> I remember speaker! That reminded me of something long forgotten that we used to have great fun with-
Back in the early 90's I was on a job rotation out to our credit union and my colleague and I used to play a wav file on a computer just sitting in a stack of junk computer parts by the door to our office whenever we got one of those annoying pairs of drop ins that always seem to gang up on you first thing Monday AM. It was a little hidden bit on Joe Walsh's But Seriously Folks album sometimes called "Flock of Wah-Wahs!" After "Life's Been Good" (the last song on the album) the music fades away into silence. Then, about 30 seconds later, there is a really funny secret message from Joe Walsh which says "Wha-oh...here comes a flock of wanh-wanhs!", followed by a chorale of "wannh", "wanh" "wahn" (collectively sounding like a bunch of ducks or sheep). The users would just stare dumbfounded at the pile of computer junk with the sound coming out of it... -----Original Message----- From: Raper, Jonathan [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: Friday, August 21, 2009 3:04 PM To: NT System Admin Issues Subject: RE: [OT][Humor] AOL For when the stork isn't available? Bah dump, bump, crash... Sorry, I couldn't resist either... Yup, I remember speaker! I used it in 1998 when I was working in inventory control for my last employer. WOW...that brings back memories...my boss couldn't believe it... Jonathan L. Raper, A+, MCSA, MCSE Technology Coordinator Eagle Physicians & Associates, PA [email protected] www.eaglemds.com -----Original Message----- From: Peter van Houten [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: Friday, August 21, 2009 5:58 PM To: NT System Admin Issues Subject: Re: [OT][Humor] AOL So Jonathan, *exactly* what do eagles need physicians for? Sorry, couldn't resist... Talking computers? Heh ~ anyone remember a little program called "speaker" (for those of us that couldn't afford sound cards)? It did an admirable job of producing sound through the PC's 2 inch "loudspeaker". -- Peter van Houten On the 21/08/2009 22:56, Raper, Jonathan wrote the following: > Ok, so I'm WAY late on this one, but I have to chime in... > > My first computer was a Commodore 64, but I remember my dad tinkering with a PET. We also had the portable version of the C-64 that had about a 4-5" CRT display built in, along with a 5.25" floppy. The keyboard snapped over the display and floppy... > > Also, I remember getting ours to talk - really cool for the early-mid eighties. > > We were members of TCUG (Triad Commodore User's Group), based in Greensboro, NC. Where COMPUTE! Publications was based. > > Now for the REALLY interesting tidbit...the corporate headquarters for my company, Eagle Physicians, is located at 324 West Wendover Avenue, Suite 200.... > > The SAME EXACT address where COMPUTE! Publications was based before it started going by the wayside. I was still getting some mail (because I was the only IT guy at the time) back in 99 and 2000... > > Jonathan L. Raper, A+, MCSA, MCSE > Technology Coordinator > Eagle Physicians& Associates, PA > [email protected] > www.eaglemds.com > > > -----Original Message----- > From: Ben Scott [mailto:[email protected]] > Sent: Thursday, August 06, 2009 1:00 AM > To: NT System Admin Issues > Subject: Re: [OT][Humor] AOL > > On Thu, Aug 6, 2009 at 12:28 AM, Steven M. Caesare<[email protected]> wrote: >> Indeed. Too bad they never thrived after transitioning >> to the x86 world, as they obviously had some amazing >> coding talent. > > Yah. That. A lot of that. > >> -virtual memory of sorts > > Oh, yah, I forgot about that. PC/GEOS had memory swapping, too. > Not true "virtual memory", since that would require an MMU, and the > 8086 didn't have one of those. > > No memory protection, for the same reason. Their code crashed less > often than MS Windows does *with* an MMU, though. :) But I did have > things blow up on me on rare occasions. The state restore came in > *real* handy then. > >> -bank memory switching (unmapping the native c64 ROM to expose 16K additional RAM) > > That kind of thing was less important on the PC, of course. You had > a whopping 640 KB there. ;-) > > PC/GEOS might have supported EMS and/or XMS, though. I can't remember. > >> -a pseudo pre-emptive OS (no multiple apps, but the OS could preempt the app) > > Yah, I don't know how they did preemption on the 8088, since there > was no hardware support for "real" processor tasks. I assume > something driven off the timer interrupt. > >> -programming environment w/ interactive resident debugger > > That didn't come with the "regular" GeoWorks product. I suppose > their must have been an SDK of some kind somewhere. > >> -office apps including word processor(with mail merge from the database), spreadsheet(with charting), database, and page layout > > Sounds similar. The PC flavor came with GeoWrite (word > processor/basic page layout), GeoCalc (spreadsheet), GeoDraw (vector > graphics), GeoFile (database), and GeoComm (modem/terminal). And AOL. > >> And a bunch of other stuff. All in 64K, which >> meant the kernel had to be _REALLY_ compact. > > Yah, that's way more impressive than even 640 KB. 64 KB is *tiny*. > >> http://lyonlabs.org/commodore/onrequest/geos.html > > Neat. It's amazing they did all that on a C64! Heh, it even > supported Klingon! :-D > > Hey, I found a page on PC/GEOS: > > http://www.geocities.com/originalravinray/geos/history_contents.html > > That backs up my claim that the AOL GUI was originally done by > including the PC/GEOS core with AOL. It also mentions an early beta > which included UI drivers (we'd call them "themes" today) for Motif, > OpenLook, DeskMate, and IBM CUA. > > And, holy crap, there appears to be a company still maintaining and > selling PC/GEOS! > > http://www.breadbox.com/ > > It doesn't look like the apps have changed much. I'm tempted to > download the trial just to check it out. It was pretty fast even on > my 8088; I can't imagine it would be slow in a VM on my Core 2 Duo. > :-) > > -- Ben ~ Finally, powerful endpoint security that ISN'T a resource hog! ~ ~ <http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Business/VIPRE-Enterprise/> ~ Any medical information contained in this electronic message is CONFIDENTIAL and privileged. It is unlawful for unauthorized persons to view, copy, disclose, or disseminate CONFIDENTIAL information. This electronic message may contain information that is confidential and/or legally privileged. It is intended only for the use of the individual(s) and/or entity named as recipients in the message. If you are not an intended recipient of this message, please notify the sender immediately and delete this material from your computer. Do not deliver, distribute or copy this message, and do not disclose its contents or take any action in reliance on the information that it contains. ~ Finally, powerful endpoint security that ISN'T a resource hog! ~ ~ <http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Business/VIPRE-Enterprise/> ~ ~ Finally, powerful endpoint security that ISN'T a resource hog! ~ ~ <http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Business/VIPRE-Enterprise/> ~
