Moon Roleplaying! Here’s the latest episode in that series: https://youtu.be/QM2f6njFwng

And to show Matthew clearly has too much time on his hands, here’s a link to a character creation session for the upcoming Contagion Chronicle! More sessions will follow: https://youtu.be/STOec6if8NE

We have a new game to show you this week, with Occultists Anonymous – an actual play of Mage: The Awakening 2E – having put a first session up on YouTube. Check it out, as the viewer numbers are shooting up already: https://youtu.be/r6NroG9vRe4

Devil’s Luck Gaming continue with their excellent costumed Scarred Lands actual play: https://www.twitch.tv/DEVILSLUCKGAMING

Red Moon Roleplaying also uploaded their finale to the Changeling: The Lost 2E chronicle they’ve been running: https://youtu.be/cjRkH8HHJ5I

And last but not least, one we might have missed from a few weeks ago: Garblag Games has several episodes of their Scion series up on YouTube and we seriously think it’s worth checking out: https://youtu.be/yXz0Quc_Ln0

Please check any of these out and let us know if you find or produce any actual plays of our games!

ELECTRONIC GAMING:

As we find ways to enable our community to more easily play our games, the Onyx Dice Rolling App is now live! Our dev team has been doing updates since we launched based on the excellent use-case comments by our community, and this thing is both rolling and rocking!

Here’s an update from the App devs:

Onyx Dice!  We’ve recently released the Changeling: The Lost, Trinity Continuum: Aeon dice, and now the Geist dice.  Next up on our radar is: Demon: The Fallen,  Mummy: The Resurrection,  Kindred of the East, Vampire Dark Ages, and Mummy: The Curse.

We have a serious issue on the Pixel and Motorola phones that prevent the user from using the app correctly.  A fix is coming shortly.  A temporary workaround is to minimize the app without shutting it down, and then restore it.

ON AMAZON AND BARNES & NOBLE:

You can now read our fiction from the comfort and convenience of your Kindle (from Amazon) and Nook (from Barnes & Noble).

If you enjoy these or any other of our books, please help us by writing reviews on the site of the sales venue you bought it from. Reviews really, really help us with getting folks interested in our amazing fiction!

Our selection includes these fiction books:

OUR SALES PARTNERS:

We’re working with Studio2 to get Pugmire out into stores, as well as to individuals through their online store. You can pick up the traditionally printed main book, the Screen, and the official Pugmire dice through our friends there! https://studio2publishing.com/search?q=pugmire

We’ve added Prince’s Gambit to our Studio2 catalog: https://studio2publishing.com/products/prince-s-gambit-card-game

Now, we’ve added Changeling: The Lost 2nd Edition products to Studio2‘s store! See them here: https://studio2publishing.com/collections/all-products/changeling-the-lost

Looking for our Deluxe or Prestige Edition books? Try this link! http://www.indiepressrevolution.com/xcart/Onyx-Path-Publishing/

And you can now order Pugmire, Monarchies of Mau, Cavaliers of Mars, and Changeling: The Lost 2e! http://www.indiepressrevolution.com/xcart/manufacturers.php?manufacturerid=296

And available this week! Deluxe Changeling: The Dreaming and Deluxe Beckett’s Jyhad Diary! The additional books we have after the Kickstarter ship-outs are done are now at IPR!

DRIVETHRURPG.COM:

On Sale This Week!

This Wednesday, we’re thrilled to offer the second Exalted 3rd Edition novel: False Images by Aaron Rosenberg and Lauren Roy! PDF, physical book PoD, and ePub versions will all be available on DTRPG, and in the Kindle and Nook stores!

CONVENTIONS

UK Games Expo: May 31st – June 2nd Gen Con: August 1st – August 4th Save Against Fear: Oct 12-14 GameHoleCon: October 31st – November 3rd We’ll also be back at PAX Unplugged later this year.

And now, the new project status updates!

DEVELOPMENT STATUS FROM FAST EDDY WEBB (projects in bold have changed status since last week):

First Draft (The first phase of a project that is about the work being done by writers, not dev prep)

M20 Victorian Mage (Mage: the Ascension 20th Anniversary Edition)

City of the Towered Tombs (Cavaliers of Mars)

Geist2e Fiction Anthology (Geist: The Sin-Eaters 2nd Edition)

Across the Eight Directions (Exalted 3rd Edition)

Exalted Essay Collection (Exalted)

Legendlore core book (Legendlore)

Kith and Kin (Changeling: The Lost 2e)

Scion: Demigod (Scion 2nd Edition)

TC: Aeon Ready Made Characters (Trinity Continuum: Aeon)

Trinity Continuum Jumpstart (Trinity Continuum Core)

TC: Aeon Jumpstart (Trinity Continuum: Aeon)

Heroic Land Dwellers (They Came From Beneath the Sea!)

Monsters of the Deep (They Came From Beneath the Sea!)

Tales of Aquatic Terror (They Came From Beneath the Sea!)

Masks of the Mythos (Scion 2nd Edition)

Scion: Dragon (Scion 2nd Edition)

Wraith20 Fiction Anthology (Wraith: The Oblivion 20th Anniversary Edition)

Redlines

Mummy: The Curse 2nd Edition core rulebook (Mummy: The Curse 2nd Edition)

Creatures of the World Bestiary (Scion 2nd Edition)

Chicago Folio/Dossier (Vampire: The Masquerade 5th Edition)

Let The Streets Run Red (Vampire: The Masquerade 5th Edition)

Cults of the Blood Gods (Vampire: The Masquerade 5th Edition)

Dragon-Blooded Novella #1 (Exalted 3rd Edition)

Distant Worlds (Trinity Continuum: Aeon)

Second Draft

Tales of Good Dogs – Pugmire Fiction Anthology (Pugmire)

Heirs to the Shogunate (Exalted 3rd Edition)

Scion Ready Made Characters (Scion 2nd Edition)

Deviant: The Renegades (Deviant: The Renegades)

Scion Companion: Mysteries of the World (Scion 2nd Edition)

M20 The Technocracy Reloaded (Mage: the Ascension 20th Anniversary Edition)

Development

Hunter: the Vigil 2e core (Hunter: the Vigil 2nd Edition)

Lunars: Fangs at the Gate (Exalted 3rd Edition)

WoD Ghost Hunters (World of Darkness)

Oak, Ash, and Thorn: Changeling: The Lost 2nd Companion (Changeling: The Lost 2nd)

Night Horrors: Nameless and Accursed (Mage: the Awakening Second Edition)

Memento Mori: the GtSE 2e Companion (Geist: The Sin-Eaters 2nd Edition)

Pirates of Pugmire (Realms of Pugmire)

Manuscript Approval:

Trinity Continuum: Aberrant core (Trinity Continuum: Aberrant)

CofD Dark Eras 2 (Chronicles of Darkness)

Editing:

V5 Chicago By Night (Vampire: The Masquerade)

V5 Chicago By Night Screen (Vampire: The Masquerade)

Spilled Blood (Vampire: The Requiem 2nd Edition)

Scion Jumpstart (Scion 2nd Edition)

CofD Contagion Chronicle (Chronicles of Darkness)

Witch-Queen of the Shadowed Citadel (Cavaliers of Mars)

Post-Editing Development:

Signs of Sorcery (Mage: the Awakening Second Edition)

Night Horrors: Shunned by the Moon (Werewolf: The Forsaken 2nd Edition)

Tales of Excellent Cats (Monarchies of Mau)

Wr20 Book of Oblivion (Wraith: The Oblivion 20th Anniversary Edition)

C20 Novel: Cup of Dreams (Changeling: the Dreaming 20th Anniversary Edition)

Aeon Aexpansion (Trinity Continuum: Aeon)

M20 Book of the Fallen (Mage: the Ascension 20th Anniversary Edition)

Indexing:

ART DIRECTION FROM MIRTHFUL MIKE:

In Art Direction

Ex3 Monthly Stuff  

Chicago By Night

Aeon Aexpansion

They Came From Beneath the Sea!

EX3 Lunars

Hunter: The Vigil 2

Shunned By the Moon – Sketches and finals coming in.

Contagion Chronicle – AD’d for KS.

Scion Jumpstart

VtR Spilled Blood – Going over notes.

Marketing Stuff

In Layout

Dystopia Rising: Evolution

Book of Oblivion 

Signs of Sorcery

Proofing

M20: Gods and Monsters – PoD proof ordered.

Pugmire Roll of Good Dogs and Cats – PoD proof ordered.

Adventures for Curious Cats – Waiting on art fixes.

Trinity Core – Putting inMind Meld changes.

Trinity Aeon – Putting in Mind Meld changes.

Ex3 Dragon Blooded – PoD proofs ordered.

Geist 2e – 2nd Proof.

C20 Player’s Guide – Waiting on fixed piece of art to do 2nd Proof

In Media Res – Inputting proof corrections.

The Realm – Art is arting, book is proofing.

At Press

Scion Hero – Printing. PoD proof getting worked on.

Scion Origin – Printing. PoD proof ordered.

Scion Dice – At Studio2.

Scion Screen – At Studio2.

Fetch Quest – At Studio2 prepping for shipping.

False Images – EX3 novel – On sale at DTRPG.com this week in PDF/PoD/eBook versions.

TODAY’S REASON TO CELEBRATE: 

Our friends at The Bodhanna Group have published their first book! Wizards, Warriors and Wellness: The Therapeutic Application of Role Playing Games is a short booklet that gives a basic overview of the benefits that can be gained through intentional use of Tabletop Role Playing Games. It introduces readers to the therapeutic value of RPG and how this can be focused for treating various mental health disorders and behavioral challenges. One warning: although this should be enjoyable and informative for gamers of all sorts, the therapeutic strategies inside are for trained professionals. https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/268200/Wizards-Warriors-and-Wellness–The-Therapeutic-Application-of-Role-Playing-Games Congrats to all the team at TBG!

[junker-town]

How a rooster at the Sanderson Farms Championship became one of golf’s best trophies

It’s indisputable: Reveille the rooster is one of the great trophies in sports. We had to find out more on how it came into existence and developed a cult following at the PGA Tour’s Jackson-area stop.

“It’s like going out in the yard and finding a badass rooster scuffling along and kicking up dirt” is not the first thing that may come to mind when conjuring up the image of a golf trophy. But that’s how Malcolm DeMille, the artist responsible for creating one of the PGA Tour’s most distinct (and I’d argue iconic!) trophies, characterizes “Reveille the Rooster.”

The Sanderson Farms Championship may not be the most prestigious event on the PGA Tour circuit, but in a few years, it has carved out a niche identity during the season’s wraparound fall schedule. It’s a smaller tournament with a cult following among the PGA Tour diehards and with a more important community-wide embrace in Jackson, Mississippi. And the emblem of it all is its trophy, Reveille the Rooster.

I’ll come out and say it early — I’m in the tank for Reveille, a grand specimen. When you win the Sanderson Farms Championship, you’re not going to mistake the trophy for any of those blasé cups, vases, plaques or other participation awards you might have back home. You’re getting the proud cock, strutting into your house with its chest out and flashy colored patinas owning the trophy case.

I needed to know more about what’s become one of golf’s most unmistakable trophies and should, in my humble opinion, occupy a place next to the Claret Jug, green jacket, Ryder Cup, and the other iconic and cool awards in the game’s history.

Photo by Sam Greenwood/Getty Images

A Reveille origin story

A rooster is obviously a nod to Sanderson Farms’ chicken business and Reveille is the finished product of a process that melded the idea of Joe Sanderson, the company’s CEO, and DeMille, the sculptor in California who has created several trophies for worldwide golf events. Sanderson knew he wanted a rooster trophy from the start.

“Joe Sanderson had it right off the bat, from the moment we signed the first agreement,” said Steve Jent, Tournament Director of the championship. “We really didn’t look at anything else. I know tournaments have crystal, silver. But he really honed in on a bronze, full scale life-size rooster, right out of the get-go.”

But this is not just any chump variety or random rooster off the street. It’s a specific kind of rooster, modeled after Chauntecleer from The Nun's Priest's Tale in Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales. “Sanderson had an idea in his mind of a chanticleer rooster, which in his mind is a very colorful, large breed of rooster,” added Jent.

Making Reveille

DeMille went to work to bring Sanderson’s idea to life. He’s been in the business for more than 25 years, but has evolved with the technology and now begins the process working exclusively with digital tools. He’s been using software for what he estimates is 10 years.

“It will allow me to sculpt in the computer in what we call ‘digital clay,’” said DeMille. “So I can actually feel and create with clay inside the computer and see it in a form.” He analogized it to how animated characters are now created for movies.

But like a golfer who may think he’s found his patterns on the range only to come undone once the shots start counting on the course, the digital sculpting can take DeMille only so far. He prints out mini renderings of the digital sculpture on a 3D printer.

“In the computer there’s still that other dimension — you can’t see or feel or sense the backside. You can’t envision it in the whole round. So I can’t totally trust making it in the computer and popping it up in the printer and printing it out. You still gotta have it, and hold it, and work it.”

The 3D test prints allow him to check proportions and the “attitude of the piece” and then get approval from Sanderson. It also allows him to add sculpting clay to the 3D printings and work it with his hands.

The process of creating the first Reveille took three to four months, DeMille estimates. The model is actually made up of six pieces, six different molds that are cast into bronze, polished, ground, and then welded together. Chemicals are applied to create the colors, which he said is a permanent change that takes just seconds to discolor bronze that has been heated by a torch.

Here's how @Sanderson_Champ 's own Reveille looks before his plumage gains its color. #SFCHAMP @PGATOUR http://pic.twitter.com/iUgkLy1MVL

— Malcolm DeMille (@MDSculpt) October 25, 2017

“As soon as that chemical hits the metal at a temperature, it begins to color it right away. It’s an artistic thing to apply the patinas properly to where you get the colors that you want.” The multi-colored bronze trophy is then sealed in wax, which can be burnished.

When he got to the finished Reveille product, DeMille said he was most proud of the “attitude” it displayed. “Obviously a rooster is kind of cocky, so I had a little fun with that,” the veteran sculptor beamed. “It’s got a bit of a cocky attitude. It’s kind of looking you in your face with a ‘Yeah!? What do you want?’ kinda attitude. I like that.”

Who wouldn’t?

Cost of a bronze bird

There’s what DeMille calls a perpetual trophy, the original creation that stays with the championship, and then the slightly smaller individual champions trophies that go home with the winner each year.

DeMille would not say exactly how much his creations cost, but that the perpetual trophies run from “$7-8,000 on the very low side, and they can go up to $25-30,000.” The annual champions trophies that are made “might run $5-10,000 each.”

Artwork used as a trophy

DeMille has been at this a long time, and will note that he’s an artist and not a trophy maker. Ultimately, he tries to best represent what the client wants and the artistic touch demanded for Reveille is what makes this job for the Sanderson Farms Championship so appealing.

“The last thing I want to do is a spun cup, a simple cup with engraving and little handles on it,” he said. “So it’s really fun for us to try to create something unique and different.”

His company does 15 to 17 events on different worldwide tours each year, including two of the other distinct trophies on the PGA Tour, the John Deere Classic’s leaping deer and the Hero World Challenge’s homage to its feline-named host.

Photo by Christian Petersen/Getty Images

The Hero World Challenge trophy, which is also now a DeMille creation.

“I create artwork that is used for trophies. I’m not a trophy maker. I create art that people appreciate and will use as a trophy. If somebody wins it, they put it up in their office or showroom or pool table room or what have you. It’s a cool piece that has more going on than just a trophy with their name on it.”

Naming rights

When your trophy is some “badass” rooster, it needs more than just a default moniker like [blank] Championship/Open/Invitational Trophy. It needs its own name, and Joe Sanderson knew what he wanted to call it from the beginning.

Again, it’s pretty intuitive, in the way that a chicken company would have a big ass rooster for a trophy.

“A rooster calls for the beginning of the day; Reveille is the call to start the day,” said Jent. “So [Sanderson] wanted the rooster to be called Reveille. So the rooster calls, you get up for work.”

Simple enough, but that doesn’t make it any less fun to say.

Photo by Sam Greenwood/Getty Images

Cody Gribble, last year’s winner of the Sanderson Farms Championship .

A community emblem

I’ll slow down to make a point beyond the idol worship. The Tournament Director, Jent, said that the Reveille silhouette is now in demand in the community.

“It’s actually turned out to be pretty cool because now we have a secondary logo, which has actually become very popular.”

It’s all over the grounds and the Sanderson Farms Championship attendees and the fans from the Jackson area want merch with the Reveille silhouette. A PGA Tour official said he saw hats, shirts, bags, etc. with the logo spread across the course.

The PGA Tour’s growth over the past two decades, largely thanks to Tiger Woods, is a well-worn story. The Tour has evolved and become a cash game that probably even the most optimistic could not have envisioned. The days of the best pros driving from stop to stop and grinding to get by, even while at the top of the game, have been gone for decades. There’s a FedExCup that doles out $70 million over four weeks at four of the biggest markets in the country, markets where the PGA Tour may not exactly be in the center of the radar screen. Just this week, opposite the Sanderson, was the final WGC of the year, a four-event series with no cuts, a closed off world-rankings points party, and hefty guaranteed paychecks for all involved.

There were 47 events on the PGA Tour last year, and all but five had total purses of at least $6 million. The Sanderson Farms Championship checked in at $4.2 million, only the Barbasol Championship (opposite the British Open) was lower at $3.5 million. This year’s Sanderson purse jumped slightly to $4.3 million, which was $5.45 million less than the PGA Tour’s WGC event on the other side of the world.

This is not to say that the growth is bad or those big-money events, however needlessly extravagant and forced they may feel at times, are not the “real” PGA Tour. It’s just to illuminate that the stop in Jackson is not that. The contrast between the Sanderson and a WGC could not be more stark. Both are good to have on the PGA Tour schedule, but it’s not crazy to wish that there were more like the small-market rally and enthusiasm that comes through in Jackson.

“This is a huge point of community pride.”

“This is a huge point of community pride,” Dr. Mary Taylor told me. She’s the Interim Chair of the Department of Pediatrics at Batson Children’s Hospital, the only children’s hospital in Mississippi and a major beneficiary of the charitable money raised.

The Sanderson Farms is more than just the distinct trophy and the hipster preference of diehard PGA Tour fans. It’s an annual highlight for one of the Tour’s smaller markets. Hearing Dr. Taylor and other locals talk about their pride in having the event felt organic and not run through the PR machine, like you often feel like you’re getting from sponsors, venues, and the Tour at many other tournaments.

“It’s an honor to be a stop on the PGA Tour. It’s a very big deal and our whole community gets involved and engaged and excited to have it here. Everyone in the community gets very excited about having such a large, national stage for Jackson, Mississippi and it’s a big boost to our entire community, but especially the children’s hospital...We are really indebted to this tournament for helping us secure funds to be able to build a children’s hospital expansion.”

Reveille may be the star but the children’s hospital patients get in on the chicken art, too, painting the tee markers for the week.

Ryan Armour’s win on Sunday was the latest in what is still the early stages of a 10-year contract that Sanderson signed in 2015 to be the title sponsor of the Jackson-area stop. So while it may not be the biggest cash game on Tour, it does have a committed title sponsor and a community that’s all in, rallied around an unmistakable identity and trophy, the badass bird that’s become its symbol.

[oxynonsequiturs]

Tales From the Geeks

About a week ago, I had the pleasure of riding with an Uber driver who has been working with computers for about as long as I have. He was overjoyed that he had a “geeky” passenger. We spent the drive home sharing stories about our early computer experiences.

I recalled my first computer job, working with a Univac 70/6 computer, which filled a fairly large room with its components, including several towers of processing units, a punch-card reader, a machine that automatically punched cards, two line printers, four tape drives, and six disk drives. When the disk drives were sorting the data on the stack of 12-inch-diameter disks, they shook like a washing machine on the spin cycle. The computer room had to be kept at a constant temperature of around 50 degrees in order to counteract the heat generated by the multitude of vacuum tubes that filled the processors. The floor was raised about two feet so cool air could be circulated through the components to cool them from below.

Keeping that room cool required a massive air conditioner and multiple ducts and outlet vents. Ribbons were attached to the vents to provide a visible clue that the air was circulating properly – or not. If the ribbons were fluttering gently, all was well. If they hung limply or stood straight out from the vents, something was amiss, and rapid action was needed. One night, as I worked the graveyard shift (midnight to 8:00), I noticed the room was becoming warm enough to take off the outer layer of clothing I was wearing. I looked up at the vents, and the ribbons were not moving. I immediately began the process of shutting down the computer and all its peripheral devices. By the time I had safely brought everything to a standstill, about ten minutes later, the temperature had risen to 80 degrees. We called our manager, who drove into Boston from his suburban home and called the air conditioner maintenance folks and the service crew for the computer to be sure there was no damage. It took several hours to repair the A/C unit and get everything going again.

When I began working in that computer room, it was located in a basement under a bank. A year or so later, the bank moved, and a Chinese restaurant moved in. Now, being in a basement, below a restaurant that used very hot fires to cook, and having only one exit – we were understandably very concerned when one night the two of us on the night shift smelled smoke. We didn’t hear alarms, and no sprinklers began spraying everything with water or foam, but the smell was very strong. We took turns going out of the computer room to see where the smoke was. After about ten to twelve minutes, my fellow operator came back in to the computer room and said he’d found the source of the smell. Down the hall from the computer room, outside one of the manager’s office, a fluorescent ceiling light was dripping a brown sticky substance that looked and smelled like what I imagine brimstone to be like. We found the switch to turn out all the lights on that circuit (fortunately not including the computer room) and turned it off. In the morning, we learned that the ballast on that light had gone bad, and the sticky substance was melted porcelain. We were commended for our action in turning off the circuit, and for being wise enough not to touch the goo.

The Uber driver related a story of a friend who had a PC unit that he said had random power issues. Since Larry (the driver) believes that nothing happens at random in a computer (he hasn’t met mine), he asked the man to leave the computer with him so he could look into it. Larry began to take the cover off the computer, and something suddenly JUMPED out at him. It was a little blue lizard that had somehow found its way into the warmth of the computer and was moving about at random. When Larry told his friend what the problem was, the friend said, “Oh, so that’s where my daughter’s lizard went!”

Larry added a postscript to his story: “Nothing should ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, EVER, EVER, EVER jump out of a computer at you!”

I then related the story of the Photographer and the Tape Drives. After several years in the basement under the Chinese Restaurant, the MIS Department moved to new quarters in the church’s Administration Building. The old Univac was decommissioned, and we began working with a brand new Digital Equipment Corporation computer. This was DEC’s first installation of a major business computer system, and they were just as proud of it as the church’s executives were.

On the day that we officially were totally moved over to the new system, a tour was arranged with the executives, several bigwigs from DEC, a couple of politicians, and a reporter and photographer from The Christian Science Monitor. Programmers had written a program that utilized every single peripheral device to great visual effect. The tape drives were merrily spinning spools of computer tape, the printers were spewing forth reams of printed paper, the disk drives were busily shaking as they performed sort after sort, and lights on the front of the processing units flashed in a display worthy of a Christmas tree. All the members of the tour group were suitably impressed, and the photographer was snapping shots happily. Then he spotted the tape drives. For some reason, at least at that time, to most non-computer people, the tape drives were the computer. He gleefully took a flash photo of the tape drives.

Now, in those days, a reel of computer tape had a reflective metal strip attached at the end of the tape so that the computer would sense when to stop, rewind, and politely ask for a new tape. This was usually built into the program. However, when the flash of the camera reached the tape drives, they all sensed end-of-tape at an inconvenient place in the program, and the entire system crashed. The sudden silence stunned everyone. We cleared the system and decided we didn’t need to restart that program again.

Modern computers are capable of performing many functions at once, but back in the 1970s, certain programs used up a high percentage of the operating system, especially when they were accessing information in certain areas, such as financial. One night I arrived at work to find two very glum evening shift operators. I asked them what was wrong, and the lead operator glared at the junior operator and said through clenched teeth, “SOMEONE decided it would be a timesaver to run both Payroll and Accounts Payable at the same time.” As he spoke, one printer came to life and printed one check. We all waited several minutes while the system unloaded all the Payroll system and loaded up the AP system, and then the other printer printed one AP check. The lead operator was mad because since he was the lead when the programs started, he had to stay until both programs were successfully completed, which took several more hours. Of course, during those hours, we night shift operators could not run the programs which had been carefully scheduled for our eight-hour shift. All in all, not a happy group that greeted the day shift when they arrived.

One last tale. The boxes which held the punched cards were about 18 inches long, by six inches wide by three inches high. The lids opened in such a way that the sides of the box opened out in the back for ease in removing the cards. One night, my fellow operator, in a moment of boredom, set an open box of cards on a chair seat and then for some reason set the chair spinning. There was a beautiful spray of cards in a lovely spiral. The operator grabbed the chair to stop it, but the damage had been done. I innocently asked, “Those cards were sorted, weren’t they?” He sadly nodded, gathered up the wayward cards, and took them to the card sorter. Fortunately, none of the cards slid under any of the equipment. That could have been a real disaster!

I learned a lot during my time as a computer operator, but I’m really glad that I only have to deal with my desktop or notebook computer any more.