Let's end this thread and its variants. 73, Eric WA6HHQ List Moderator
www.elecraft.com _..._ On Aug 21, 2011, at 4:40 PM, "Kevin Rock" <[email protected]> wrote: > I have boxes of those 5 1/4 diskettes plus a few 8 inchers. Everything I > wrote in the '70s and most of what I wrote in the '80s is now unavailable > to me. Just the musty printouts give me a trail of provenance. Some of > the algorithms I created back then would still be of value but I cannot > get to them. An acoustic analysis program I wrote to simulate the noise > pollution around a surface phosphate mine would be nice to have. It was > fun to write within the confines we had then but the transition to C and > Pascal made life much simpler. Variables with actual descriptive names > were a boon to getting the work done faster and the debugging went more > quickly in the new modular forms. To this day I am influenced by the > integer variables in Fortran: i, j, k. Forth forced me to think in > functional decomposition. I do not miss the confines of 65 kB but it was > nice to know the wiring of the entire computer and how each bit of the > rudimentary OSes of the day fit together. Getting to the I/O lines was > much easier then too. Now to dig out my CP/M box and see if it still > boots from those 8 inch floppies :) > 73, > Kevin. KD5ONS > > > On Sun, 21 Aug 2011 14:19:26 -0700, Fred Jensen <[email protected]> wrote: > >> Kind of mean-spirited, no? I have a number of files and documents >> stored on 5 1/4" 360 KB floppies [remember those], including my master's >> thesis. They were put there by me, mainly using an MS-DOS very early >> forerunner to MS Office called "Enable" running on a 10 MHz AT&T desktop >> built by Olivetti, with a green screen. I don't know where I could >> find a 5 1/4" drive now, I don't know where I can find a copy of that >> version of Enable [it stored stuff in some form of compressed binary >> because 4GB USB sticks hadn't been invented then [OK, USB hadn't been >> invented either] and it had to work within what today we would consider >> laughable storage limits, and I suspect at least some of the diskettes >> are no longer readable. >> >> Fortunately, I have printed copies of them, especially the thesis I >> worked so hard on, and they are as readable as the day I printed them. >> Does that make me a Luddite? >> >> 73, >> >> Fred K6DGW >> Auburn CA >> >> On 8/21/2011 7:42 AM, John Ragle wrote: >> >>> Why is it that a supposedly >>> technologically-adept hobby like ham radio contains such a larger than >>> average Luddite constituency? >> ______________________________________________________________ >> Elecraft mailing list >> Home: http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraft >> Help: http://mailman.qth.net/mmfaq.htm >> Post: mailto:[email protected] >> >> This list hosted by: http://www.qsl.net >> Please help support this email list: http://www.qsl.net/donate.html > > > -- > Using Opera's revolutionary e-mail client: http://www.opera.com/mail/ > ______________________________________________________________ > Elecraft mailing list > Home: http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraft > Help: http://mailman.qth.net/mmfaq.htm > Post: mailto:[email protected] > > This list hosted by: http://www.qsl.net > Please help support this email list: http://www.qsl.net/donate.html ______________________________________________________________ Elecraft mailing list Home: http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraft Help: http://mailman.qth.net/mmfaq.htm Post: mailto:[email protected] This list hosted by: http://www.qsl.net Please help support this email list: http://www.qsl.net/donate.html
