Re: My buddy works in IT
He hand-coded it himself, starting mid-1980s. Had 32 terminals running off a pre-PC PC-like server at one point. Later evolutions, yes - still plural decades ago, had evolved to include paralleled servers mirroring each other.
He and I took some CS classes together circa 1980. So I can pretty much imagine exactly how he did it. It's not really all that complicated, provided you're not limiting yourself by relying on pre-packaged databases etc. You have to be able to build things from near scratch.
So, as far as I know, yes he did. And yes, plural decades (20+ years) ago. He had been building it up for about a decade by then.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
