OLD TIMERS WITH OLD SOFTWARE/HARDWARE

[taxxcpa]

I remember the first time i ever saw a Xerox machine. The guy that was showing it to me gave me a demonstration by putting a $10 bill in it and copying it. He said it was illegal to copy money and tore it up.

Even further back, one day when I worked for the Air Force Auditor General, I had a PFC assisting me and told him to copy some information to document some audit findings. While he was doing it, I was talking to one of the people I was auditing and he showed me the latest thing they had; a thermal copying machine. I copied the documents the PFC was transcribing, and told the PFC I didn't need the worksheets he had done. He became angry about my having wasted his time doing unneeded work.

[TRX 1]

Yes they do, you can still buy it, and I use it every week! Our pistol match scoresheets get filled out in duplicate (with carbon paper); one set for each team captain.

What kind of Pistol do you shoot?

Doug

[frannie]

In 1986 I would buy my forms that were a set of three copies with the carbon paper attached so I could just rip of the top and separate the pages. I also went to my clients houses with my crate of forms and publication 17 and a solar calculator (probably one of the first made). I still use that calculator! My first laser printer still works. Ooooh, 4 pages a minute!

There are brief moments that I miss doing a return by hand. Everyone should learn how to do a form 2210 by hand!

[Guest Taxed]

Those milk crates were the right size for holding folders with forms. I had a complete filing system in the trunk of my 1969 Buick Lesabre when I first started. Still do a few house calls now for older folks but it is just my laptop and pub 17. Some of my senior clients are now on the internet so i can e-file right from their house, instead of doing it from my office. I had a kodak portable printer, but the quality was not that great so now I mail them their copy.

[Guest Taxed]

Oh no John, was that YOU that I received an email from saying you were trapped in some foreign country and couldn't leave until you paid your bill which you couldn't do because you had been robbed and would I please send money? I thought it was just a scam so I just deleted it. I am truly sorry.

Cute story though. Carbon paper vs copy machine. The old meets the new. Very interesting.

Watch out for those scams! To verify identity always use the old James Bond method! What is it you say? Watch Dr No.

[Catherine]

What kind of Pistol do you shoot?

Doug

I have a Pardini SP .22 for competition; it is very nice and we are good friends. Only problem it has is every couple years the recoil spring needs replacing - my first sign is that it won't pick up the 2nd round in sustained fire. And it is fussy about ammo; lots of .22 is just a bit too long to fee properly so I now use Eley Sport. Used to use Aguila Subsonic but that's gotten hard to find and expensive. My husband's SP is a later model and not nearly so fussy about ammo. (My husband is also a Doug.)

What do you shoot?

[Catherine]

In 1986 I would buy my forms that were a set of three copies with the carbon paper attached so I could just rip of the top and separate the pages. I also went to my clients houses with my crate of forms and publication 17 and a solar calculator (probably one of the first made). I still use that calculator! My first laser printer still works. Ooooh, 4 pages a minute!

There are brief moments that I miss doing a return by hand. Everyone should learn how to do a form 2210 by hand!

A bazillion years ago I did the typing up of hospital pathology reports on the weekends. FIVE carbon copies in those rip-top forms. Every typing mistake needed SIX corrections (original and five copies). Boy, my typing was better back then.

Also gave me one of my very-best-ever stories: one day I was SO utterly tired. All alone in the office, the hum of the ventilation, the drone of the doctor's voice in the dictaphone headset... oh, man, trying to stay awake was just about impossible. My head dipped, I woke up with a start, and found THREE reports that -- to this day -- I do NOT remember typing, all finished and neatly in the "done" pile. LOL!!

[JohnH]

Aha!

So THAT explains why my doctor ordered arthoscopic knee surgery after my gall bladder attack!

[Guest Taxed]

Funny that carbon paper is being discussed here, because I have a story from this week. My wife misplaced her passport while we were in India, so this past Monday we had to jump through lots of hoops at the US consulate and Indian immigration to get back home. It was an all-day ordeal, but not without its moments of humor.

The last stop was Indian immigration. After we paid our fees, the official filled out a receipt form which had a piece of carbon paper between the top sheet and second sheet. He had my wife sign the form with the carbon still in place. Then he took the original and PLACED IT IN THE COPY MACHINE beside his desk. He then had her sign the photocopy even though she had already signed the original. I now wish I had asked for the piece of carbon paper as a souvenir of the entire ordeal.

I guess you can consider yourself lucky that you could get out of there in 1 day after losing a US passport. I have read that in third world countries they try to steal your passport for identity fraud and use that get in here. The prudent thing would be to put fraud alerts on your credit file (it is free) just to be safe.

[JohnH]

Thanks for the reminder. I use MyFico weekly credit monitoring for my wife and myself, but that's a great suggestion.

[Guest Taxed]

I have a Pardini SP .22 for competition; it is very nice and we are good friends. Only problem it has is every couple years the recoil spring needs replacing - my first sign is that it won't pick up the 2nd round in sustained fire. And it is fussy about ammo; lots of .22 is just a bit too long to fee properly so I now use Eley Sport. Used to use Aguila Subsonic but that's gotten hard to find and expensive. My husband's SP is a later model and not nearly so fussy about ammo. (My husband is also a Doug.)

What do you shoot?

Ammo and guns are flying off the shelves around here. One of my clients is a gun dealer, I will find out soon how good his business has been??