----- Original Message ----- From: "d.brin" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: "Killer Bs Discussion" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Tuesday, October 07, 2003 5:43 PM Subject: Re: When I Was Your Age... (was Re: RE: Brin: rejuveniles)
> > > > > >OK, since we're playing the oldest stuff game here. What is the oldest > >computer everyone here has worked on? I think mine (which I've mentioned > >before) is the oldest, but I'd be curious to see who might beat me. :-) > > > I had an Apple II with serial number in 5 digits. Used integer basic > and a newfangled (earliest disk drive) My brother lost it. Well, that's certainly earlier than the first personal computer that I owned; which was a IBM PC, which I bought in '83. The first one I worked on was an old submarine computer from the '50s. As far as I know, its the only computer I worked on that was certified to be ruggadized against depth charges. (Later processors were ruggadized far more than this for downhole use while drilling, but that's another story.) It was hooked up to digitizing machines that were used to translate bubble chamber pictures into numbers that could be turned into tracks, complete with sign and momentum assignments. When I was making the final measurements for my dissertation, it died. When I finally could get someone to fix it (for some reason grad students' needs fell at the bottom of the totem pole :-) ), they found out that the mean time between failure was less than the mean time to fix. The transistors were burning out at too rapid a rate for them to repair the machine. Luckily, I was able to take my film down to Fermilab, digitize the data, and obtain the several nice boxes of punch cards I needed to finish my dissertation. Dan M. _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
