Arthur E. Callahan, Information Technologist, at your service

Hello there, World Wide Net! Arthur E. Callahan, informational technologist, at your service. I've been asked by that nice young longhair who runs this so-called "Shampoo Nation" to help out with a little "historical research", and since he was nice enough to carry my groceries across the parking lot this morning, I don't see how I could say no. Thanks, no doubt, to my advanced age, my first assignment is the task of comparing this apparently "new and improved" SharePoint 2010 to one of the most exciting technologies of my youth; the long forgotten, but still highly competitive collaboration tool known as SharePoint 1910.

Now, I'm sure a lot of you kids out there in the IT world these days don't know a lot about SharePoint 1910, and you know why? Because you're too damn young! I won't hold that against you, but if it were up to me, you'd all spend less time playing the Atari machine and a lot more time studying up on the essentials of modern computing... like proper CP/M maintenance! If you think, by gum, that you can run a business without getting the console command processor reloaded in under an hour, you're about to find yourself between a memory outage and a bear attack, you are.

What was I talking about again? Right, the history of SharePoint 1910.

SharePoint 1910 : The Pinnacle of Young America's Industrial Might

You see, at the time, President Taft and that daft Interstate Commerce Commission of his needed to handle a lot of information from different folks across this great land of ours, and after he was elected, the circular tub of bad ideas decided to commission the creation of the most powerful mass communication and collaboration tool in the modern world. It was a bold plan, but a little ambitious (typical Taft) if you ask me, and it ended up getting delayed until after the Great War ran its course. Now, I was too young to shake a fine, Kansas-made bayonet at the Kaiser myself, but my cousin, Barnaby, claims to have had a clean shot at him coming home from a tavern in Winnenden late one rainy afternoon.

(Typical Barnaby, bless his drunken heart.)

Anyways, after Wilson took over in -- what was it, 1919? -- he started the project back up, and within a few years, we had a beta, which I had the honor to work with for a brief period of time (as chief information technologist to Undersecretary of the Interior William H. Pendelton, III. But by then, the whole thing had pretty much run its course, and when the Depression hit, Hoover took apart most of the system and sold it to J.P Morgan's illegitimate niece, Cassandra. Not sure I believe that, myself -- Arthur Callahan's not someone you can pull the wool over with some cockamamy story about pigeons and potatoes, if you know what I mean.

Wait a minute -- do you hear a telephone? Are you sure?

I'm pretty sure there's a telephone ringing around here somewhere. CHRISTOPHER!!! IS THAT THE PHONE???

Fine. Where were we going with this, anyways?

Of course -- SharePoint 1910, that's it. That Anderson fellow I mentioned asked me to compare today's version to the one from my day, and let me tell you -- it's a lot closer than you might think. We can get started just as soon as I remember my password. I don't understand what's wrong with my usual one...

{M-A-T-L-O-C-K...}

Hmmm... no luck. Let me ask Christopher about this. In the meantime, did I ever tell you I used to work for Woodrow Wilson?