Joseph S. Gardner wrote:
> I used to have an old Teletype with a paper tape reader in the basement
> (probably still have some old paper on a roll laying around for it). My father
> kept tryin' to teach me basic over an blazin' sub-300 baud modem if memory
> serves me (it's been a while).
My first microcomputer was an Altair, with an ASR-33 and KSU-33
(teletype with paper punch and paper reader). It ran at
110 bps over a 20 ma serial interface. Later on I upgraded
it to an Ann Arbor video terminal (upper case only) at 9600 bps.
Ran several accounting programs, some in basic, some in basic
with Assembly language modules and some totally in assembler.
This was 8080 code which was a pleasure to code in (still is!).
In fact, these Altairs all still run here.
If you think about it for a while...it may be fun to poke
ridicule at those old machines, but. The thing about a
computer is that it does not matter if it runs at 2 MHz or
750 mHz. All we want is for the computer to run faster than
the operator doing the work at it. In those days, we posted
data and payments; the computer printed reports and statements.
If I sat in front of it, and I could key in the payments as
fast as I could type on the keyboard.... then the computer
gave me 100% satisfaction.
Today, we have to take the hands off the keyboard and handle
a mouse for the ocassional click. Thus, data entry is not
quite as fast as before. Satisfaction is only 90% in this
case, even if the computer runs at 333 mHz in my case, vs.
2 mHz for the Altair. If you disagree with me on the mouse
click thing, then satisfaction for both systems would be
100%. This means that old computers are not bad at all.
True, they did not surf the web or play music...but I am not
sure that is an advancement. I have made a lot of money
from surfing the web (am an ISP), but I can compare that to
making money by selling something addictive. Hehehehehe. We
no longer live in the older, gentler days. Things are dizzier
today, and if you like computers for their own sake, then I
cannot really say that a Pentium II at 333 mHz is more or less
satisfying than the old Altair with the hand-soldered circuit
boards was. And both seem to do my bookeeping with equal
aplomb. Oh....the old Altair was 100% reliable, never crashed
and never lost any data either on the paper tape or the 8"
floppies that followed.
The hard drives in those days, late 70's, were 14" monsters
the size of a washing machine and used 1 horsepower motor,
about 1 kilowatt of electricity. Large and noisy, but they
were reliable too. I never put any accounting on them, just
played with the hardware. No longer have those. I bet those
5 MB drives never lost anyone's data either.
--
Ramon Gandia --- Sysadmin --- http://www.nook.net
285 West 1st Avenue ISP for Western Alaska
P.O. Box 970 tel. 907-443-7575
Nome, Alaska 99762 fax. 907-443-2487
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