Re: When I Was Your Age... (was Re: RE: Brin: rejuveniles)
Doug Pensinger wrote: Dan Minette wrote: OK, since we're playing the oldest stuff game here. What is the oldest computer everyone here has worked on? I think mine (which I've mentioned before) is the oldest, but I'd be curious to see who might beat me. :-) Do you remember the math machines - kind of mechanical computers - that they used to have. If I recall correctly, you would type in a number pull a lever, type in an operation and another number and pull the lever and it would calculate the answer. My Dad used to take me to work with him on weekends and sit me down on those things (I was ~ 11) and we played on them for hours. Obviously this was a few years before the hand heald calculator was introduced. How many here ever used a slide rule? Define use. Chewing on it for teething purposes count? :) If so, I was using one before I was 18 months old, maybe even before I was a year old. I *have* used the two that I inherited from my father, on occasions where it was just easier to whip it out and use it for an approximation rather than use a calculator and get a degree of precision that I really didn't need. (And yes, one of them has toothmarks on it.) Julia ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: When I Was Your Age... (was Re: RE: Brin: rejuveniles)
On Friday, Oct 10, 2003, at 19:24 America/New_York, Horn, John wrote: From: John Garcia [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] We had 2, 4, 5, 7, 9, 11, 13 VHF channels and 25, 31, 41, and 47 UHF. I was my father's remote control, and 'rabbit ears' supplement (he swore reception was better when I touched the antenna). Clearly, you lived in the same house I grew up in. grin Seriously, those sound like the channels in channels in the New York area. Or at least, northern New Jersey... - jmh ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l They are the channels in the Metro NYC area. I grew up in Manhattan (still live there). Now, does anyone else remember Officer Joe Bolton and Capt. Jack McCarthy? john who can remember way too much stuff sometimes. ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: When I Was Your Age... (was Re: RE: Brin: rejuveniles)
On Sat, 11 Oct 2003 20:18:24 -0500, Julia Thompson [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Doug Pensinger wrote: How many here ever used a slide rule? Define use. Chewing on it for teething purposes count? :) If so, I was using one before I was 18 months old, maybe even before I was a year old. I *have* used the two that I inherited from my father, on occasions where it was just easier to whip it out and use it for an approximation rather than use a calculator and get a degree of precision that I really didn't need. (And yes, one of them has toothmarks on it.) Well I wouldn't remember how to use one, but I do remember they were pretty handy before calculators came along. Once you got the gist. Teeth marks might make it harder to read in places though... -- Doug ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: When I Was Your Age... (was Re: RE: Brin: rejuveniles)
At 08:18 PM 10/11/03 -0500, Julia Thompson wrote: Doug Pensinger wrote: Dan Minette wrote: OK, since we're playing the oldest stuff game here. What is the oldest computer everyone here has worked on? I think mine (which I've mentioned before) is the oldest, but I'd be curious to see who might beat me. :-) Do you remember the math machines - kind of mechanical computers - that they used to have. If I recall correctly, you would type in a number pull a lever, type in an operation and another number and pull the lever and it would calculate the answer. My Dad used to take me to work with him on weekends and sit me down on those things (I was ~ 11) and we played on them for hours. Obviously this was a few years before the hand heald calculator was introduced. How many here ever used a slide rule? Define use. One presumes it means practicing physics or engineering in 1972 when the HP-35 went on sale for $395 (cheap!) . . . Chewing on it for teething purposes count? :) If so, I was using one before I was 18 months old, maybe even before I was a year old. Presumably not an aluminum-alloy Pickett plank . . . I *have* used the two that I inherited from my father, on occasions where it was just easier to whip it out and use it for an approximation rather than use a calculator and get a degree of precision that I really didn't need. (And yes, one of them has toothmarks on it.) -- Ronn! :) ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: When I Was Your Age... (was Re: RE: Brin: rejuveniles)
Doug Pensinger wrote: Do you remember the math machines - kind of mechanical computers - that they used to have. If I recall correctly, you would type in a number pull a lever, type in an operation and another number and pull the lever and it would calculate the answer. My Dad used to take me to work with him on weekends and sit me down on those things (I was ~ 11) and we played on them for hours. Obviously this was a few years before the hand heald calculator was introduced. I remember using one of those things in '70 or '71 to analyse some data for physics prac. Seemed like magic at the time! How many here ever used a slide rule? I actually used one a couple of weeks ago. We have an old demonstration model slide-rule about 2m long that has been stashed in a back storeroom at school for ages. Some of the younger staff were amazed at what could be worked out with the old analogue computer. :-) Regards, Ray. ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: When I Was Your Age... (was Re: RE: Brin: rejuveniles)
Ronn!Blankenship wrote: At 10:21 PM 10/7/03 -0500, Julia Thompson wrote: Heh. When we had close to 20 channels, we got *3* PBS stations! :) I used to love seeing the nightly sign-off for Channel 44 (Springfield, MA?) if I was up that late. It used nice music. You mean they didn't all use _The Star-Spangled Banner_, with the only difference being which military service (Army, Navy, Air Force, or Marines) was featured in the pictures? No. And no flag, just some cool animated stuff that was kinda like some of what the earliest screensavers I saw were like, a good 10+ years before I saw those screensavers. :) I think the music was something originally written for a harpsichord or something, done on a more modern (electronic) instrument, as well. It had the style of something Baroque or early Classical, IIRC. Julia ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: When I Was Your Age... (was Re: RE: Brin: rejuveniles)
Reggie Bautista wrote: Adam wrote: If we wanted to listen to a whole album, we had to STAND UP AND TURN IT OVER on the record player - we didn't have the MP3 or the CD. We used VINYL. Unless of course you had an 8-track player... We had one. In the car. And only 3 8-track tapes. You wouldn't believe how many times I heard Eine Kleine Nachtmusik Julia ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: When I Was Your Age... (was Re: RE: Brin: rejuveniles)
* Dan Minette [Tue, 07/10/2003 at 17:02 -0500] OK, since we're playing the oldest stuff game here. What is the oldest computer everyone here has worked on? I think mine (which I've mentioned before) is the oldest, but I'd be curious to see who might beat me. :-) Nothing exceptionnal in absolute value on my side, but I swear I was 'bleeding edge' : The first programmable thing my fingers grabbed (and that I owned) was a TI57 circa 1976, I remember passionate conversations with my math teacher about the compared virtues of such or such GCD or HCF algorithm. The first 'real' computer I used was a Logabax LX-500 near 1979, you've probably never heard of this computer, it was a Z80 based French computer, at the time we had 8 of them for the whole high school (+2000 students). Needless to say, at the time nobody could privateley own a computer here (at least I knew nobody in my circles). The first computer I owned was a Atari1040 in 1988 I think. PS: a link I found on the LX-500 http://www.old-computers.com/museum/computer.asp?st=1c=881 -- Jean-Marc ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
RE: When I Was Your Age... (was Re: RE: Brin: rejuveniles)
From: Dan Minette [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] OK, since we're playing the oldest stuff game here. What is the oldest computer everyone here has worked on? I think mine (which I've mentioned before) is the oldest, but I'd be curious to see who might beat me. :-) Let's see... In 1978, I was introduced to computers while at my older brother's graduation from Vanderbilt University. The night before graduation we went to the computer lab and played Adventure until 3 a.m. using up some computer time he had accumulated from a statistics class. I was hooked! But I'm not sure that actually counts. I learned to program on TRS-80 Model 3 computers in my high school (complete with tape cassette recorder for saving programs!). That would have been 1980 (81?) or so. The first computer I owned was a Commodore 64. (Christmas 1981, I believe.) It was about a half year later that I actually bought a disk drive for it. All of 180 K, I believe, and was about as big as the C64 itself (and much, MUCH heavier). I also bought a Timex Sinclair at a garage sale somewhere around that time but never could get it to work. The first computer I worked on professionally was a Honeywell DPS-something running the Ultimate (Pick) OS. That would be 1984. How's that? - jmh ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
RE: When I Was Your Age... (was Re: RE: Brin: rejuveniles)
From: John Garcia [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] We had 2, 4, 5, 7, 9, 11, 13 VHF channels and 25, 31, 41, and 47 UHF. I was my father's remote control, and 'rabbit ears' supplement (he swore reception was better when I touched the antenna). Clearly, you lived in the same house I grew up in. grin Seriously, those sound like the channels in channels in the New York area. Or at least, northern New Jersey... - jmh ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
RE: When I Was Your Age... (was Re: RE: Brin: rejuveniles)
From: Horn, John [EMAIL PROTECTED] Reply-To: Killer Bs Discussion [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Killer Bs Discussion [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: RE: When I Was Your Age... (was Re: RE: Brin: rejuveniles) Date: Fri, 10 Oct 2003 18:24:33 -0500 From: John Garcia [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] We had 2, 4, 5, 7, 9, 11, 13 VHF channels and 25, 31, 41, and 47 UHF. I was my father's remote control, and 'rabbit ears' supplement (he swore reception was better when I touched the antenna). Clearly, you lived in the same house I grew up in. grin Seriously, those sound like the channels in channels in the New York area. Or at least, northern New Jersey... New Yorkers in Queens also got Channels 21 and 55 from the Island. We still do, but now they don't require UHF antenna contortions. ;) Jon Le Blog: http://zarq.livejournal.com _ Get a FREE computer virus scan online from McAfee. http://clinic.mcafee.com/clinic/ibuy/campaign.asp?cid=3963 ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: When I Was Your Age... (was Re: RE: Brîn : rejuveniles)
At 04:32 PM 10/9/03 +1000, Russell Chapman wrote: Ronn!Blankenship wrote: with no indication of their correct order. That's what those numbers punched in columns 72-80 were for . . . Yep - I never made that mistake again... :-) Of course, that was supposed to read columns *73* through 80 . . . That Would Have Been Really Annoying If I'd Done It While Punching Cards On An IBM Model 026 Card Punch, Which Didn't Print The Character It Punched At The Top Of The Card Like The Model 029 Did Maru -- Ronn! :) ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: When I Was Your Age... (was Re: RE: Brin: rejuveniles)
At 10:37 PM 10/8/03 -0400, John Garcia wrote: Does anyone else remember making pictures on greenbar paper of ships, Well, once for some obscure reason¹ we had a drawing in the math department where the advertised prize was a 100-foot yacht. The 100-foot yacht turned out to be a stack of said continuous-form printer paper which, when extended, was 100 feet² long, with the word YACHT printed over and over and over . . . ¹Isn't They are _math_ majors explanation enough? ²Sorry, Alberto, this was done on an IBM 1403 printer³, which used paper that was sized in inches, not centimeters. ³Anyone else here ever use one of those? Remember what would happen when the paper control tape finally wore out and broke in the middle of a print job? people, etc? Something like this, perhaps, which some geek with no prospects of access to the real thing¹ would spend hours creating and then hang on the wall of the computer room (Whoever heard of a _female_ CS major in those days) or his dorm room²? ¹Not me. ²I never lived in a dorm, either. (Modified from the original to be suitable for those who access the list from work . . . ) ::,(***(; :+;:::,,;(;;;!**( (:,,!*=*+*!!!(=: :(::!,,,+$+;;!!:: (=: : , 2% ::,;,*+$+=*!;;!:,: +; :,,+5+*$ ;8; *+2$+*=+=*;,(+=:::=*;+$+( : % +%=!:!;;**(=$$+(*(=(;;!(*%%=;, :=%=( $=+%;;;(!!*=%%%22$$%%%$5*!, (2$A% +=22(!!::,;**;!((;;+A2*::: ;(+%=$5( %=0;,,,((!:!$Q%!,:!,,0=+(%=; ::$=,!((,(,$50%(!*;, ;0,*% *02((,::$8+;%0=*!: ;Q!!8 %*+0%;,:: ,85*2+(+5=*;;*22;::A, :25A2+;: !( !85$=!(=55$:;$0+$! 8( ;2%!,!: :;+( ;02%,:::,::! ,2%,:!: 2% ,==+(,!=! ,%02%08;,: : :, :$2,,* %$ : (:;;:=$!==$28$, !: ,(2$+,(: ;0; ,(*+:: ,:*%2A85*: !:(((%88+*:8; !!%!; (2;(%2#2:!+=((: : :2, ;%:: ;;!*+5% :;;!,!,=$: , :$! 28% ,!:;=%;=05!: : :: ,;:;((;, %, +m: ,: :, ,;+8m:::!,::,+,!% !2 ;,;*2m(: ::!! %+! ,$,=(%$((: : ;, : :0!: *+;=(*,:;! :=;: $*: !;%, :,!!,:% 8, :;!(;,;,!: : ;( 0=!:,(,(!;;:: :$, =A%,(,*!,,: :::: ;= DELETED**DELETED**DELETED**DELETED**DELETED**DELETED**DELETED**DELETED**DELETED**DELETED**DELETED**DELETED**DELETED DELETED**DELETED**DELETED**DELETED**DELETED**DELETED**DELETED**DELETED**DELETED**DELETED**DELETED**DELETED**DELETED DELETED**DELETED**DELETED**DELETED**DELETED**DELETED**DELETED**DELETED**DELETED**DELETED**DELETED**DELETED**DELETED DELETED**DELETED**DELETED**DELETED**DELETED**DELETED**DELETED**DELETED**DELETED**DELETED**DELETED**DELETED**DELETED DELETED**DELETED**DELETED**DELETED**DELETED**DELETED**DELETED**DELETED**DELETED**DELETED**DELETED**DELETED**DELETED ;=*=$: :,: !* ;2+ ,*(%: :, +: *$!= ::;;%, :, ,= %!,= :::;**: : %: %, :+;%; :: ,% =! =;::,!$; :: =; *(;=, :,%* :,: $: !* *( ::==::! !% :% :!=: *%: :,: ::+, % : =; :!*=: :!:!% *; (( ,::+=::!!:$; % %::!::2! ,* %; (* *!;,: =+ ;!;$;: !(;, ,=!, :+( :(; !+5:
Re: When I Was Your Age... (was Re: RE: Brin: rejuveniles)
William T Goodall wrote: My first personal computer was a Sinclair Spectrum in 1982 Me too. I wonder if there are any Sinclair emulators this millenium :-) Alberto Monteiro ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: When I Was Your Age... (was Re: RE: Brin: rejuveniles)
Alberto Monteiro and William T Goodall converse: My first personal computer was a Sinclair Spectrum in 1982 Me too. I wonder if there are any Sinclair emulators this millenium :-) Alberto Monteiro Mine was an Apple II+ with two (countem') floppy drives, a 16k card to bring it up to a whopping 64k, and UCSD Pascal. All hooked up to a 12 BB TV. What a GREAT system. George A ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: When I Was Your Age... (was Re: RE: Brin: rejuveniles)
Dan Minette wrote: OK, since we're playing the oldest stuff game here. What is the oldest computer everyone here has worked on? I think mine (which I've mentioned before) is the oldest, but I'd be curious to see who might beat me. :-) Hmm...that would probably be the Commodore 64. Also, the Apple II in elementary school a couple of years later. -- Matt ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: When I Was Your Age... (was Re: RE: Brin: rejuveniles)
Ronn!Blankenship wrote: Anyone Here Old Enough To Remember When There Was Actually A Channel 1? Maru Australia NEVER had a Channel 1. It was reserved by the US Govt at about the same time as our rollout, so we got 5A instead. (as in the channels were 0 2 3 4 5 5A 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13) At the time, anyone within VHF range of a capital city got 4 channels, anyone outside that got 1 (Govt) channel. Took decades to get to 2 channels outside capitals, now everywhere has 5 channels (2 Govt) plus any PBS style stations. Even on cable / satellite I think we only have about 40-50 channels. I'm always fascinated by American TV - I sit in a hotel room at 7pm, start flicking through channels, and by the time I decide on one, it's 7:30 and I have to start the process all over again Cheers Russell C. BTW Our first TV came with a remote control which did channels, volume and on/off, but was attached by a cable running across the floor. The nifty feature about it was it had a speaker built into it so you could watch TV without annoying the rest of the family, who were still doing the sorts of things families did before TV invaded our lives. ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: When I Was Your Age... (was Re: RE: Brin: rejuveniles)
At 09:07 AM 10/8/03 +1000, Russell Chapman wrote: Dan Minette wrote: OK, since we're playing the oldest stuff game here. What is the oldest computer everyone here has worked on? I think mine (which I've mentioned before) is the oldest, but I'd be curious to see who might beat me. :-) In 1969 I carted huge spools of mag tape to load onto an IBM 360-75 for a radio astronomer at Caltech. I was hyp-mo-tized by a cal comp plotter that actually pen-drew. graphs! db ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: When I Was Your Age... (was Re: RE: Brin: rejuveniles)
From: d.brin [EMAIL PROTECTED] OK, since we're playing the oldest stuff game here. What is the oldest computer everyone here has worked on? I think mine (which I've mentioned before) is the oldest, but I'd be curious to see who might beat me. :-) I had an Apple II with serial number in 5 digits. Used integer basic and a newfangled (earliest disk drive) My brother lost it. A relative of mine has an apple II with a serial number 7. ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: When I Was Your Age... (was Re: RE: Brin: rejuveniles)
At 11:54 PM 10/7/03 -0700, d.brin wrote: At 09:07 AM 10/8/03 +1000, Russell Chapman wrote: Dan Minette wrote: OK, since we're playing the oldest stuff game here. What is the oldest computer everyone here has worked on? I think mine (which I've mentioned before) is the oldest, but I'd be curious to see who might beat me. :-) In 1969 I carted huge spools of mag tape to load onto an IBM 360-75 for a radio astronomer at Caltech. Out of curiosity, who was that? -- Ronn! :) Ronn Blankenship Instructor of Astronomy/Planetary Science University of Montevallo Montevallo, AL Disclaimer: Unless specifically stated otherwise, any opinions contained herein are the personal opinions of the author and do not represent the official position of the University of Montevallo. ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
RE: When I Was Your Age... (was Re: RE: Brin: rejuveniles)
From: Ronn!Blankenship [EMAIL PROTECTED] Reply-To: Killer Bs Discussion [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Killer Bs Discussion [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: RE: When I Was Your Age... (was Re: RE: Brin: rejuveniles) Date: Tue, 07 Oct 2003 23:52:18 -0500 At 10:15 PM 10/7/03 -0400, Kevin Tarr wrote: At 03:18 PM 10/7/2003 -0500, you wrote: From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] If we wanted to listen to a whole album, we had to STAND UP AND TURN IT OVER on the record player - we didn't have the MP3 or the CD. We used VINYL. Heck! We had to stand up to change the channel on the *TV*! And only had 10 channels to boot. 11 if you counted that one from Philly that only came in once in a long while... grin - jmh Bah, we had five channels and two of them were PBS. We could get four and two were PBS (run by the same statewide system, so the content was identical). But after all, how many numbers are there between 2 and 13? Anyone Here Old Enough To Remember When There Was Actually A Channel 1? Maru Well, there is one now (at least here): New York One News. Been around at least a decade. http://www.ny1.com There is also a service for schools: http://www.museum.tv/archives/etv/C/htmlC/channelone/channelone.htm http://www.teachworld.com/connection/faq.htm :-D Jon VFP Where Ya Been? Le Blog: http://zarq.livejournal.com _ Frustrated with dial-up? Get high-speed for as low as $29.95/month (depending on the local service providers in your area). https://broadband.msn.com ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: When I Was Your Age... (was Re: RE: Brin: rejuveniles)
d.brin wrote: In 1969 I carted huge spools of mag tape to load onto an IBM 360-75 for a radio astronomer at Caltech. I was hyp-mo-tized by a cal comp plotter that actually pen-drew. graphs! I've always wanted to ask... You worked at Hughes, didn't you? Anything related to their satellite program? Until 45 days ago, my job was piloting 5 of them Alberto Monteiro ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: When I Was Your Age... (was Re: RE: Brin: rejuveniles)
- Original Message - From: d.brin [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Killer Bs Discussion [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Tuesday, October 07, 2003 5:43 PM Subject: Re: When I Was Your Age... (was Re: RE: Brin: rejuveniles) OK, since we're playing the oldest stuff game here. What is the oldest computer everyone here has worked on? I think mine (which I've mentioned before) is the oldest, but I'd be curious to see who might beat me. :-) I had an Apple II with serial number in 5 digits. Used integer basic and a newfangled (earliest disk drive) My brother lost it. Well, that's certainly earlier than the first personal computer that I owned; which was a IBM PC, which I bought in '83. The first one I worked on was an old submarine computer from the '50s. As far as I know, its the only computer I worked on that was certified to be ruggadized against depth charges. (Later processors were ruggadized far more than this for downhole use while drilling, but that's another story.) It was hooked up to digitizing machines that were used to translate bubble chamber pictures into numbers that could be turned into tracks, complete with sign and momentum assignments. When I was making the final measurements for my dissertation, it died. When I finally could get someone to fix it (for some reason grad students' needs fell at the bottom of the totem pole :-) ), they found out that the mean time between failure was less than the mean time to fix. The transistors were burning out at too rapid a rate for them to repair the machine. Luckily, I was able to take my film down to Fermilab, digitize the data, and obtain the several nice boxes of punch cards I needed to finish my dissertation. Dan M. ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: When I Was Your Age... (was Re: RE: Brin: rejuveniles)
d.brin wrote: In 1969 I carted huge spools of mag tape to load onto an IBM 360-75 for a radio astronomer at Caltech. I was hyp-mo-tized by a cal comp plotter that actually pen-drew. graphs! I've always wanted to ask... You worked at Hughes, didn't you? Anything related to their satellite program? Until 45 days ago, my job was piloting 5 of them No.. The research Labs. Silicon (MOS/CCD) devices. Got to shepherd wafers from raw silicon to completed device. wow. ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: When I Was Your Age... (was Re: RE: Brin: rejuveniles)
On Wednesday, October 8, 2003, at 12:07 am, Russell Chapman wrote: Dan Minette wrote: OK, since we're playing the oldest stuff game here. What is the oldest computer everyone here has worked on? I think mine (which I've mentioned before) is the oldest, but I'd be curious to see who might beat me. :-) Depends on a few definitions. I worked on an IBM system in the early 70s, but it was just data entry. I had no idea how to go beyond the application interface. I wrote BASIC programs on a minicomputer at high school in the mid 70's. Also wrote FORTRAN programs on coding sheets which got sent off to be run on the university mainframe, and we'd get the results back in a week or two... I had (still have) a programmable HP calculator (still play lunar lander, even though my PDA does it in 16m colours and the the calculator does it as glowing red numbers) in 1976. HP25 ? I had one of those. The keyboard broke after about 15 years and I replaced it with a HP15C. My first personal computer was Commodore Vic20 with optional extra cassette drive, before I upgraded to the monstrously powerful TRS-80 which had VisiCalc - oh the power! My first personal computer was a Sinclair Spectrum in 1982 -- William T Goodall Mail : [EMAIL PROTECTED] Web : http://www.wtgab.demon.co.uk Blog : http://radio.weblogs.com/0111221/ Computers in the future may weigh no more than 1.5 tons. - Popular Mechanics, forecasting the relentless march of science, 1949 ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: When I Was Your Age... (was Re: RE: Brin: rejuveniles)
At 02:56 PM 10/8/03 -0500, Dan Minette wrote: - Original Message - From: Ronn!Blankenship [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Killer Bs Discussion [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Wednesday, October 08, 2003 1:31 PM Subject: Re: When I Was Your Age... (was Re: RE: Brin: rejuveniles) At 10:01 AM 10/8/03 -0500, Dan Minette wrote: - Original Message - From: d.brin [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Killer Bs Discussion [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Tuesday, October 07, 2003 5:43 PM Subject: Re: When I Was Your Age... (was Re: RE: Brin: rejuveniles) OK, since we're playing the oldest stuff game here. What is the oldest computer everyone here has worked on? I think mine (which I've mentioned before) is the oldest, but I'd be curious to see who might beat me. :-) I had an Apple II with serial number in 5 digits. Used integer basic and a newfangled (earliest disk drive) My brother lost it. Well, that's certainly earlier than the first personal computer that I owned; which was a IBM PC, which I bought in '83. The first one I worked on was an old submarine computer from the '50s. As far as I know, its the only computer I worked on that was certified to be ruggadized against depth charges. Who built it? I recall when Sperry-Univac (as it was known in those days) built models suitable for use on military aircraft . . . I'm not sure. But I do know that Sperry-Univac was a merger that was after this time. My dad worked for Sperry Gyroscope and then Sperry-Univac for over 30 years, starting in '48. Univac stuff happened in the '70s. Yep. Then in the early-mid 80s (83 IIRC), they dropped Univac and started referring to the division which made computers as Computer Services, a division of Sperry Corporation . . . His 20th anniversary gift was given by Sperry Gyroscope. I don't recall any Gyroscope Services in the 80's, though . . . ;-) -- Ronn! :) ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: When I Was Your Age... (was Re: RE: Brin: rejuveniles)
Adam wrote: If we wanted to listen to a whole album, we had to STAND UP AND TURN IT OVER on the record player - we didn't have the MP3 or the CD. We used VINYL. Unless of course you had an 8-track player... Reggie Bautista _ High-speed Internet access as low as $29.95/month (depending on the local service providers in your area). Click here. https://broadband.msn.com ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: When I Was Your Age... (was Re: RE: Brin: rejuveniles)
On Tuesday, Oct 7, 2003, at 18:02 America/New_York, Dan Minette wrote: snippage OK, since we're playing the oldest stuff game here. What is the oldest computer everyone here has worked on? I think mine (which I've mentioned before) is the oldest, but I'd be curious to see who might beat me. :-) Dan M. ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l A Litton Industries GPC (general purpose computer) circa 1977. john ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: When I Was Your Age... (was Re: RE: Brin: rejuveniles)
On Wednesday, Oct 8, 2003, at 00:52 America/New_York, Ronn!Blankenship wrote: We could get four and two were PBS (run by the same statewide system, so the content was identical). But after all, how many numbers are there between 2 and 13? Anyone Here Old Enough To Remember When There Was Actually A Channel 1? Maru -- Ronn! :) ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l We had 2, 4, 5, 7, 9, 11, 13 VHF channels and 25, 31, 41, and 47 UHF. I was my father's remote control, and 'rabbit ears' supplement (he swore reception was better when I touched the antenna). Until cable came along, I never watched any broadcast channel that didn't have ghosts, and lets not mention BW tv. john ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: When I Was Your Age... (was Re: RE: Brin: rejuveniles)
On Wednesday, Oct 8, 2003, at 22:13 America/New_York, John Garcia wrote: On Tuesday, Oct 7, 2003, at 18:02 America/New_York, Dan Minette wrote: snippage OK, since we're playing the oldest stuff game here. What is the oldest computer everyone here has worked on? I think mine (which I've mentioned before) is the oldest, but I'd be curious to see who might beat me. :-) Dan M. ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l A Litton Industries GPC (general purpose computer) circa 1977. john Just to flesh out the answer above: That computer was installed in an E-2C Hawkeye AEW carrier aircraft. It had been 'hardened' to survive carrier traps and EMP bursts. The processor was called the 'Arithmetic and Control Unit'. It had 80K of RAM that was housed in modules that looked like Britannica volumes (we set the memory addresses with binary switches on the front of the modules.) It was used to process the signals received from both active and passive detection devices the Hawkeye carried. All maintenance readouts were in binary. Now the first PC I ever worked on was an IBM PC. The first 'luggable' PC I worked on was a Zenith Z-171 (it looked like a lunch box.) I've also worked on an IBM System 360 running MVS, and in high school we had the teletype machine connected to NYU's mainframe that we had time sharing on. Does anyone else remember making pictures on greenbar paper of ships, people, etc? john ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: When I Was Your Age... (was Re: RE: Brîn : rejuveniles)
At 06:23 PM 10/8/03 -0500, Reggie Bautista wrote: Adam wrote: If we wanted to listen to a whole album, we had to STAND UP AND TURN IT OVER on the record player - we didn't have the MP3 or the CD. We used VINYL. Unless of course you had an 8-track player... Then in the middle of the third and seventh of the ten songs on the album: KA-CHUNK!! -- Ronn! :) ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: When I Was Your Age... (was Re: RE: Brîn : rejuveniles)
At 01:29 PM 10/9/03 +1000, Russell Chapman wrote: John Garcia wrote: Does anyone else remember making pictures on greenbar paper of ships, people, etc? We had that as an assignment in school (1976) - we had to write a program in BASIC to draw the picture, and encode it on punch cards (we coloured ours in with pencil rather than punching out chads (gee Mr Cooper, when we're not hanging you, we are punching you out - tough life!)). We sent the cards away to a Uni 100km away, and got the printouts back a week later. I'll never forget the teacher handing out the results, 3 pages of greenbar each, including lpr header page, except this one kid who had a loop in his program and got a stack of paper about 18in high dumped on his desk... The other students showed no mercy in their comments. I also remember a later assignment where I had finished all the cards which made a 3 inch stack, and then knocked the cards off my desk to scatter in a jumbled mess all over the floor, with no indication of their correct order. That's what those numbers punched in columns 72-80 were for . . . -- Ronn! :) ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
RE: When I Was Your Age... (was Re: RE: Brin: rejuveniles)
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] If we wanted to listen to a whole album, we had to STAND UP AND TURN IT OVER on the record player - we didn't have the MP3 or the CD. We used VINYL. Heck! We had to stand up to change the channel on the *TV*! And only had 10 channels to boot. 11 if you counted that one from Philly that only came in once in a long while... grin - jmh ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: When I Was Your Age... (was Re: RE: Brin: rejuveniles)
Horn, John wrote: From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] If we wanted to listen to a whole album, we had to STAND UP AND TURN IT OVER on the record player - we didn't have the MP3 or the CD. We used VINYL. Heck! We had to stand up to change the channel on the *TV*! And only had 10 channels to boot. 11 if you counted that one from Philly that only came in once in a long while... Yeah. OK, maybe I can't talk -- we were getting more like 20 channels, what with being at the top of a hill *and* having a really, really good roof antenna. We could get *Rhode Island* most of the time from southern New Hampshire, and there was a channel 18 somewhere that we could get half-decent reception from for about an hour every day -- and lucky for us, it was the hour when they were broadcasting Rocky and Bullwinkle. :) Julia ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: When I Was Your Age... (was Re: RE: Br!n: rejuveniles)
In a message dated 10/7/2003 1:19:29 PM US Mountain Standard Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: Heck! We had to stand up to change the channel on the *TV*! And only had 10 channels to boot. 11 if you counted that one from Philly that only came in once in a long while... 10? What luxury. 4! ABC NBC CBS and KPHO Later KAET brought in educational. Then soon after that the floodgates opened up and there were stations you could not understand but had announcers who could not talk without moving their hands. Gonga all the way. William Taylor ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
RE: When I Was Your Age... (was Re: RE: Brin: rejuveniles)
-Original Message- From: Horn, John [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Tuesday, October 07, 2003 1:18 PM To: Killer Bs Discussion Subject: RE: When I Was Your Age... (was Re: RE: Brin: rejuveniles) From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] If we wanted to listen to a whole album, we had to STAND UP AND TURN IT OVER on the record player - we didn't have the MP3 or the CD. We used VINYL. Heck! We had to stand up to change the channel on the *TV*! And only had 10 channels to boot. 11 if you counted that one from Philly that only came in once in a long while... Has it been that long since you had to snip a bit out of a 5.25 floppy to use both sides... That is for those luck enough to have a floppy disk... everyone else had to use a cassette recorder to load a program... And what about sound? A program rocked if it beeped... And if it actually played a MIDI tune... Well that was cool! Nerd From Hell grin - jmh ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: When I Was Your Age... (was Re: RE: Brin: rejuveniles)
- Original Message - From: Horn, John [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Killer Bs Discussion [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Tuesday, October 07, 2003 3:18 PM Subject: RE: When I Was Your Age... (was Re: RE: Brin: rejuveniles) From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] If we wanted to listen to a whole album, we had to STAND UP AND TURN IT OVER on the record player - we didn't have the MP3 or the CD. We used VINYL. Heck! We had to stand up to change the channel on the *TV*! And only had 10 channels to boot. 11 if you counted that one from Philly that only came in once in a long while... grin I still remember how excited I was when I heard we were going to get a third TV channel. :-) Dan M. ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
RE: When I Was Your Age... (was Re: RE: Brin: rejuveniles)
Chad asked: Has it been that long since you had to snip a bit out of a 5.25 floppy to use both sides... That is for those luck enough to have a floppy disk... everyone else had to use a cassette recorder to load a program... And what about sound? A program rocked if it beeped... And if it actually played a MIDI tune... Well that was cool! I still have a keyboard and a drum machine from the middle '80s -- Korg DW-8000 and DDD-101, I believe -- that both use casette tape for external storage of patches. The drum machine also has optional available memory cards, but I never got one. Additional drum sounds can be added through ROM cards that plug into the front of the machine. Reggie Bautista Ah, The Eighties Maru _ Instant message in style with MSN Messenger 6.0. Download it now FREE! http://msnmessenger-download.com ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: When I Was Your Age... (was Re: RE: Brin: rejuveniles)
- Original Message - From: Chad Cooper [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: 'Killer Bs Discussion' [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Tuesday, October 07, 2003 3:50 PM Subject: RE: When I Was Your Age... (was Re: RE: Brin: rejuveniles) -Original Message- From: Horn, John [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Tuesday, October 07, 2003 1:18 PM To: Killer Bs Discussion Subject: RE: When I Was Your Age... (was Re: RE: Brin: rejuveniles) From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] If we wanted to listen to a whole album, we had to STAND UP AND TURN IT OVER on the record player - we didn't have the MP3 or the CD. We used VINYL. Heck! We had to stand up to change the channel on the *TV*! And only had 10 channels to boot. 11 if you counted that one from Philly that only came in once in a long while... Has it been that long since you had to snip a bit out of a 5.25 floppy to use both sides... That is for those luck enough to have a floppy disk... everyone else had to use a cassette recorder to load a program... And what about sound? A program rocked if it beeped... And if it actually played a MIDI tune... Well that was cool! Nerd From Hell OK, since we're playing the oldest stuff game here. What is the oldest computer everyone here has worked on? I think mine (which I've mentioned before) is the oldest, but I'd be curious to see who might beat me. :-) Dan M. ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
RE: When I Was Your Age... (was Re: RE: Brin: rejuveniles)
Nerd From Hell OK, since we're playing the oldest stuff game here. What is the oldest computer everyone here has worked on? I think mine (which I've mentioned before) is the oldest, but I'd be curious to see who might beat me. :-) I'll take that challenge (sort of, although I know I will lose.) We also have to discriminate between personal computer and big iron. I once saw a personal computer that was built by hand in the 50's by a nasa nerd/physicist. It really was more of a calculator. You operated the computer/calculator by dialing a rotor dial like you find on rotary phones. It was not operational when I did see it. Dan M. ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: When I Was Your Age... (was Re: RE: Brin: rejuveniles)
Dan wrote: OK, since we're playing the oldest stuff game here. What is the oldest computer everyone here has worked on? I think mine (which I've mentioned before) is the oldest, but I'd be curious to see who might beat me. :-) Oldest worked on or oldest owned? The oldest one I (or my family) owned would have been an Atari 800. Or would the middle '70s build your own computer kit from Radio Shack count? As for the oldest worked on, in sixth grade I was in the TAG (talented and gifted) program at my school, and we designed the logic (although not the actual code) for a program that would solve those Lucy can't sit next to Bob, Bob can't sit next to Linda or Steve, Steve can sit next to Linda but not Lucy, what is the seating arrangement for dinner kind of puzzles, and then did the data entry for each person using punch cards. Our teacher actually wrote the program (also on punch cards) and ran it, along with our data, on an old computer at the college where she was working on her Ph.D. This would have been in 1980 or so. I believe that same year or the next we got to play with a TRS-80 Model I with cassette tape drive, but I could be wrong. I'm still pretty sure you probably have me beat, Dan :-) Reggie Bautista _ High-speed Internet access as low as $29.95/month (depending on the local service providers in your area). Click here. https://broadband.msn.com ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: When I Was Your Age... (was Re: RE: Brin: rejuveniles)
OK, since we're playing the oldest stuff game here. What is the oldest computer everyone here has worked on? I think mine (which I've mentioned before) is the oldest, but I'd be curious to see who might beat me. :-) I had an Apple II with serial number in 5 digits. Used integer basic and a newfangled (earliest disk drive) My brother lost it. ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: When I Was Your Age... (was Re: RE: Brin: rejuveniles)
In a message dated 10/7/2003 2:55:11 PM US Mountain Standard Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: OK, since we're playing the oldest stuff game here. What is the oldest computer everyone here has worked on? I think mine (which I've mentioned before) is the oldest, but I'd be curious to see who might beat me. :-) Dan M. 1968 The HP mainframe at highschool. Now, if a home computer.skip on two decades. William Taylor - Comedy team computer history: Hey Babbage! ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: When I Was Your Age... (was Re: RE: Brin: rejuveniles)
From: Dan Minette [EMAIL PROTECTED] Reply-To: Killer Bs Discussion [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Killer Bs Discussion [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: When I Was Your Age... (was Re: RE: Brin: rejuveniles) Date: Tue, 7 Oct 2003 17:02:47 -0500 - Original Message - From: Chad Cooper [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: 'Killer Bs Discussion' [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Tuesday, October 07, 2003 3:50 PM Subject: RE: When I Was Your Age... (was Re: RE: Brin: rejuveniles) -Original Message- From: Horn, John [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Tuesday, October 07, 2003 1:18 PM To: Killer Bs Discussion Subject: RE: When I Was Your Age... (was Re: RE: Brin: rejuveniles) From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] If we wanted to listen to a whole album, we had to STAND UP AND TURN IT OVER on the record player - we didn't have the MP3 or the CD. We used VINYL. Heck! We had to stand up to change the channel on the *TV*! And only had 10 channels to boot. 11 if you counted that one from Philly that only came in once in a long while... Has it been that long since you had to snip a bit out of a 5.25 floppy to use both sides... That is for those luck enough to have a floppy disk... everyone else had to use a cassette recorder to load a program... And what about sound? A program rocked if it beeped... And if it actually played a MIDI tune... Well that was cool! Nerd From Hell OK, since we're playing the oldest stuff game here. What is the oldest computer everyone here has worked on? I think mine (which I've mentioned before) is the oldest, but I'd be curious to see who might beat me. :-) Hrm. First computers. My family owned a Radio Shack TRS-80 Model 1 and then a Model 3. Also, an Apple ][, a Vic 20 and a C64. I played on an ACS8000 at one point, and we worked on CBM Pet Computers in school in the 80's. I worked with a VAX system in college that was older than dirt. I couldn't guess at its age. While we're on the topic, I also remember the family next door owning a TV with one of the first remote controls. It was two buttons: 'power on/off' and 'channel' and made a horrendous clicking noise each time you used the button. I think you had to scroll through every channel to find the one you wanted. Of course, with only 7 channels, who cared? :) Jon Le Blog: http://zarq.livejournal.com _ Instant message in style with MSN Messenger 6.0. Download it now FREE! http://msnmessenger-download.com ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: When I Was Your Age... (was Re: RE: Brin: rejuveniles)
Dan Minette wrote: OK, since we're playing the oldest stuff game here. What is the oldest computer everyone here has worked on? I think mine (which I've mentioned before) is the oldest, but I'd be curious to see who might beat me. :-) Depends on a few definitions. I worked on an IBM system in the early 70s, but it was just data entry. I had no idea how to go beyond the application interface. I had (still have) a programmable HP calculator (still play lunar lander, even though my PDA does it in 16m colours and the the calculator does it as glowing red numbers) in 1976. My first personal computer was Commodore Vic20 with optional extra cassette drive, before I upgraded to the monstrously powerful TRS-80 which had VisiCalc - oh the power! Now my car, my GPS, my watch, my camera, my stereo etc etc all have more computing power than any of those... But they were great at the time. Cheers Russell C. ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
RE: When I Was Your Age... (was Re: RE: Brin: rejuveniles)
At 03:18 PM 10/7/2003 -0500, you wrote: From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] If we wanted to listen to a whole album, we had to STAND UP AND TURN IT OVER on the record player - we didn't have the MP3 or the CD. We used VINYL. Heck! We had to stand up to change the channel on the *TV*! And only had 10 channels to boot. 11 if you counted that one from Philly that only came in once in a long while... grin - jmh Bah, we had five channels and two of them were PBS. But we had one of the earliest cable systems in the nation so it was always clear. Kevin T. - VRWC a benefit from living in the middle of nowhere I pulled the When I was your age we had to get up to change the TV channel when a bunch of young brats were whining because they couldn't find the remote. ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: When I Was Your Age..
At 05:02 PM 10/7/2003 -0500, you wrote: - Original Message - From: Chad Cooper [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: 'Killer Bs Discussion' [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Tuesday, October 07, 2003 3:50 PM Subject: RE: When I Was Your Age... (was Re: RE: Brin: rejuveniles) -Original Message- From: Horn, John [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Tuesday, October 07, 2003 1:18 PM To: Killer Bs Discussion Subject: RE: When I Was Your Age... (was Re: RE: Brin: rejuveniles) From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] If we wanted to listen to a whole album, we had to STAND UP AND TURN IT OVER on the record player - we didn't have the MP3 or the CD. We used VINYL. Heck! We had to stand up to change the channel on the *TV*! And only had 10 channels to boot. 11 if you counted that one from Philly that only came in once in a long while... Has it been that long since you had to snip a bit out of a 5.25 floppy to use both sides... That is for those luck enough to have a floppy disk... everyone else had to use a cassette recorder to load a program... And what about sound? A program rocked if it beeped... And if it actually played a MIDI tune... Well that was cool! Nerd From Hell OK, since we're playing the oldest stuff game here. What is the oldest computer everyone here has worked on? I think mine (which I've mentioned before) is the oldest, but I'd be curious to see who might beat me. :-) Dan M. Obviously not owned, but used? We had TRS-80s in high school (seventh grade). Advantage of having the Tandy dealer also being the school teacher. I have no idea what they were, but my brother did his senior college project in 1975 on punch cards, he made a program to track the motions of the planets for so many years. When I went to the same college ten years later (and a college summer school three years before that) I used the same computers. They made my head hurt. Kevin T. - VRWC No Eniacs in my past ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: When I Was Your Age...
While we're on the topic, I also remember the family next door owning a TV with one of the first remote controls. It was two buttons: 'power on/off' and 'channel' and made a horrendous clicking noise each time you used the button. I think you had to scroll through every channel to find the one you wanted. Of course, with only 7 channels, who cared? :) Jon I was thinking about the same thing! My next door neighbor (who became my cousin when his uncle became my step dad) had one of those. Again, we only had five channels so it was no big deal, but my cousin's step-father loved sitting in the kitchen at supper changing the channel. The biggest problem was to turn it off the sound had to go up uP Up UP and then it would shut off. My cousin's step father had a massively bad temper, he didn't drink it was just the way he was. If you woke him at night trying to turn the TV offChild abuse? Wow! It was painful to watch, but even as teens we didn't know any better. Kevin T. - VRWC Some memories should be forgotten ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: When I Was Your Age... (was Re: RE: Brin: rejuveniles)
Kevin Tarr wrote: At 03:18 PM 10/7/2003 -0500, you wrote: From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] If we wanted to listen to a whole album, we had to STAND UP AND TURN IT OVER on the record player - we didn't have the MP3 or the CD. We used VINYL. Heck! We had to stand up to change the channel on the *TV*! And only had 10 channels to boot. 11 if you counted that one from Philly that only came in once in a long while... grin - jmh Bah, we had five channels and two of them were PBS. But we had one of the earliest cable systems in the nation so it was always clear. Heh. When we had close to 20 channels, we got *3* PBS stations! :) I used to love seeing the nightly sign-off for Channel 44 (Springfield, MA?) if I was up that late. It used nice music. Julia ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: When I Was Your Age... (was Re: RE: Brin: rejuveniles)
From: Dan Minette [EMAIL PROTECTED] OK, since we're playing the oldest stuff game here. What is the oldest computer everyone here has worked on? I think mine (which I've mentioned before) is the oldest, but I'd be curious to see who might beat me. :-) Oldest I've owned is a Commodore-64. My first IBM PC clone was a CompuAd 12 MHz 286, with a full 1MB of RAM, 20MB hard disk, and dual 5.25 floppies. Cost me $2000. It was a fairly hot system, because 10MHz 286's with 640K were still most common. And then I later added a 287 math co-processor to increase performance for my raytracing graphics programming class. The 16 MHz 386 had just debuted around that time, but was untouchable at over $5000! Oldest stuff I've actually used: - a DECWriter terminal for a VAX. (This thing had no monitor, it was a printer with a keyboard attached, where your keystrokes and display output went directly to the printer. - countless other VAXen - Apple II - Tandy Co-Co - Commodore Pet. - Trash-80 Model III - CDC Cyber mainframe. - VIC-20 - Atari 400 and 800 _ Instant message during games with MSN Messenger 6.0. Download it now FREE! http://msnmessenger-download.com ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
RE: When I Was Your Age... (was Re: RE: Brin: rejuveniles)
At 01:50 PM 10/7/03 -0700, Chad Cooper wrote: And what about sound? A program rocked if it beeped... And now every bloody thing in the world beeps, buzzes, chirps, queeps, or plays annoying tinny music . . . unless it is blaring [EMAIL PROTECTED] spam at you. When I was your age . . . it was still possible to find such a thing as peace and quiet. Frex, in your car with the radio off. Today . . . Yes Indeed This Is A Heartfelt Rant Maru -- Ronn! :) ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: When I Was Your Age... (was Re: RE: Brin: rejuveniles)
At 05:02 PM 10/7/03 -0500, Dan Minette wrote: - Original Message - From: Chad Cooper [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: 'Killer Bs Discussion' [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Tuesday, October 07, 2003 3:50 PM Subject: RE: When I Was Your Age... (was Re: RE: Brin: rejuveniles) -Original Message- From: Horn, John [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Tuesday, October 07, 2003 1:18 PM To: Killer Bs Discussion Subject: RE: When I Was Your Age... (was Re: RE: Brin: rejuveniles) From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] If we wanted to listen to a whole album, we had to STAND UP AND TURN IT OVER on the record player - we didn't have the MP3 or the CD. We used VINYL. Heck! We had to stand up to change the channel on the *TV*! And only had 10 channels to boot. 11 if you counted that one from Philly that only came in once in a long while... Has it been that long since you had to snip a bit out of a 5.25 floppy to use both sides... That is for those luck enough to have a floppy disk... everyone else had to use a cassette recorder to load a program... And what about sound? A program rocked if it beeped... And if it actually played a MIDI tune... Well that was cool! Nerd From Hell OK, since we're playing the oldest stuff game here. What is the oldest computer everyone here has worked on? Either an IBM 1130 (not the basic model: this one had 8K of 16-bit word core memory!) or an low-end PDP-8: I never checked the date of manufacture of either, so I don't know which was older . . . //* I. B. M. / U. B. M. / We all B. M. / For I. B. M. Maru -- Ronn! :) ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: When I Was Your Age... (was Re: RE: Brin: rejuveniles)
At 06:55 PM 10/7/03 -0400, Jon Gabriel wrote: From: Dan Minette [EMAIL PROTECTED] Reply-To: Killer Bs Discussion [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Killer Bs Discussion [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: When I Was Your Age... (was Re: RE: Brin: rejuveniles) Date: Tue, 7 Oct 2003 17:02:47 -0500 - Original Message - From: Chad Cooper [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: 'Killer Bs Discussion' [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Tuesday, October 07, 2003 3:50 PM Subject: RE: When I Was Your Age... (was Re: RE: Brin: rejuveniles) -Original Message- From: Horn, John [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Tuesday, October 07, 2003 1:18 PM To: Killer Bs Discussion Subject: RE: When I Was Your Age... (was Re: RE: Brin: rejuveniles) From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] If we wanted to listen to a whole album, we had to STAND UP AND TURN IT OVER on the record player - we didn't have the MP3 or the CD. We used VINYL. Heck! We had to stand up to change the channel on the *TV*! And only had 10 channels to boot. 11 if you counted that one from Philly that only came in once in a long while... Has it been that long since you had to snip a bit out of a 5.25 floppy to use both sides... That is for those luck enough to have a floppy disk... everyone else had to use a cassette recorder to load a program... And what about sound? A program rocked if it beeped... And if it actually played a MIDI tune... Well that was cool! Nerd From Hell OK, since we're playing the oldest stuff game here. What is the oldest computer everyone here has worked on? I think mine (which I've mentioned before) is the oldest, but I'd be curious to see who might beat me. :-) Hrm. First computers. My family owned a Radio Shack TRS-80 Model 1 and then a Model 3. Also, an Apple ][, a Vic 20 and a C64. I played on an ACS8000 at one point, and we worked on CBM Pet Computers in school in the 80's. I worked with a VAX system in college that was older than dirt. I couldn't guess at its age. While we're on the topic, I also remember the family next door owning a TV with one of the first remote controls. It was two buttons: 'power on/off' and 'channel' and made a horrendous clicking noise each time you used the button. You mean a Zenith Space Command, which had metal rods in the remote control unit which would generate an ultrasonic note (plus a perfectly audible but useless sound) when you pressed the appropriate button (1-1 correspondence between buttons, rods, notes, and functions)? It quit working long before the (B W, of course) TV did. I think you had to scroll through every channel to find the one you wanted. Let's see what's on . . . pink bonk, bonk, bonk, bonk Nothing, I guess. pink Sound EFX R Us Maru -- Ronn! :) ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: When I Was Your Age... (was Re: RE: Brin: rejuveniles)
At 09:07 AM 10/8/03 +1000, Russell Chapman wrote: Dan Minette wrote: OK, since we're playing the oldest stuff game here. What is the oldest computer everyone here has worked on? I think mine (which I've mentioned before) is the oldest, but I'd be curious to see who might beat me. :-) Depends on a few definitions. I worked on an IBM system in the early 70s, but it was just data entry. I had no idea how to go beyond the application interface. I had (still have) a programmable HP calculator (still play lunar lander, even though my PDA does it in 16m colours and the the calculator does it as glowing red numbers) in 1976. My first personal computer was Commodore Vic20 with optional extra cassette drive, before I upgraded to the monstrously powerful TRS-80 which had VisiCalc - oh the power! Now my car, my GPS, my watch, my camera, my stereo etc etc all have more computing power than any of those... But they were great at the time. And my several-year-old HP-48 has 8 times the memory of the first mainframe I used. And the first memory upgrade card I bought for a computer cost $160-something, was about the size of the plastic card I used to pay for it, and had 2^10 times the memory of said first mainframe, and was totally obsolete a few months later. Your point? ;-) -- Ronn! :) ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
RE: When I Was Your Age... (was Re: RE: Brin: rejuveniles)
At 10:15 PM 10/7/03 -0400, Kevin Tarr wrote: At 03:18 PM 10/7/2003 -0500, you wrote: From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] If we wanted to listen to a whole album, we had to STAND UP AND TURN IT OVER on the record player - we didn't have the MP3 or the CD. We used VINYL. Heck! We had to stand up to change the channel on the *TV*! And only had 10 channels to boot. 11 if you counted that one from Philly that only came in once in a long while... grin - jmh Bah, we had five channels and two of them were PBS. We could get four and two were PBS (run by the same statewide system, so the content was identical). But after all, how many numbers are there between 2 and 13? Anyone Here Old Enough To Remember When There Was Actually A Channel 1? Maru -- Ronn! :) ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: When I Was Your Age... (was Re: RE: Brin: rejuveniles)
At 10:21 PM 10/7/03 -0500, Julia Thompson wrote: Kevin Tarr wrote: At 03:18 PM 10/7/2003 -0500, you wrote: From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] If we wanted to listen to a whole album, we had to STAND UP AND TURN IT OVER on the record player - we didn't have the MP3 or the CD. We used VINYL. Heck! We had to stand up to change the channel on the *TV*! And only had 10 channels to boot. 11 if you counted that one from Philly that only came in once in a long while... grin - jmh Bah, we had five channels and two of them were PBS. But we had one of the earliest cable systems in the nation so it was always clear. Heh. When we had close to 20 channels, we got *3* PBS stations! :) I used to love seeing the nightly sign-off for Channel 44 (Springfield, MA?) if I was up that late. It used nice music. You mean they didn't all use _The Star-Spangled Banner_, with the only difference being which military service (Army, Navy, Air Force, or Marines) was featured in the pictures? If You Do, Pick Them Off, And The Cooties Will Hate You Maru -- Ronn! :) ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
Re: When I Was Your Age... (was Re: RE: Brin: rejuveniles)
Dan Minette wrote: OK, since we're playing the oldest stuff game here. What is the oldest computer everyone here has worked on? I think mine (which I've mentioned before) is the oldest, but I'd be curious to see who might beat me. :-) Do you remember the math machines - kind of mechanical computers - that they used to have. If I recall correctly, you would type in a number pull a lever, type in an operation and another number and pull the lever and it would calculate the answer. My Dad used to take me to work with him on weekends and sit me down on those things (I was ~ 11) and we played on them for hours. Obviously this was a few years before the hand heald calculator was introduced. How many here ever used a slide rule? An Uncle of mine worked for Digital (I think, did they have an office in or around Princeton N.J.?) and he sat me down at one of their Mainframes (circa 1969), but I remember not really having a clue as to what to do. When I was in the service we got what must have been a precursor to the personal computer. It was a stand alone Tectronics computer with a mag tape drive (the cassettes were between the size of an audio and a video cassette). You could write short basic programs on it (it came with a stack of manuals) and it had a primitive Star Trek game on it. This was in 1977-1978. In 1981 when I got out of the service and started at the company I'm still with, we had a PDP 1160 for servo control and data acquisition. Anyone else use the DEC Edit program to write school papers? It kind of resembled HTML the way you put formatting characters before and after text. I didn't write code back then (except rudimentary Basic), but all our stuff was written in Fortran 77 (I think). Remember the big 12-15 inch diameter disks for those things. They had a removable cover and you inserted them into a slide out drawer that was a behemoth in comparison to our cd drives today. I had a TRS-80, but well after they first came out. But I also had an Epson laptop with a mini cassette drive and a 5 line LCD display. I think it had Wordstar and visicalc. I think I still have it here somewhere. Hell in ten years we'll all have wearable computers with wireless links to the net that will be accessible almost anywhere. The video interface will be in our glasses or on the back of our wrists and we will be able to manipulate them vocally. They'll be integrated with our phones, cameras, televisions and music players, and we won't know what to do without them. 8^) Doug Doug ___ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
