John Nemeth wrote in <[email protected]\ ice.ca>: |On Aug 24, 8:40am, Steve Blinkhorn wrote: |} You [D'Arcy J.M. Cain] wrote: |}> On 2018-08-23 09:03 PM, John Nemeth wrote: |}>> On Aug 23, 5:36pm, [email protected] wrote: |}>>} I cheated - I found a memory medule that fitted and got the system to |}>>} boot. Did we really once find 356MBytes adequate? |}>> |}>> 365MB?!? My first hard drive was 40MB and that was considered |}>> fairly large for the day. |}> |}> My first HD was 5MB. Later the systems came with 11MB. Then one day I |}> scored a brand new 20MB drive. I had to patch the CP/M binary in order |}> to access it. |} |} This could rapidly become the "Four Yorkshiremen" sketch from Monty |} Python. I had an early IBM PC with *two* floppy drives, but the |} first Unix box I ran rather than just used was an NCR Tower which |} started off with 512KBytes of RAM, later upgraded to a whole MByte, |} with a 40MByte drive. Eventually I ran twelve dumb terminals off it, |} and it worked, but that was 35 years ago. But then I go back to the |} time when dropping your deck of punch cards was tantamonnt to a "short |} sharp shock" jail sentence. | | When I was in Grade 10, I did a "work experience" thing (only |a week or two). One of the places, I "worked" at was ComputerLand. |At that time, the IBM PC was brand new. One of my tasks was to |unbox IBM PCs and install floppy drives. For those that have never |seen an original IBM PC, or forgotten the details of them, there |were two five-pin DIN plugs on the back. One was for the keyboard |(not something you wanted to drop on your toes -- it was heavy) |and the other was for connecting to an ordinary portable audio |cassette recorder (not exactly the most reliable storage medium). |Yes, IBM actually put out a business computer with the idea that |people would store data on audio cassettes. It was a rather absurd |idea. Even most people using the Apple ][+ (at home or work), |which was four years old at the time, used floppy drives.
I had a Datasette for C64 for backups and such. Sometimes it was fun to listen to the sounds. (But only sometimes.) I do not remember any problems beside speed! But that was 36 years ago, and i can prowdly state that my floppies for the 1541 worked on both sides, which saved a lot of real hard money. Of course these where good German tapes from BASF; not too far in the south of where i life, and when you have to deal with the stink, you wanna get something out of it. (Though Merck is right in town and stank very very much.) |}-- End of excerpt from Steve Blinkhorn --End of <[email protected]> --steffen | |Der Kragenbaer, The moon bear, |der holt sich munter he cheerfully and one by one |einen nach dem anderen runter wa.ks himself off |(By Robert Gernhardt)
