It was while I was working for the Department of Agriculture that I noticed some advertisements inviting enrolments at university. The Federal Labor Government had made major changes to the education system a few years earlier, amongst which was the abolition of tuition fees for university students. If I was going to try for a university degree, now was a really good time to do it. I applied for enrolment at Flinders University, and was accepted. To keep my options open I had also applied to the South Australian Institute of Technology. This was the second time in as many years I had enquired into tertiary study. The first time I considered enrolling in a social work course. It was a four-year full-time course, and the duration of it put me off, and here I was considering it again. I should have enrolled back then! Of course, this worse-than-dead-end job I had, made my decision to enrol somewhat easier. My timing was excellent, because a few years after completing the course, tuition fees began to be reintroduced.
The Institute commenced its academic year earlier in the year, than the university, and I went along to a few lectures to get a feeling for the place and the course. It’s good to keep the options open. The lecture theatre was mobbed with people. One of the lecturers had a callous attitude, saying, “Don’t worry about the crowds.” Every seat was occupied, there were people sitting aisle all the way down to the front, and those unable to squeeze inside were huddled around the doorway. The lecturer continued, “After a few weeks there will be so many withdrawals there will be room for everyone.” Bugger that for a joke. I kept my enrolment at Flinders and never regretted it; except that maybe I should have done more computer science than I did. There was a lot more flexibility in the subject choices at uni than at the Institute, and a lot more free time too. I was going to major in sociology and psychology, and that was to be my pathway into social work. I couldn’t hack the sociology and dropped it after a year. I had enrolled in geography as a filler subject, but loved it, and subsequently studied everything related to physical geography that I could. I had no intention of attempting computer science, but after a year a friend persuaded me to reconsider. I had been unimpressed with computers, having had some experience with Vic’s computer a few years earlier, and I couldn’t really see them re-entering my life in any significant way.
Vic had bought himself a computer several years previously. It was a TRS-80, and was one of the first personal computers to hit the market from Radio Shack. It was crude by today’s standards, but it was great to have access to it. Vic had the idea it might have been useful for doing the accounts in Telesonics, but that never happened. This computer had no disk drive, which was a distinct failing making it unsuitable for company accounts. It used an audio tape recorder for data storage. That was certainly a novel approach. Anyway, Vic had it set up at Reynell Road, and being very curious about computers I often went there to use it; to learn how it worked, and generally see what computers were capable of. It couldn’t do anything unless you programmed it first. Anyway that didn’t matter, as I wanted to learn how to write computer programs. I spent ages trying to learn BASIC without much success. I made little progress, learnt hardly anything, and found the whole experience immensely frustrating. So, when I was at uni and Chris suggested I try computer science my recollection of my experience with the TRS-80 came flooding back. There was no way I was going to waste my time on anything like that. He put a good case and convinced me to enrol in an introductory computing subject. I loved it, taking to it like a duck to water. Perhaps I missed my forte only having time to do the equivalent of a minor sequence for the remainder of my degree, but it set me in good stead for all the subsequent jobs that came my way.
Vic ended up replacing the TRS-80 for something more sophisticated. I don’t think this computer was used to run Telesonics’ business activities either. Vic always had an interest in music having played the clarinet in his youth, and latterly his interest had been classical music; listening rather than playing. He had a massive record collection, and a high quality stereo system in his room with large speakers and a powerful amplifier. June’s room was next to his, and she couldn’t stand his taste in music. I have to wonder whether Vic turned the volume up to annoy her. She frequently complained about it. With his interest in music, he had linked the new computer to the stereo, and had also hooked in a musical keyboard. He got some new software that allowed the computer to play music, which back in the early 1980s was quite a new idea, and all rather experimental. He sought out old copies of manuscripts, mainly from the library, and painstakingly keyed data into the music software on his computer. It sounds all very tedious, particularly with the complexity of classical music. He got it to play some music successfully, but the quality was dubious considering the amount of time it took to program it. Music software is quite sophisticated today, and I expect he would be enthralled by it.
An assignment had been allocated during one of my lectures, and the lecturer had informed the class that details of the assignment could be found in his computer account. I noted the details he gave, or so I thought, but I must have made a mistake in copying them, because when I logged on later that evening to copy the files from his account the system reported an error. I felt sure of the file name, and concluded I must have mistaken his account number. So, I had this idea. Having had some experience in computer programming by this stage, I felt confident to experiment.
The account numbers used by the university’s mainframe had three letters followed by three digits. My idea was to write a program that listed all the alternatives of possible account codes: AAA000 through to ZZZ999. The account code had to be one of them. The program I had planned, would put that information into a file in the correct format to copy the file I was after, and when finished would run it automatically as a batch job. Every time it tried the wrong account or one that didn’t exist, the attempt at copying the file would result in an error, and the program would then move on to the next account. Sooner or later it would hit my lecturer’s account, find the file, and copy it to my account. If someone else had a file by the same name I might have got that too, but that was unlikely. This was a rather brute force method, but what the hell. It would be a good experiment, and it was late Friday night. I could set the thing running and come back in the morning to check it out. The only trouble was that for the program to run I had to be logged on, and I didn’t want to leave the terminal active overnight for anyone else to come into the room and go rummaging through my account. There I was considering trawling through everyone else’s account, and I was worried over who may or may not rummage through mine; an irony that I didn’t spot at the time! I pulled the computer terminal’s cable from the plug in the wall and shoved it into the vacant connection next to it. The program was now running without a terminal! Feeling confident and pleased with my wizardly I sauntered into the night.
Rolling up to the computer lab the next morning, I took a seat at the same terminal and plugged the cable into the other socket once more, and the terminal flashed into life. My program had been running for about twelve hours and still hadn’t finished. Could it possibly have been because there were almost eighteen million possible combinations of account codes for it to work through? Damn! There was little option but to let it continue and just see what happened. There was still another day in the weekend, and I had plenty of other things to do anyway. I switched the cables again, and went off to the library planning to call back on Sunday morning.
The next day there was a lot of activity in the computer lab. One of the tutors was there too. I recognised her from a class I used to attend. She was trying to offer assistance to the people who were there; once a tutor, always a tutor. That was true of her, anyway. There were other tutors, who, when they got wind of students in need of help, would either hide or head off in the opposite direction. Anyway, some of the people in the room couldn’t log in, and others who were able to get onto the system, couldn’t access their files. I overheard her talking to someone, saying she couldn’t do anything in her account, “For some reason the computer’s saying the disk is full.” Oh-oh, I thought, was this because of me? I wondered how much disk space I had grabbed with my eighteen million records. Was it me who had clogged up all the computer’s resources? I quietly swapped plugs again and sure enough my program was still running, still creating account numbers, still taking disk space from everyone else. I had to stop it: control-C. Sometimes that doesn’t work. It worked this time and the program stopped. Okay, good. Next, check the directory: DIR, enter. “You won’t be able to do anything today,” she said on seeing me typing a few things at my terminal, and added, “The disk is full, for some reason.” As if I had to be introduced to this problem; I was the problem! “Really,” I said and carried on. I wonder how long it had been like this. There was certainly a large file in my directory. Describing the file as ‘huge’ would have understated the size of it. I deleted it quickly. Shortly afterward everyone in the room seemed to be able to begin work. The problem was put down to a technician carrying out some maintenance. I didn’t say a thing, feigned ignorance, and walked off quietly into the distance. On Monday I enquired about the file where the assignment was supposed to be. It turned out I had the correct account number, but the file name was wrong. Bugger!
Living on campus was a great convenience. With every university facility being a sort walk away you could get up late and still catch the early lectures. The few years I spent studying included some of my most memorable experiences, and possibly the icing on the cake was my experience of living at the Flinders University Hall of Residence, and I can recommend this life to anyone. I had made just such a recommendation to Stephanie, and she stayed in a new unit that had been built as part of the Hall community. The unit had a lounge, kitchenette and separate bedrooms. She shared the unit with two other people and generally found the whole experience abysmal. She hated it. The actual Hall, where I lived, was noisy, dingy, and depressing at times, but I had some fun times there. The rooms were simple, having a built-in wardrobe, single bed, desk with bookshelves above, and a couple of chairs. Although the walls were solid, if too much noise was made, the sound drifted through them. Unlike the self-catering units, meals for Hall residents were served in a dinning room. Sometimes the meals were boring, but having everything catered was a luxury.
Meals were served Mondays to Friday; breakfast and dinner only. Sandwich making facilities were available in the morning for lunches; there were stacks of bread, cheese and other fillings. Of course, this left me with the problem of how to feed myself on the weekend. The weekly government subsidy for students was fifty cents more than the cost of my accommodation. Not much to be done with that amount of pocket money. Apart from digging into savings, which was better spent on books, my option was to make myself big lunches on Thursday and Friday which could be eaten sparingly on the weekend. Stale bread often toasts quite well. Anyway, lunch was seldom required on Friday as there was often some Clubs & Societies do going on that usually had munchies that could be substituted for lunch. Though it must be said, cheese and wine lunches seldom left anyone in the best state of mind for studying.
Another very useful option was to steal meals. The Hall management would accommodate students who attended late lectures. If the lectures were held at the same time dinner was being served, they would put your meal in a warming oven until you got back to the Hall. I often put my name in the late meal book, and turned up for dinner anyway. Then later in the evening you could pick up your previously ordered late meal and keep it for weekend eating. Occasionally someone would order a late meal and not pick it up, in which case someone’s Friday dinner would be a shrivelled dry remnant of its former self by the next day; particularly if the oven timer didn’t click off. But when your stomach is rumbling any notions of being fussy soon evaporate. It was one way of keeping the weight off! Of course, I could always have jumped on the bike and ridden home. I was sure to get a feed there, and I did that initially on the weekends, but it was a bit far, and there wasn’t a lot of time for loafing around without a purpose.
I visited my parents and other relatives from time to time, while I was living at the Hall. There were often family get-togethers, and it was good to catch up with folks. John dropped in to Adelaide on one of his works visits from Sydney, on some job or other. This would be a good opportunity to catch up, so I took off for my parents’ place, where he would have been staying, to see him. I had no sooner arrived at the house, had enough time to say hello when he announced he was going out for the evening, and off he went, like cat on heat. He had no interest in the fact that I had driven miles to see him. Perplexed, I looked at my mother in amazement. My jaw must have dropped open. “I drove here especially to see him,” I said. “I know,” she said. There was little doubt that his priorities did not include spending time with me. Was it thoughtlessness or deliberate nastiness?
I had a room next to Jim Carter, at the Hall. Jim was a bored divorcee who was well into retirement. Like most students, Jim spent time studying and attending lectures, but another very important part of his life, possibly more important, was spent socialising, playing cards, watching TV, getting to know anyone who was interested in getting to know him, getting drunk and generally having a good time. Presumably he wanted a change in his life. Maybe the divorce was bad and he wanted a distraction so had gone back to university for no better reason than for something to do. As you would expect, his focus on study was different from mine, but he was good company and the source of a lot of fun.
He introduced me to Bridge, and we’d go along to classes at a Friday night Bridge Club he knew. We would often play in the evenings at the Hall too with some of the other residents. We had two tables on some occasions, which almost threatened to become a Bridge Club. Perhaps we should have applied for funding.
The ‘Clubs and Societies’ Office at uni had funding available for students who wanted to start a club. Most clubs had been long standing, and maintained themselves from subscriptions, but Clubs and Societies never rejected an application from anyone with a new club proposal. A grant of $100 was available to cover the cost of printing, stationery and anything else to help the club get off the ground. There was a group of people who got together calling themselves the Flinders University Apathy Society. They spent the funding on booze to celebrate the club’s establishment. There was only ever one meeting which coincided with the booze-up, and true to its name the club was disbanded for lack of interest. We didn’t bother with such cheeky enterprises, but bought our own wine and munchies.
The Friday night Bridge classes were very straight-laced affairs. They began with a half hour lecture each week, which provided a good grounding, but were very theoretical and structured which made them boring. They should have been entertaining. Instead, they tended to fill you with rules: if you have this number of points do this, if you have that number and this kind of hand, do that. There was generally a devoted silence as the instructor ran through his stuff, and it was a session like this that Jim began to snore. He had dozed off. Having had a few glasses of wine earlier in the day he had drifted off during the instructor’s drawl.
Wine and cheese was so run of the mill at uni, it almost got boring. Whenever one of the clubs was having a lunch time meeting or seminar they would just about always put on a wine and cheese lunch to attract the punters, and on some days you could move from one club to the next getting progressively more sozzled as the day wore on. I suspect this was what happened to Jim.
His snoring raised a few titters of laughter, which woke him, but not for long. I didn’t mind giving him a shove when he began leaning onto me as he nodded off, but the blue-rinse oldie sitting on the other side, she became most concerned when he began to lean dangerously toward her. He was solidly built, and she may have feared being crushed under this sleeping goliath.
Those nights were generally fun. After playing a few set hands in support of the lesson we’d just had, the hall was opened to competition. Some of the players were very aggressive in their play and at times ridiculously pedantic in observation of the rules. If anyone made a faux pas there was a yelp for the Director. There were calls for adjudication of the most trivial issues. On one occasion, I went to play, and realised immediately I’d inadvertently picked up the wrong card. I had allowed the card to touch the table, and then picked it up again in preference for another. It was a simple thing, and I don’t think anyone actually knew which card it was. It was something of no real consequence as far as I was concerned, but no, there were rules for situations like that. It was an issue that had to be resolved by someone in authority. “Director! Director!” they called. A Director came to our table and resolved the issue. I had to play the original card, and was penalized on the point score for taking it back. What a load of rubbish!
Jim reintroduced me to squash when I was at Flinders, and at least one game per week ended in the tavern afterwards, which was just in the next building and a great way to end the session. That was how I met Stephanie. She had come into the tavern after work, and before a lecture. Jim knew her from another class they had both attended, and seeing her at the bar, asked her to join us. She subsequently joined our weekly squash games, and we got to know each other.