Just found out that Mike (Spitfire BBS) has passed.

https://www.dignitymemorial.com/obituaries/west-des-moines-ia/michael-woltz-110 72625

Thanks Mike for the amazing times in the early 90s on my 14" VGA and even in 2021 when you fixed some bulletin bugs and sent me updated spitfire.exe and spitfire.ovr files.

It was an exciting day when this showed up:
http://x-bit.org/info/sf_woltz.jpg

Blessings to the Woltz family.

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þ Synchronet þ Do it @ the X: Sync: X-BIT.ORG <-> Spitfire: X-BIT.ORG:2323

Re: Sad news: Mike Woltz
By: xbit to All on Thu Apr 13 2023 02:57 pm

Just found out that Mike (Spitfire BBS) has passed.

https://www.dignitymemorial.com/obituaries/west-des-moines-ia/michael-woltz- 110 72625

Thanks Mike for the amazing times in the early 90s on my 14" VGA and even in 2021 when you fixed some bulletin bugs and sent me updated spitfire.exe and spitfire.ovr files.

It was an exciting day when this showed up: http://x-bit.org/info/sf_woltz.jpg

Blessings to the Woltz family.

Yes, definitely. Sorry to hear. Added Mike's details to http://wiki.synchro.net/history:memorial, please feel free to add any more details or condolences you wish.
--
digital man (rob)

Synchronet/BBS Terminology Definition #70:
SEXYZ = Synchronet External X/Y/ZMODEM file transfer protocol driver
Norco, CA WX: 55.8øF, 76.0% humidity, 0 mph E wind, 0.02 inches rain/24hrs
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Re: Sad news: Mike Woltz
By: xbit to All on Thu Apr 13 2023 02:57 pm

Just found out that Mike (Spitfire BBS) has passed.

https://www.dignitymemorial.com/obituaries/west-des-moines-ia/michael-woltz- 110 72625

Thanks Mike for the amazing times in the early 90s on my 14" VGA and even in 2021 when you fixed some bulletin bugs and sent me updated spitfire.exe and

we're all dropping like flies.

better hope i dont die. i'm going to take you guys with me.
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þ Synchronet þ ::: BBSES.info - free BBS services :::

Re: Sad news: Mike Woltz
By: xbit to All on Thu Apr 13 2023 02:57 pm

Just found out that Mike (Spitfire BBS) has passed.

https://www.dignitymemorial.com/obituaries/west-des-moines-ia/michael-wolt z-110 72625

That's sad to hear. :(

Nightfox

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þ Synchronet þ Digital Distortion: digitaldistortionbbs.com

Re: Sad news: Mike Woltz
By: xbit to All on Thu Apr 13 2023 02:57 pm

Just found out that Mike (Spitfire BBS) has passed.

I only spoke with him a few times (via this forum) but he seemed nice. I would never have guessed he was a snap on tools man. I wonder if he was a salesman, or what position it was. Sad news indeed.

There are not a lot of 70 year olds monking with anything IT based. :(
-Denny

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þ Synchronet þ Vertrauen þ Home of Synchronet þ [vert/cvs/bbs].synchro.net

There are not a lot of 70 year olds monking with anything IT based. :(

There are where I work. Maybe not quite 70, but they are getting close if
they are not already.

I do not plan to be one of them, mind you. :)


* SLMR 2.1a * Tell me, is something eluding you, Sunshine?

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þ Synchronet þ CAPCITY2 * capcity2.synchro.net * Telnet/SSH:2022/Rlogin/HTTP

Re: Sad news: Mike Woltz
By: Dumas Walker to HYLIAN on Sat Apr 15 2023 08:52 am

There are not a lot of 70 year olds monking with anything IT based. :(

There are where I work. Maybe not quite 70, but they are getting close if they are not already.

I do not plan to be one of them, mind you. :)

you must be the only guy working with old guys in IT.
i never heard of such a thing.
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þ Synchronet þ ::: BBSES.info - free BBS services :::

MRO wrote to Dumas Walker <=-

you must be the only guy working with old guys in IT.
i never heard of such a thing.

You must not work in a shop that still uses COBOL and/or a mainframe. ;)


... Goodness! That was close! I almost gave a damn.
--- MultiMail/DOS v0.52
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Re: Re: Sad news: Mike Woltz
By: Dumas Walker to MRO on Sat Apr 15 2023 05:46 pm

MRO wrote to Dumas Walker <=-

you must be the only guy working with old guys in IT.
i never heard of such a thing.

You must not work in a shop that still uses COBOL and/or a mainframe. ;)

govt and banks and other industries still use cobol.
internet says it's still a high demand. i dont think it's just fossils that know cobol now.

if people want a job working with cobol they have to learn it.
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þ Synchronet þ ::: BBSES.info - free BBS services :::

Re: Re: Sad news: Mike Woltz
By: MRO to Dumas Walker on Sun Apr 16 2023 09:47 am

Re: Re: Sad news: Mike Woltz
By: Dumas Walker to MRO on Sat Apr 15 2023 05:46 pm

MRO wrote to Dumas Walker <=-

you must be the only guy working with old guys in IT.
i never heard of such a thing.

You must not work in a shop that still uses COBOL and/or a mainframe. ;)

govt and banks and other industries still use cobol.
internet says it's still a high demand. i dont think it's just fossils that know cobol now.

if people want a job working with cobol they have to learn it.
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þ Synchronet þ ::: BBSES.info - free BBS services :::

I remember a recent Linux Magazine column in which they mentioned some big techcompany had just spent a lot of megabucks creating a new COBOL compiler. A
friend of mine who works at an HP division told me once some of their customersare very big on COBOL. It might not be popular, but if corps are creating
compilers for it from scratch and investing tonnes of money in it it must be because other corps are willing to buy it.

--
gopher://gopher.richardfalken.com/1/richardfalken

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Re: Re: Sad news: Mike Woltz
By: Arelor to MRO on Sun Apr 16 2023 05:39 pm

I remember a recent Linux Magazine column in which they mentioned some big techcompany had just spent a lot of megabucks creating a new COBOL compiler. A friend of mine who works at an HP division told me once some of their customersare very big on COBOL. It might not be popular, but if corps are creating
compilers for it from scratch and investing tonnes of money in it it must be because other corps are willing to buy it.

i'm pretty sure my state's unemployment system was written in cobol and it fucking crashed when covid came around because so many people were out of work.

https://www.nbc15.com/content/news/DWD-experiences-problems-with-decades-old-coding-software-570225301.html

https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2020/jul/03/chris-kapanga/did-software-cause-wisconsins-unemployment-backlog/
(i hate to link politifact because it's a bullshit site like snopes)

anyways, i think what happened is they Blamed cobol when it was really people dropping the ball
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Re: Sad news: Mike Woltz
By: Dumas Walker to HYLIAN on Sat Apr 15 2023 08:52 am

There are not a lot of 70 year olds monking with anything IT based. :(

There are where I work. Maybe not quite 70, but they are getting close if they are not already.

I do not plan to be one of them, mind you. :)

You still find 60-somethings where I work, and once in a blue moon 70 somethings. I mean, retire already!

I'm eligible to retire where I work in 3 years, but I'll probably stay on until I'm at least 62 if I can. Get more benefits that way.

But 70. No way Jose I'd stick around that long! :)

*** Diamond Dave ***

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þ Synchronet þ Diamond Mine Online BBS - bbs.dmine.net:24 - Fredericksburg, VA USA

Re: Sad news: Mike Woltz
By: Dumas Walker to HYLIAN on Sat Apr 15 2023 08:52 am

I do not plan to be one of them, mind you. :)

Are you going to toss all your computers at 70? :)

Pretty sure I will still want to be messing around with them at that age.

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govt and banks and other industries still use cobol.
internet says it's still a high demand. i dont think it's just fossils that know cobol now.

if people want a job working with cobol they have to learn it.

Unless they have started doing it again recently, most schools no longer teach it. When I was in college (1988-93), they only were teaching COBOL to engineering students. Those of us in the "not engineering" IT program
could not take it.

Several years ago, the only way to find students who had studied COBOL was
to hire persons who had attended college in India.

When I started where I work now, in 1997, they would train candidates, and
that is where I learned it. They stopped doing that around 2003 when it
was decided that COBOL, and the mainframe, were "going away." They started hiring JAVA and M$-based developers.

20 years later, all those decision makers are long gone, but we still have
a mainframe, and it still runs mostly COBOL code and handles the bulk of
our processing. Most of those JAVA/etc. developers are also long gone.


* SLMR 2.1a * "You've stolen my soul!" - Granpa Simpson

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Re: Re: Sad news: Mike Woltz
By: Dumas Walker to MRO on Mon Apr 17 2023 03:41 pm

that know cobol now.

if people want a job working with cobol they have to learn it.

Unless they have started doing it again recently, most schools no longer teach it. When I was in college (1988-93), they only were teaching COBOL to engineering students. Those of us in the "not engineering" IT program
could not take it.

i looked it up online and looks like there's courses you can take.
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þ Synchronet þ ::: BBSES.info - free BBS services :::

Dumas Walker wrote to MRO <=-

Unless they have started doing it again recently, most schools no
longer teach it. When I was in college (1988-93), they only were
teaching COBOL to engineering students. Those of us in the "not engineering" IT program could not take it.

I went to school in the mid-80s, and the "hard" CS curriculum didn't
include COBOL. The BICS (Business Information Computer Sciences) program included things like PC databases, office apps and programming in COBOL.

When I started where I work now, in 1997, they would train candidates,
and that is where I learned it. They stopped doing that around 2003
when it was decided that COBOL, and the mainframe, were "going away."
They started hiring JAVA and M$-based developers.

20 years later, all those decision makers are long gone, but we still
have a mainframe, and it still runs mostly COBOL code and handles the
bulk of our processing. Most of those JAVA/etc. developers are also
long gone.

I'd venture to guess it wouldn't take long to become proficient enough
in COBOL to tweak existing code; it was meant to be human readable, and
people have access to COBOL compilers now on PCs.



... Once the search has begun, something will be found
--- MultiMail/Win v0.52
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Re: Sad news: Mike Woltz
By: Hylian to xbit on Fri Apr 14 2023 11:56:04

Very sad indeed! It is painful to see some of the pioneers of the bbs era starting to leave us.

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