I suppose he meant nothing by it. Youth can be innocent. Those of us who are no longer youthful, at least chronologically, are unlikely to have the i-word apply as much as it might have in the past.
And, while I practice my own wide-eyed innocent look, I am certain I fool no people any of the time.
But even so. In the middle of the evening, eating what could only serve as "fuel" rather than "food", in an airport I described how I had the chance to visit CERN in the late eighties. Digital had a large contingent of amazing engineers there - not I, I was just a tourist - and I got to see one of their computer rooms.
I made mention of the banks of tape drives (reel and cartridge if memory serves).
The newest member of our team asked me how they worked. "Did they rewind and fast-forward to read the data?" he asked. And, I regret to say, he gave all indication that his question was serious.
I know I can still speak assembler. I know I still recall much of the instruction set of the PDP-11 and the VAX. I know I once, or more than once, loaded a (small) program in binary using the front switches on a DEC mini-computer.
But even so. I've never felt that old before.
I may never speak to him again.
