People talk about old tech they same way they talk about fast food. Gone are the days when a burger would be eaten with both hands. A bygone era when a man would stand by the quality of his work, truly committed to quality.
We live in an era when technology is shrunken and diminished. With a single hand we grasp a shortlived device designed to be used and discarded as quickly as the box it came in. The computers of my generation are gimped, handicapped machines made to exist as a node in an infinite network of communication protocols. What was once a puzzle is now a debate, and arguments have replaced conversations. On paper, I work with computers every day. But in reality 90% of my time is spent proving who is responsible for a bad Customer Experience. It would be nice to spend some time in a room filled with analog devices and paper storage media. The same tech used to split the atom and visit the moon.. After the testing I recently did on some Macbook M1 laptops going back to punch cards sounds like an amazing idea. -Ben Sent from ProtonMail mobile -------- Original Message -------- On Sep 22, 2021, 5:36 PM, John Sechrest wrote: > I remember that the first task in a new computer installation was to get > the manuals set up. We often had 5-8 ft of Manuals that came with a system. > So upboxing the manuals and setting them into binders was almost as big a > task as getting the computer set up. > > They used to build reference manuals and Users guides with the full > expectations you could find what you needed, since there was no network and > every good manual page read was one less support call. > > On Wed, Sep 22, 2021 at 5:33 PM Tomas Kuchta <tomas.kuchta.li...@gmail.com> > wrote: > >> You did not miss much. >> >> The old tech sucked. I was (un) fortunate enough to experience it, both at >> home and work. >> >> About the only good thing about it was its simplicity and openness. Most of >> the ancient computers came with awesome manuals for both HW and SW. It was >> so easy to learn and understand. I guess, that the same could be said about >> today's tech albeit at different abstraction level. >> >> -Tomas >> >> On Wed, Sep 22, 2021, 11:34 Atharva Lele <itsatha...@gmail.com> wrote: >> >> > Hello, >> > >> > Reading all of this is really so interesting to me! I was born in 1998 >> and >> > I feel like I've missed out on so much! >> > >> > My first computer was an Intel Pentium 4 with 256MB RAM and 40GB HDD. >> > Hopefully I'll get to at least tinker with some of the old tech! >> > >> > Regards, >> > Atharva Lele >> > >> > >> > On Tue, Sep 21, 2021 at 11:43 AM Daniel Ortiz < >> > elamigodanielor...@gmail.com> >> > wrote: >> > >> > > If it is desired or decided to try to replicate the experience of paper >> > > tape coding then theoretically Google's teachable machine could be one >> > > component used to accomplish that: >> > > https://teachablemachine.withgoogle.com >> > > >> > > On Tue, Sep 21, 2021 at 11:02 AM Russell Senior < >> > russ...@personaltelco.net >> > > > >> > > wrote: >> > > >> > > > You can still get the clack-clack-ding-ding without the hardware: >> > > > >> > > > https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jd5oomwEBb0 >> > > > >> > > > but it's hard to replicate the smell of paper tape. >> > > > >> > > > On Tue, Sep 21, 2021 at 4:08 AM Keith Lofstrom <kei...@kl-ic.com> >> > wrote: >> > > > > >> > > > > "My first computer" was a DEC PDP8 at Tektronix, which I >> > > > > was allowed to use at age 16 in 1969. The programming was >> > > > > language was FOCAL. No disk drive - I/O was an ASR-33 >> > > > > teletype, and a "high speed" 60 character-per-second paper >> > > > > tape reader. >> > > > > >> > > > > I compare that to my new 80 gram, 1 Terabyte SATA3 solid >> > > > > state drive. A terabyte of paper tape would fill a cube >> > > > > 20 meters on a side, weigh more than 10,000 metric tonnes, >> > > > > and take 530 years to read. >> > > > > >> > > > > Not all was bad back then. The lawns we kids were told >> > > > > to get off of were larger. >> > > > > >> > > > > Keith >> > > > > >> > > > > -- >> > > > > Keith Lofstrom kei...@keithl.com >> > > > >> > > >> > >> > > -- > [image: www.seattleangelconference.com] > <http://www.seattleangelconference.com/> > > *JOHN SECHREST* > *Founder, *Seattle Angel Conference > TEL (541) 250-0844 EMAIL sechr...@seattleangel.com > Schedule A Meeting <https://sechrest.youcanbook.me/> > > http://seattleangelconference.com > @sechrest