#meshes…
Hello Pavel,
I've been following your conversations with interest. I am fascinated to hear
of how things are in your country.
>> …old times when people around computers here in Czech
>> tried to help each other… The result was, that almost
>> all computer people were friends.
Yes! That is exactly the way it was here in the US back in the late '70's.
Much of what we had was hand-built – I build A/D boards, clock boards, graphics
interfaces, utilities, batch-file processors, disk drivers, etc. Everyone
(that I knew of, anyway) shared freely. However it was inevitable: everything
changed and computers went from the hobbyist world to the big business world.
With many more people in the act something else was inevitable: some of the
same people who used to steal cars have switched to stealing software.
Personally, I don't worry about it too much. There are far more good people
than bad! And none of the problems with dishonesty seem to keep people from
making money with computers.
Also, people continue to help each other all over the world. For example, a
friend of mine works with some scientists in the former USSR who had access to
NO computing equipment or software. He organized a collection of used but
serviceable equipment (I even sent them one of my 286/12 computers) to help get
their laboratory going.
Thanks again for the insights into life in your country. This is better than
the Discovery Channel on television. <g>
JKJ