02022020

[AIRMMCPORET]

Can’t believe nobody has posted one of these bad boys. ?

 

[707guy]

Yeah, we had 1 or 2 of those new word processor thingees in Admin with all the typewriters when I joined VP-46 in 1984. Still running the flight schedule and POD off on a mimeograph.

Those rotary dial phones were a pain in the ass too, especially when trying to get an autovon (DSN) line.

IBM Selectric II - what a beauty... Used to print fitreps out on a daisy wheel printer. That was fun - line up the OCR wheel, print the front, pull and reverse the carbons, swap to Times New Roman wheel, print the back. Twenty mins later skipper comes up with "a little change..."

 

[Pags]

Can’t believe nobody has posted one of these bad boys. ?

Laser disc was the only way to get the Aliens Directors Cut (with the sentry guns) for far longer than should have been acceptable.

 

[IKE]

IBM Selectric II - what a beauty... Used to print fitreps out on a daisy wheel printer. That was fun - line up the OCR wheel, print the front, pull and reverse the carbons, swap to Times New Roman wheel, print the back. Twenty mins later skipper comes up with "a little change..."

Now, in 2020, it's only ever so slightly easier to print a FITREP correctly. #NAVFIT98SUX

 

[707guy]

Now, in 2020, it's only ever so slightly easier to print a FITREP correctly. #NAVFIT98SUX

I'm sure I don't even want to know.

 

[Pags]

Now, in 2020, it's only ever so slightly easier to print a FITREP correctly. #NAVFIT98SUX

Are you still required to print a FITREP so it flips the "right" way? Which always seemed the wrong way to me but the USAA check scanning app was obviously approved by someone who used to sign fitreps.

 

[Gatordev]

Are you still required to print a FITREP so it flips the "right" way? Which always seemed the wrong way to me but the USAA check scanning app was obviously approved by someone who used to sign fitreps.

I'm guessing you know this already, but... It's supposed to be printed that way so it would go into your service record, which had the brad thingies at the top of both sides of the folder. So once put into the service record, you could read the front, then flip the page up and the back would be right-side-up.

I'm at work right now, so I can't check, but I'm honestly not sure if that's even still a requirement. I can't remember if my last few FITREPs were actually printed that way. They probably were.

 

[nittany03]

I'm guessing you know this already, but... It's supposed to be printed that way so it would go into your service record, which had the brad thingies at the top of both sides of the folder. So once put into the service record, you could read the front, then flip the page up and the back would be right-side-up

Something something railroads and horses’ asses . . .

 

[IKE]

Are you still required to print a FITREP so it flips the "right" way? Which always seemed the wrong way to me but the USAA check scanning app was obviously approved by someone who used to sign fitreps.

The good news: NAVFIT98 now allows you to print both pages at the same time AND change the printer settings to "flip on short edge."

The bad (non-surprising) news: it doesn't remember the printer setting, so you have to change it every time you print...so you inevitably waste a ton of paper any time you're working a summary group and forget every other time.

 

[Pags]

I'm guessing you know this already, but... It's supposed to be printed that way so it would go into your service record, which had the brad thingies at the top of both sides of the folder. So once put into the service record, you could read the front, then flip the page up and the back would be right-side-up.

I'm at work right now, so I can't check, but I'm honestly not sure if that's even still a requirement. I can't remember if my last few FITREPs were actually printed that way. They probably were.

I did NOT know that. I never had a paper service record since that stopped being a thing around the time I got to the fleet. But everyone still wanted them printed that way so printing a FITREP still took at least three tries.

 

[Jim123]

I always assumed your personnel record worked the same way as your natops jacket, medical record, and so on. The Navy gotta be The Navy...

I did have a physical service record for a couple years or so, back when there was such a rate as PN.

 

[AIRMMCPORET]

NAVFIT98, oh yeah those pages with great stories on them, I’ve almost forgot all about those fictional pages in my service record.?

 

[nittany03]

The good news: NAVFIT98 now allows you to print both pages at the same time AND change the printer settings to "flip on short edge."

I've never heard the story about NAVFIT98. But to my eye as a professional software nerd, it looks like nothing more than a Visual Basic front end overlaid on top of a Microsoft Access database. Thus, I have to applaud whatever hard-charging CS-minded individual came up with it in, well, 1998. Because VBA on top of MS Access isn't something you pay a professional to come up with. It's the hack you come up with at the turn of the century to make your own job easier when you know just enough software engineering to be dangerous. I assume it must have just gone viral before that was a thing, and become the de facto standard. As a guy who once rewrote the FRS gradesheets to function on a Web portal (it didn't stick, but hey, I got a NAM), I can respect that.

What I find unconscionable is that Big Navy never followed it up with an actual professionally-developed software solution for OVER TWENTY FUCKING YEARS.

 

[Jim123]

... when you know just enough software engineering to be dangerous.

 

[BigRed389]

I've never heard the story about NAVFIT98. But to my eye as a professional software nerd, it looks like nothing more than a Visual Basic front end overlaid on top of a Microsoft Access database. Thus, I have to applaud whatever hard-charging CS-minded individual came up with it in, well, 1998. Because VBA on top of MS Access isn't something you pay a professional to come up with. It's the hack you come up with at the turn of the century to make your own job easier when you know just enough software engineering to be dangerous. I assume it must have just gone viral before that was a thing, and become the de facto standard. As a guy who once rewrote the FRS gradesheets to function on a Web portal (it didn't stick, but hey, I got a NAM), I can respect that.

What I find unconscionable is that Big Navy never followed it up with an actual professionally-developed software solution for OVER TWENTY FUCKING YEARS.

It’s to weed out officers who are going to suck at bureaucracy. Use a stupid system to make what should be a simple paperwork drill overly painful...then add arcane “business rules” on how they should be written.

Meanwhile...Chief Eval is a fillable PDF...