Yes, we've come a long way. I started as an assistant in version 2.something back in 1990, so I guess I hit my 20th anniversary sometime this spring. Back then Avid was ported to a Mac IIfx, a computer whose speed was measured in megahertz, and all the media was digitized to Panasonic optical floppy drives, each of them about the size of a CD, and holding a gigabyte. I used to hold one in my hands and think "Wow!" We were doing a feature length HBO documentary, "Earth And The American Dream," and we captured a room full of archival film on 3/4" source to those things. I remember at one point we called tech support because we kept getting duplicate media messages, and the poor tech support rep asked how many bins we had. The first assistant replied that we had about 750, a which point there was a long silence on the phone, and the guy said "Actually, most of our customers have only one bin." That was true at the time, since Avid was mostly used for spot cutting then.
The thing crashed and crashed and crashed. As part of my job, I had to log each of the 18 or so crashes a night and document what I was doing when it happened. Meanwhile, there was an Avid button on lying on the desk with the slogan "Change your mind without losing it."
It's nice to see the photos of these guys, because I remember once the fellow in charge of maintaining the system played for me a little QT movie that you could access through some menu or other; it showed all the developers in a group, with an applause track underneath. He asked me why I was staring at them so hard, and I replied that I wanted to recognize them if I ever met them on the street.
Back then I might have slapped them; now, I would hug them.
Shirley
-----Original Message-----
From: Jimmy Dutt <bytemonkey@mac.com>
To: Avid-L <Avid-L2@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Fri, Apr 16, 2010 12:34 pm
Subject: [Avid-L2] A little trip down Avid memory lane
This is a little over a year old, but it's a unique perspective on
Avid's earliest days from someone who would certainly know - Bill
Warner:
http://billwarner.posterous.com/some-photos-from-the-early-day
I was thinking about this along with a couple other anniversaries this
past week: the 40th anniversary of "Houston, we've had a problem." and
the 29th anniversary of the launch of STS-1 (Columbia).
Being just shy of my own 20th anniversary as an Avid user, I've seen
(and tested) a whole slew of stuff - good, bad and otherwise - that's
come down from the LPT (Land of the Purple Triangle). While certainly
not in the same early adopter class as Basil and Alan (The True
Original Users), I can definitely remember the sheer excitement of
those very early days (OMG: Dissolves!) and not really being too
concerned with what the next release might bring or how much all this
stuff cost (A mere $10k for an upgrade to "CD Quality" 44.1k audio?
Fan-frakking-tastic!). The whole damned thing was just so cool it
didn't matter what Avid did (or didn't do). Of course that only
lasted a year or two :)
It amazing to see what today's "normal expectations" have become. Not
saying it's bad, mind you; just kind of stunning while considering
how far things have progressed in such a relatively short time.
-jimmy
--
BYTEmonkeys
Creativity for your Creative
http://bytemonkeys.tv
692 N. High St., Suite 304
Columbus, OH 43215
614.824.1685
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