Legacy (Old) IT Documents
While reminiscing on my working life, I uploaded some random documents which I’d authored during the early stages of my IT career. Some of them were in the days of MS-DOS (pre-Windows), before networking reached its TCP/IP nadir.
There’s no structure or particular purpose around the documents presented here, they’re simply a collection which I found mildly interesting in retrospect.
1991: Computerising the Factory Stores at GEC: Report
Accessing a mainframe application on green screen (and amber) terminals.
Computerising the factory’s stores facilities – containing tools, material, etc’; all stock records had previously been held in ledgers
My first post-engineering job; it was in the days before “IBM compatible” Personal Computers (PCs) really took off, whereupon initial progress in this context was TN3270 terminal emulation.
1994-1996: Various GEC Documents
UTP cabling, PSTN dial-up, MegaStream, Windows NT Server v3.51, Pascal, Fortran, 32MB RAM, 1GB disk storage. I developed a LAN strategy document, which recommended TCP/IP over NetBEUI, Microsoft Office over WordPerfect / Lotus 1-2-3 and Windows 95 over Windows for Workgroups.
The Disaster Recovery strategy was all about people and processes, the technology (Windows NT, DAT tapes, floppy disks) was merely an appendix – I’ve also included a document which described the routines in operation.
In the timeframe before I’d learned of DHCP, I came up with a standard for allocating TCP/IP addresses. I also made records of how we installed software (including WordPerfect and Lotus 1-2-3) onto LAN PCs. I documented how we did drive letter assignment and how we created users. I wrote a proposal for introducing mail and remote access, and finally, a report on a fault which developed on the LAN.
From a very early stage in my IT pro career, I rapidly became an expert – at complaining! Dissatisfaction (see document) was a great word, which I regularly used when challenging management. The technology stack contained Hierarchical Storage Management (HSM), DAT drives, SCSI disks, RAID 5 and Windows NT Advanced Server v3.1.
1997: Tarmac IT Manager Strategy
A proposal to reorganise head office IT systems; it incorporated printers, mail, storage, archival, cabling, laptops, Schedule+, 28 KBit/s dial-up modems and 128 KBit/s ISDN.
I’d moved on from solution delivery and into the realms of management – I found it wasn’t my thing.
1998: Britannia STORM-IT Proposal
My STORM-IT proposal required doing more than one change simultaneously, but management wouldn’t back it and insisted I take things very, very slowly – so I left.
The proposal addressed millennium (Y2K) compliance, new operating systems and software; incorporating upgrading to Windows NT Workstation 4.0 and Microsoft Office 95.
1999: Lynx Technology Year 2000 (Y2K) Advisory
While working as a consultant at an IT systems integrator, I accepted the role of IT manager in November 1999.
I had moved from a consultancy role and into management – my reward was picking up the Y2K poisoned chalice. 😢
2003: HMRC Network Design
The HMRC network solution contained secure WiFi, VPNs, RSA SecurID tokens and web content blocking, etc.
The design was ahead of its time – for the UK public sector!
2005: EDS PKI Demonstrator
I put together a virtual rig which I used to demonstrate various PKI capabilities. As soon as I became skilled at PKI, I wanted to explore its practical use.
I was never particularly interested / involved in the pure aspects of cryptography, I was driven by its real world application.