BTW I still have that calculator and still use it, I did get the slide switch fixed a few years ago as it had a bad contact. All the others I have seen come and go - Lincoln University gave away their Vax 785 for $1, no more PDP's - in fact no more Digital, no more Sinclair. But I still have the Sharp calculator..
John -----Original Message----- From: Matthew Comb [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Geek :) > My first tech device was a Sharp programmable scientific calculator, > EL5101 it had 48 yes 48 steps of program storage, and 5 memories. It > also had a wonderful LCD display and algebraic logic, eg you could > enter expressions like > > (1+2)* sin 45 > > in that order, no more RPN, and that's how it displayed on the screen, > and you could recall and edit the command line. It was such a good > one that they still make a similar model today, now with more than 1k > of memory and just a bit faster. This was before the ZX81 and > TRS80's. I used it to program a 2D moon landing game with the real > orbital speeds and burn figures, all within 48 steps, calculating > horizontal and vertical speeds.... > > And PDP-11's and VMS, fond memories. Guess where the DIR command came > from? My favourite memory is of a PDP-11 that crashed running RT11 > which was real > fast....the console was on a separate power supply and it had this message > on it: > > ?MON-F-Trap to 4: Power Failure > > When one of the office fuses blew. How many modern operating systems > can diagnose a sudden power cut as they crash? > > John > > > -----Original Message----- > From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] > On > Behalf Of Laurence Bevan > Sent: Thursday, 23 March 2006 1:27 p.m. > To: 'NZ Borland Developers Group - Delphi List' > Subject: RE: [DUG] You say potatoe I say.... > > > Seeing we're all reminescing... > > My introduction was on NCR 499's in 1981, 4 cassette drives and a mag > card reader. Wrote the Council's first word processor on a machine > without a screen, even did mail merge! The highlight was when they > upgraded the memory to a whopping 32Kb of RAM. You had to write some > pretty efficient code to fit in that. > > Later, in 1985, we upgraded to a NCR 9300 with screens and 10Mb hard > drive. In 1988 they added 4 x 20Mb (NOT Gb) removeable hard drives at > a cost of $80,000. I had one of the first PC's with dual 8 inch > floppies. Remember trying out Windows version 1 from a floppy, took > about 3 minutes to load up > calculator. > > My first home computer was a Commodore VIC 20, 3K of RAM and a > cassette drive. I won a Commodore software competition by writing a > game in assembler (never want to do that again!) and bought my first > 5.25" floppy drive for $1000. > > And you try telling the young people of today that ... and they won't > believe you!! > > > Cheers, > Laurence Bevan > Master Business Systems Ltd > P O Box 467 > Feilding > > > _______________________________________________ > Delphi mailing list > [email protected] http://ns3.123.co.nz/mailman/listinfo/delphi > > > __________ NOD32 1.1454 (20060321) Information __________ > > This message was checked by NOD32 antivirus system. > http://www.eset.com > > > > _______________________________________________ > Delphi mailing list > [email protected] http://ns3.123.co.nz/mailman/listinfo/delphi > __________ NOD32 1.1454 (20060321) Information __________ This message was checked by NOD32 antivirus system. http://www.eset.com _______________________________________________ Delphi mailing list [email protected] http://ns3.123.co.nz/mailman/listinfo/delphi
