march 1991.: The big import

The big import of 124 computers, 40 UPSes and an appropriate number of monitors (among them a dozen color ones!) and keyboards for DBA finally got completed. There were infinite delays, first with the taiwanese manufacturer getting ready for the amount, then burning appropriate character set into the Hercules video/centronix cards - yes, the same card was functioning as a printer port and it would duly burn if you plugged the printer in while the computer was on, with the extra switch whereby the šdžčćŠĐŽČĆ would become {|`~}[\@^] again onscreen. Then when it was all ready to ship, the Gulf war (i.e. Kuwait occupation) broke out so the air transport had to find a way to fly around the area - costly at least but surely causing delays. Eventualy new route went over Russia. Then there was also the inevitable delay at the customs - I'd say Vanji and/or Sale drove to Belgrade to snatch the goods from their jaws several times. We got the chance to know the murky world of logistics (neé spedition), where everyone claims to be well connected with customs* officers and yet they all have to wait just the same.

In the end the truck came. It took months, but it was finally here. We didn't have to wait for Taho and his guys to import stuff for us, and anyway that would be the unsafe route now...

We maneuvered the guy to park the truck right under our window, which was at the exact height, so the unloading went nearly horizontally, and very fast. We got everything in within an hour. The office was a mess, packing tape and boxes everywhere, the back niche being loaded almost 3m high. We had a rack in the 2nd room (entrance from the hall, not connected to our room) all around, and we plugged all the 40 UPSes, piggyback, to charge - the first three in the available outlets, next nine into them, and so on. They'd beep until they were charged, so we called that room the chicken coop. Then we started running tests on each computer, which was just Sale's routine to copy a table over and over again until it would fill the disk, then erase and start over. It all took so much power that we blew the fuse several times.

We had two types of computers in this batch. The first kind were the 100 units of 286 at 16MHz, with 40M disks (though not the old MFM kind we had previously, which were full 5,25 inch wide and weighed at least half a kilo, these were the new AT disks or some such, smaller and lighter). Had 1M memory, which we used to the max, finding the UMB drivers and/or expanded/extended memory drivers, whatever we found on sezam and elsewhere. The monitors were 12" gray grain - we were smart enough to opt out of the green and amber, which may look sexy but tire the eye. The box was horizontal, with lots of room inside and a relatively nice front panel, well, same as the previous two years.

The other kind were the 386 at 25MHz, I'd say among the first on the market here. Memory... dunno, 2 or 4 MB, a 120M disk, huge for the time, a 14 inch color monitor (or was it still only 12?), and upright case, both floppies - the A: of 5,25 and B: of 3,5" inches. These were the servers, and usually they'd get some fancy name in the local network, like Aždaja (female dragon, well, azdaja in this context, can't have a ž in machine name) in klaanca in Njujork, Zver (beast) etc.

And, ah, about 140 network cards of the RPTI brand (also ungooglable, but the Linux community still, as of 2020, has drivers for them), which had some software in the EPROM on the card, so the part which loaded into those UMB was minimal, below 50K altogether, including even chat. We networked practically all the users' machines, except in really small shops where they had only one machine (like Zeki who two years ago bought one XT for his department store). The cabling was coax, at 50 Ohm, bus topology, i.e. whole network was serialized on one chain with terminated ends. Any break splits the network into two probably disfunctional networks, because the break ends aren't terminated and the resistance (whether capacitive or inductive, I'm no electrical engineer) is wrong, causes echo, and the signal may or may not get distorted beyond recognition. Which happened many times when the cables were dragged across the floor and some female comrade with high heels would jerk it. There were also cases when someone would take a terminator as a souvenir.

Around this time my dear bought me a hat. She visited the hats factory on business, and they had some test samples around, not for sale, not any particular model, this one was made for Bata Životinja for a movie, and then they made another one and this remained and she bought that one. Fuck the SPS**, can't they have any bigger heads. She had to make me a strap for it, of some rubber string, so it wouldn't fly off while I'm on bike. I couldn't just press it down, it wouldn't sit, need two sizes larger for that.

And so one day there was a drizzle and I appeared in the office with the hat on. After the initial salvo of comments, Nena just had to try it on.

- well yours is so much stiffer

Everybody took this exactly the right way. Before the laughter tapered off, she tried to amend the confusion

- it's that I got one like this at home, but it's so much softer

Ditto. Yes, we understood that Željko has a hat.

I think it was last year when we got the 2nd phone line, somehow. It wasn't easy with the first one to begin with, but then we still had the political pressure of our founders. This time we were on our own, so anyone personally connected with someone high in the post office was the man of the day... and it was a success.

The numbers were interesting and memorable, the first one being something like 67-717, and the other having all even digits, with finger going in almost a circle whyle typing it. The 67-717 was trouble, because Presprom's storage was 67-797, city hall's switchboard 67-747, something in Heating 67-727 and I'd say 67-787 was something in the railway, perhaps cargo loading station. And we'd have dialogs like this:

- Give me Čeda.

- Will not can do.

- Why?

- We don't keep the likes here.

We stuck to the principle of how the question so the answer. To those who checked whom they got, we told which digit they got wrong and sent them politely their merry way. But many of those who call the city hall wre uncultured cattle, so we have

- gimme extension 125

- I can not give you extension 125.

- Why cantcha?

- Multiple reasons, but number one is we don't have extensions.

- What do you mean you don't have extensions?

- I'm not the technical person for that, really, but I understand we'd have to have a switchboard for that.

- Is this the city hall?

- Nice of you to remember to ask, no, it is not.

And despite the rumors, we never created any fuckup with the trains.

Speaking of phones, Vanji had an impression that I was a dry genius for remembering hundreds of phone numbers. Not quite wrong, just one order of magnitude, it was easy to keep ten most important ones. Those were home, both office and few most frequently called customers. His I knew because it was easy to memorize. Not easy enough for him, he never knew it, asked me at least three times so he could call home, when we'd go in the field (and also once about his car tag, sorry, don't do tags, take a walk), which was probably each time he went. I was the field guy, coming home at weird hours from work, he'd regularly go home at 15 - my lady would see him waiting for the bus at the same time, just opposite direction.

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* the actual expression is „at finger in the ass with the customs“

* Velimir Bata Živojinović, aka Bata Životinja (animal), was an actor (look him up on wikipedia, there should be a lot) specially in liberation war movies, where he singlehandedly shot about half the german army; movie „Walter defends Sarajevo“ was a blockbuster in China, they even made a Walter beer with his picture on it. Retired, he was an MP for Sloba's SPS.

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Mentions: Aleksandar Raskov (Sale), Atila Gereg (Grgi), DBA, Gradinka Peretić (Gradek), hats, Jovan Dimijan (Zeki), klaanca, Nevena Žaja (Nena), Njujork, Presprom, Rade Peretić, sezam, Tanasije Rijepić (Taho), Vilmoš Baranji (Vanji), Željko Žaja, in serbian