In 1989, my Toronto-based team was at TJ Watson for the final push on porting IBM's first TCP/IP implementation to MVS. Some of our tests ran raw, no RACF, no other system protections. I was responsible for testing the C sockets API, a very cool job for a co-op.

When one of my tests crashed one of those unprotected mainframes, two guys who were then close to my age now stared at an EBCDIC core dump, one of them slowly hitting page down, one Matrix-like screen after another, until they both jabbed at the screen and shouted "THERE!" simultaneously.

(One of them hand delivered the first WATFOR compiler to Yorktown, returning from Waterloo with a car full of tapes. I have thought of him - and this "THERE!" moment - every time I have come across the old saw about the bandwidth of a station wagon.)