[Elecraft] OT: Heathkit Catalogs
Darrell, WE forget how far computers have evolved. In the 1970's I worked at Goldstone for NASA and the station computers were Dec-910s (TTL and core memory) and big reel-to-reel recorders. I calculated the Doppler for Mariner Venus-Mercury (MVM-73) encounter at Venus using a HP desk calculator as we attempted to find the signal after the spacecraft exited from behind Venus (I was the station receiver project engineer in then-new PLL s-band Rx). Computers were so untrustworthy they had five duplicates on Apollo and took a majority vote on calculations. I was involved with Voyager/Pioneer/Viking missions. I left JPL in 1979 (fun to think back). In 1982 I worked as a programmer using one of the early IBM-PC with 128K mem and dual cassettes (no HD). 73, Ed - KL7UW Message: 5 Date: Mon, 12 Sep 2011 13:12:11 -0400 From: AB2E Darrell a...@hotmail.com Subject: Re: [Elecraft] OT: Heathkit Catalogs To: w7...@cox.net, elecraft@mailman.qth.net Message-ID: blu152-w45f7989c87aaf2bce9fcbe9b...@phx.gbl Content-Type: text/plain; charset=Windows-1252 Interesting info Dave. The computer on the 1970s Voyager space probe had a whopping 68K of memory total! And that was multitasking. Source: http://voyager.jpl.nasa.gov/faq.html 73 Darrell AB2E 73, Ed - KL7UW, WD2XSH/45 == BP40IQ 500 KHz - 10-GHz www.kl7uw.com EME: 50-1.1kw?, 144-1.4kw, 432-100w, 1296-60w, 3400-? DUBUS Magazine USA Rep dubus...@gmail.com == __ Elecraft mailing list Home: http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraft Help: http://mailman.qth.net/mmfaq.htm Post: mailto:Elecraft@mailman.qth.net This list hosted by: http://www.qsl.net Please help support this email list: http://www.qsl.net/donate.html
[Elecraft] OT: Heathkit Catalogs
Very cool scanning through the 1958 catalog. I had forgotten that they had that “analog computer” as a kit, even back that far. Consider this, though. If you get one of those musical birthday cards in the mail, open it up, enjoy the message (maybe even a personal message added), then toss it in the trash can at some point. When you do that, you have thrown away a bunch more computing power than that Heath analog computer had! In fact, I read once that such an act effectively tosses away more computing power than what existed in the late 40’s! Dave W7AQK === Email scanned by PC Tools - No viruses or spyware found. (Email Guard: 7.0.0.27, Virus/Spyware Database: 6.18300) http://www.pctools.com/ === __ Elecraft mailing list Home: http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraft Help: http://mailman.qth.net/mmfaq.htm Post: mailto:Elecraft@mailman.qth.net This list hosted by: http://www.qsl.net Please help support this email list: http://www.qsl.net/donate.html
Re: [Elecraft] OT: Heathkit Catalogs
Interesting info Dave. The computer on the 1970s Voyager space probe had a whopping 68K of memory total! And that was multitasking. Source: http://voyager.jpl.nasa.gov/faq.html 73 Darrell AB2E From: w7...@cox.net To: elecraft@mailman.qth.net Date: Mon, 12 Sep 2011 10:00:22 -0700 Subject: [Elecraft] OT: Heathkit Catalogs Very cool scanning through the 1958 catalog. I had forgotten that they had that “analog computer” as a kit, even back that far. Consider this, though. If you get one of those musical birthday cards in the mail, open it up, enjoy the message (maybe even a personal message added), then toss it in the trash can at some point. When you do that, you have thrown away a bunch more computing power than that Heath analog computer had! In fact, I read once that such an act effectively tosses away more computing power than what existed in the late 40’s! Dave W7AQK === Email scanned by PC Tools - No viruses or spyware found. (Email Guard: 7.0.0.27, Virus/Spyware Database: 6.18300) http://www.pctools.com/ === __ Elecraft mailing list Home: http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraft Help: http://mailman.qth.net/mmfaq.htm Post: mailto:Elecraft@mailman.qth.net This list hosted by: http://www.qsl.net Please help support this email list: http://www.qsl.net/donate.html __ Elecraft mailing list Home: http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraft Help: http://mailman.qth.net/mmfaq.htm Post: mailto:Elecraft@mailman.qth.net This list hosted by: http://www.qsl.net Please help support this email list: http://www.qsl.net/donate.html
Re: [Elecraft] OT: Heathkit Catalogs
I know this is getting 'way off topic and extended, but I have been very interested in how pervasive the Heathkit experience is among the Elecraft community, so I'll add my own experience with Heath. I built an AR-15 stereo receiver while I was in the Navy, on an ammunition ship in the South China Sea during the Vietnam war. I can't tell you what a thrill it was to fire it up and pick up an FM station from Manila as we were heading back into port to the Naval Station at Subic Bay. Some years later, I built a Z-89 all in one computer, primarily for use as a word processor. Its Z80 processor addressed 64K of memory (yes, K, not M). The entire CP/M OS was 31K, and it had a BASIC interpreter. It had space to install two 5 floppy drive units, which was a big advance, at the time, over the RadioShack TRS-80, which used a cassette tape recorder for storage. Later, a third party came out with a memory-based hard drive that replaced one of the floppy drives, predating the recent trend toward silicon-based storage by three decades. This served me very well as a line-oriented word processor, using a program called WRITE (Writer's Really Incredible Text Editor), which was developed by sci-fi writer and Byte magazine columnist Jerry Pournelle. For its time, the Z-80 was The Best. Even better, in many respects, than something called an Apple. (There was a competitor called Orange, too.) Lew K6LMP __ Elecraft mailing list Home: http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraft Help: http://mailman.qth.net/mmfaq.htm Post: mailto:Elecraft@mailman.qth.net This list hosted by: http://www.qsl.net Please help support this email list: http://www.qsl.net/donate.html
Re: [Elecraft] OT: Heathkit Catalogs
when I started working in 68, the company I worked for had an IBM model 30 with 32K of memory, card readers and all, tapes, not sure about disk drives, but guys preceding me had written the mortgage program for it in COBOL I believe, on punched cards no less. long time ago, hard to believe the progess in the last many years, still it was an awesome and scary night when we finally decommisioned the card reader a lot of years later! pcs, small radios, cell phones, screens, microwaves, none of that was dreamt of yet. most of what we take for granted today and use every day did not exist even 30 years ago. al ve3gam Interesting info Dave. The computer on the 1970s Voyager space probe had a whopping 68K of memory total! And that was multitasking. Source: http://voyager.jpl.nasa.gov/faq.html 73 Darrell AB2E __ Elecraft mailing list Home: http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraft Help: http://mailman.qth.net/mmfaq.htm Post: mailto:Elecraft@mailman.qth.net This list hosted by: http://www.qsl.net Please help support this email list: http://www.qsl.net/donate.html
Re: [Elecraft] OT: Heathkit Catalogs
On 9/12/2011 10:00 AM, Dave wrote: If you get one of those musical birthday cards in the mail, open it up, enjoy the message (maybe even a personal message added), then toss it in the trash can at some point. When you do that, you have thrown away a bunch more computing power than that Heath analog computer had! In fact, I read once that such an act effectively tosses away more computing power than what existed in the late 40’s! The computer that adjusts the driver's seat in my Chevy truck [one of six in the vehicle] has more computer power than we sent to the moon on Apollo. It's had to be re-booted twice when it decided to pin me to the steering wheel instead of backing the seat up all the way for easy egress. The Apollo computers did not need to be, and in fact could not be, re-booted. Their programs were hard-wired. I have no idea what computer power resides in my Elecraft radios, but its probably a lot more than in the seat of my truck. Some IBM executive was quoted in the late 40's/early 50's that he saw a market for perhaps 6 or 7 of these computers, worldwide. 73, Fred K6DGW - Northern California Contest Club - CU in the 2011 Cal QSO Party 1-2 Oct 2011 - www.cqp.org __ Elecraft mailing list Home: http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraft Help: http://mailman.qth.net/mmfaq.htm Post: mailto:Elecraft@mailman.qth.net This list hosted by: http://www.qsl.net Please help support this email list: http://www.qsl.net/donate.html
