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safety_sandals

I already did. I don't use the Internet anymore.

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Hello stranger, nice to see you on the interwebz.

He doesn't use the internet any less either, though.

I'm curious about how you posted here, then...

My dad used to be a Professor at a major State university, and he talked about how one of his older colleagues, who was a professor of Electrical Engineering, had his secretary (yes, he had a secretary) print out his emails for him every morning and put them in his physical inbox. He'd read them, type up his responses, print them out, and have her transcribe and send the responses later in the day.

Just sad really.

I'm confused, did he type them up on a computer that was not connected to the internet/school network but was physically connected to a printer close by? Why didn't he and the secretary copy emails from/to some form of portable storage?

One time I had a client print an email, write on it, and fax it back.

Don’t try to understand the work flow. That’s impossible. Just try to realize the truth.

Before "Information Systems" there was no need for a company/college wide network; computers with printers on the same desk were a replacement for the typewriter.

I can only hope to one day be rich and successful enough that this could be my life.

Your dad's colleague's professor was just like Donald Knuth!

https://www-cs-faculty.stanford.edu/~knuth/email.html

This must still be somewhat common. I recall e-mails from administration at my previous French lab had in their signature something to the effect of "Think of the environment, do not print this e-mail".

I actually had an example of something similar before my eyes. My advisor's advisor's advisor (...), emeritus, occupied the office next to mine and printed his Fortran code to work on at home. He debugged on paper, then typed it down the next day in the office. His whole career had been at the crossroads of math and computer science, his main contribution algorithms and software, and he did not have a computer at home (says he). This software debugged by hand (and typed with the index fingers) is still used in commercial software!

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