ISP Information:
The program that allows you to access the basic functions of your computer. It is the minimum software required to run a program. Thus, you must have an operating system installed and then the programs run on top of it--unless you have a program with an entire operating system embedded into it, which is possible.
ISP Glossary:
Operating System - Last week in this space, articles appeared regarding the May, 1988fire in the Illinois Bell Central office in Hindsale, Illinois. But117 years prior, long before the sophistication of a Hinsdale, Illinoistelephone network location and its fire, on October 8, 1871, anotherfire of disasterous proportions caused havoc on another method ofcommunication, the (then still a new company) Western Union TelegraphCompany. There is *so much* documentation on the great fire inChicago, (use search engines for 'Chicago Fire 1871') that I won'teven begin to touch on it here. Instead we will deal in this articlewith just one aspect of that fire: the destruction of the telegraphoffice in Chicago.You have probably all heard the famous abbreviation 'TGIF' which means'Thank God it is Friday', often times said with a sigh of relief atthe end of a busy, often times frustrating week. A somewhat lesserknown abbreviation is 'OHIM' which stands for 'Oh Hell, it is Monday'for the start of another work week, possibly as frustrating as theweek just finished. The Hinsdale fire started Sunday evening, roaredon through the late night hours and was finally struck around 11 PMthat Sunday night. The Great Fire in Chicago started on Sunday, Oct-ober 8, 1871, and would rage on for two days until burning itself outearly Tuesday morning, October 10, 1871, when a driving rain finallyextinquished the blaze at Fullerton Avenue on the north side of thecity.After the fire started on the west side of the city about 9 PM,people elsewhere in the city watched with much interest. Although itwas obviously a 'problem', they were safe since the fire was on the*west* side of the Chicago River; that would surely protect them onthe *east* side of the river, they thought. At the telegraph office,on LaSalle Street downtown, the single agent on duty watched it allwith interest -- the bright flames in the distance, as he 'chatted'on the wire with other clerks in other cities in his spare time, andthis was Sunday night, after all, and not a very busy time, with muchfree time to listen to the wire as it delivered its soap opera likemessages everywhere.Between the various messages, known as 'traffic' in the industry, thevarious clerks would chat among themselves, and the fire in Chicago,which some predicted would be the worst thing to ever happen was onetopic of the chatter. There was a system that they would chat asdesired, but if any agent somewhere on the wire had traffic to besent, that person would 'rattle' or bang the key in such a way to cutinto the conversation telling the others to 'shut up for now, I havetraffic'. And when the wire quieted down, someone would tap out 'gowith your traffic' and the one who had the message between customerswould then proceed. Chicago being the center of the United States, theoffice there has many interconnection lines or circuits between othercities, and mechanical methods of hooking the wires together to passtraffic from, let's say, New York or Washington to St. Louis or DesMoines, via, naturally, Chicago. The trains all came through Chicago,so should, logically, the telegraph wires.The clerk on duty that Sunday night expressed some annoyance thatinstead of getting off duty at 11 PM as he normally did, the clerk whowould have taken over at that time had said he would not be cominginto work that night; some other business would keep him away. So ourman would be 'stuck there' for a double duty shift until 7 AM Mondaymorning, when all the regular crew of clerks, telegraphers and messagedelivery people began their workday. Little did he know that by 7 AMMonday morning the office would be gone, completely burned out.Like a play-by-play radio announcer describing a baseball game orother sporting event, as he listened to the chatter on the wires,which by midnight had largely turned in to gossip about 'that firethey are having in Chicago' he would interuppt now and then to saysomething of significance about the event, but the biggest and mostfrightening event came at 1:00 AM Monday morning when
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