> From: Duane Maxwell [mailto:dmaxwell at san.rr.com] 
> > Our managers expected us to connect the vacuum tubes by hand; 300 
> > volts,and
> > we'd be droppin' like flies durin' even the simplest bubble 
> > sort . . .
> 
> Vacuum tubes? That's Utopia!
> 
> In my day, we'd count hings using our fingers.  If we needed 
> numbers larger than 10, we'd take our shoes off.  When we got 
> to 21, well.....
> 
> -- Duane

Aye, well, when I were a lad, we 'ad this way o'reckoning.  It went 'Don't
count 'em, they're all mine'.  It were derived from the Yorkshireman's
Creed:

"See aal, hear aal, say nowt;
Eat aal, drink aal, pay nowt;
And if ever tha does owt for nowt, allus do it for thysen."*

Anyway, two Yorkshiremen helped create electronics as we know it today by
discovering copper wire.  Apparently they were fighting over a penny at the
time...

		- Peter, whose Yorkshire accent is now "smittled wi'
Lancashire"

* Translation for Londoners and other foreigners: aal = all, nowt = nothing,
tha = you, owt = anything, allus = always, thysen = yourself.