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NY UNEMPLOYMENT CLAIM SYSTEMS OVERWHELMED


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http://www.nypost.com/seven/01062009/news/...elme_147768.htm

 

NY UNEMPLOYMENT CLAIM SYSTEMS OVERWHELMED

Posted: 1:36 pm

January 6, 2009

 

ALBANY, N.Y. - New York's unemployment claims systems have crashed, overwhelmed by tens of thousands of jobless New Yorkers trying to call or log in at once ahead of this week's filing deadline.

 

State labor department officials say the problem started Monday and caused the phone banks at the state's toll-free claims center to shut down, followed by the online filing system. Leo Rosales, an agency spokesman, says as many as 10,000 people per hour were trying to log into the system.

 

Technicians are trying to bring the systems back online Tuesday afternoon but officials couldn't say when they'll be back up and available.

 

Rosales says the system failure shouldn't delay newly unemployed workers from getting benefits because they have until the weekend to file claims.

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Naw. I used to support a lot of state accounts. Think .... CP/M. They're probably still using PDP-11's too.

 

My father's a retired SE from IBM. He actually worked on a mainframe about 10 years ago that was literally the only one left operating on the planet. They needed a part for it, and the only place they could locate one was in the Smithsonian.

 

Some of these systems are only a step removed from ENIAC. Particularly in New York, which has more than enough bureaucratic inertia to resist upgrading old systems.

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Naw. I used to support a lot of state accounts. Think .... CP/M. They're probably still using PDP-11's too.

Had to decommission one of those once. :worthy::unsure: Not as bad as getting rid of a punch card system, though, had to do that too. Of course, that was another government client as well.

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My father's a retired SE from IBM. He actually worked on a mainframe about 10 years ago that was literally the only one left operating on the planet. They needed a part for it, and the only place they could locate one was in the Smithsonian.

 

Some of these systems are only a step removed from ENIAC. Particularly in New York, which has more than enough bureaucratic inertia to resist upgrading old systems.

 

Sounds like the gov't too!

 

Not computer related but we were still using an old paper recorder to get our upper and lower river elevations up until recently... The reason we stopped? Stevens (the company that makes the gage recorder) couldn't find anymore ink and styluses (or is it styli?) to keep the thing running... We are computer driven now! :lol:;)

 

Want to know about our sector gates (lock gates) and what drives them? Old OilGear hyrdaulics tech from the 1930's... Even the tech from OilGear was surprised to see it still in service... Called it: "our Model T." :unsure::worthy: The handles use to control them are the same one's I saw on Gato-class submarine (USS Silversides (SS/AGSS-236)! All wiring is still cloth and rubber insulated! :blink::lol:

 

Hey, you can't say the gov't doesn't get bang for the buck, life expectancy has already exceeded the 50 year projection.

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Had to decommission one of those once. :worthy::unsure: Not as bad as getting rid of a punch card system, though, had to do that too. Of course, that was another government client as well.

What the heck was the name of the OS on the PDP-11? I cannot for the life of me remember....I know the language was BASIC...it wasn't VMS, that was IBM right?

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What the heck was the name of the OS on the PDP-11? I cannot for the life of me remember....I know the language was BASIC...it wasn't VMS, that was IBM right?

VMS is DEC. Had to get rid of those too. VMS sucks the big fat one. Edit: oh, and of the things I try to remember, the OS on a PDP doesn't make the list.

 

One of my guys just called me about f'ing Sybase page locking. I will probably never rid myself of that crappy ass DB.

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What the heck was the name of the OS on the PDP-11? I cannot for the life of me remember....I know the language was BASIC...it wasn't VMS, that was IBM right?

 

You know, I used to know that, just from hearing my father complain about it.

 

I could be wrong, but I don't think VMS was IBM. I used it in college, and my recollection is that was NOT an IBM mainframe system I was using.

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For you youngsters:

I went to UB in the late 70s. I took Computer Science 101 (Basic and Fortran). UB had three campuses. There were three computer centers. You had to wait for the card puncher and if you made a mistake on any letter or number on the card you had to retype the whole card. You would enter the program by putting the cards in a reader and wait sometimes for a few hours to get your printout on those big perforated sheets. You would sometimes be there till 3 AM waiting for your printout.

I almost had an accident because I dosed off driving back down the 290 and 90 home. I woke up driving o the shoulder near the Kensington Expressway exit. Another time my battery died and I spent the night on a sofa in the Elicott dorms because someone was nice enough to give me a ride from the Ridge Lea (off NF Boulevard) campus to the Amherst campus.

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For you youngsters:

I went to UB in the late 70s. I took Computer Science 101 (Basic and Fortran). UB had three campuses. There were three computer centers. You had to wait for the card puncher and if you made a mistake on any letter or number on the card you had to retype the whole card. You would enter the program by putting the cards in a reader and wait sometimes for a few hours to get your printout on those big perforated sheets. You would sometimes be there till 3 AM waiting for your printout.

I almost had an accident because I dosed off driving back down the 290 and 90 home. I woke up driving o the shoulder near the Kensington Expressway exit. Another time my battery died and I spent the night on a sofa in the Elicott dorms because someone was nice enough to give me a ride from the Ridge Lea (off NF Boulevard) campus to the Amherst campus.

That explains a lot. Even I am not old enough to have used punch cards.

 

But I did learn Basic, Fortran, COBOL and Pascal. Fortunately never had to use any of them or I would have hung myself from a loaded B-tree.

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For you youngsters:

I went to UB in the late 70s. I took Computer Science 101 (Basic and Fortran). UB had three campuses. There were three computer centers. You had to wait for the card puncher and if you made a mistake on any letter or number on the card you had to retype the whole card. You would enter the program by putting the cards in a reader and wait sometimes for a few hours to get your printout on those big perforated sheets. You would sometimes be there till 3 AM waiting for your printout.

I almost had an accident because I dosed off driving back down the 290 and 90 home. I woke up driving o the shoulder near the Kensington Expressway exit. Another time my battery died and I spent the night on a sofa in the Elicott dorms because someone was nice enough to give me a ride from the Ridge Lea (off NF Boulevard) campus to the Amherst campus.

 

I was playing with punch card readers around the same time you were.

 

But I was seven years old. :worthy:

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You know, I used to know that, just from hearing my father complain about it.

 

I could be wrong, but I don't think VMS was IBM. I used it in college, and my recollection is that was NOT an IBM mainframe system I was using.

MVS was ibm, vms was dec, primeos was prime.

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For you youngsters:

I went to UB in the late 70s. I took Computer Science 101 (Basic and Fortran). UB had three campuses. There were three computer centers. You had to wait for the card puncher and if you made a mistake on any letter or number on the card you had to retype the whole card. You would enter the program by putting the cards in a reader and wait sometimes for a few hours to get your printout on those big perforated sheets. You would sometimes be there till 3 AM waiting for your printout.

I almost had an accident because I dosed off driving back down the 290 and 90 home. I woke up driving o the shoulder near the Kensington Expressway exit. Another time my battery died and I spent the night on a sofa in the Elicott dorms because someone was nice enough to give me a ride from the Ridge Lea (off NF Boulevard) campus to the Amherst campus.

 

I remember the computer geeks on the school bus would have punch cards made out in obscene gestures (like the finger)... Those were sure hits with "school bus culture."

 

:lol::thumbsup:

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