good old times

fabi_01fabi_01 Posts: 0
edited September 2012 in The Commons

... like in the old days...

Post edited by fabi_01 on
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Comments

  • kyoto kidkyoto kid Posts: 40,560
    edited December 1969

    ...you mean when we had to actually write code to do everything we can accomplish today with a few mouse/tablet moves/clicks using pre-made meshes, texture maps, and light sources on a desktop PC (or even a notebook) instead of a huge mainframe buried in the bowels of some university campus math and sciences research centre.

    ...ahh, those were heady days.

  • Staffa24Staffa24 Posts: 0
    edited December 1969

    Kyoto Kid said:
    .... instead of a huge mainframe buried in the bowels of some university campus math and sciences research centre.

    ...ahh, those were heady days.


    the days when PCs didn't have a hard drive and everything was stored on 740 Kb floppy disks
    and there was no Windows UI, just DOS

    I remember them well :coolsmile:

  • Richard HaseltineRichard Haseltine Posts: 96,658
    edited September 2012

    The first floppies, as I recall, were 180KB - I had to buy a couple from the University computer lab when I took a course on Pascal. They were at least more reliable than the cassettes on my own machine. Edit: on reflection, they were at least 5.25" discs so they may have been 360KB - I think I was able to reformat them and use them on my first real PC five years later.

    Post edited by Richard Haseltine on
  • ChoholeChohole Posts: 33,604
    edited December 1969

    Staffa24 said:
    Kyoto Kid said:
    .... instead of a huge mainframe buried in the bowels of some university campus math and sciences research centre.

    ...ahh, those were heady days.


    the days when PCs didn't have a hard drive and everything was stored on 740 Kb floppy disks
    and there was no Windows UI, just DOS

    I remember them well :coolsmile:

    DOS. that was new fangled, our first computer had basic, and had to be coupled up to a TV and a casette recorder to work.

  • Staffa24Staffa24 Posts: 0
    edited December 1969

    Richard Haseltine

    "5.25” discs so they may have been 360KB"

    you're quite right, I forgot. Then the "hard" floppies with 7nn Kb and HDD with 1.4 Mb WOW !

    chohole

    "our first computer had basic"

    you definitely started with computers before me ;-)

  • Jeanne MJeanne M Posts: 652
    edited September 2012

    chohole said:
    Staffa24 said:
    Kyoto Kid said:
    .... instead of a huge mainframe buried in the bowels of some university campus math and sciences research centre.

    ...ahh, those were heady days.


    the days when PCs didn't have a hard drive and everything was stored on 740 Kb floppy disks
    and there was no Windows UI, just DOS

    I remember them well :coolsmile:



    DOS. that was new fangled, our first computer had basic, and had to be coupled up to a TV and a casette recorder to work.
    Yep! mine too! And when he noticed how much fun I had rewriting a bit larger programs for my small computer, well, it was a VIC20 actually.... , my husband took interest in programming and ended up as the IT man in his work! :)

    Well, I have to say, when you want to do things on a computer it's a bit easier these days. :lol:

    Love, Jeanne

    Post edited by Jeanne M on
  • edited December 1969

    I remember those days..starting out on an Atari 400, upgrading to an Amiga, then finally one day upgrading to a 'puter that actually had a monitor and the keyboard wasn't attached- the elite IBM x386. My life was doomed to being behind a keyboard since the day I first played Sid Meyer's Civilization on that beast, and was wiped out by barbarians. I swore I would not rest until I got revenge.
    The barbarians won. Someday, though..someday....

  • edited December 1969

    Oh, you kids and your hippity-hoppity music. I remember when making an image actually meant using this flimsy stuff called... uhm... oh, right! Paper.

  • ChoholeChohole Posts: 33,604
    edited December 1969

    Oh I remember that stuff, used it myself until my eldest son wanted a Spectrum for Xmas, and I never looked back. He upgraded to an amstrad a couple of years later, that was even more fun.

  • MuzeMuze Posts: 182
    edited December 1969

    I still play tetris on my original nintendo gameboy. But my son has absconded with it. So whenever i find it, it's game on!

  • SkirikiSkiriki Posts: 4,975
    edited December 1969

    Oh, you kids and your hippity-hoppity music. I remember when making an image actually meant using this flimsy stuff called... uhm... oh, right! Paper.

    You mean that stuff which doesn't have ctrl-z and you gotta use... hmmm... eraser, right?

  • kyoto kidkyoto kid Posts: 40,560
    edited December 1969

    Staffa24 said:
    the days when PCs didn't have a hard drive and everything was stored on 740 Kb floppy disks
    and there was no Windows UI, just DOS

    I remember them well :coolsmile:
    ...then there were those "blisteringly" hot 8bit CP/M rigs...

    chohole said:

    DOS. that was new fangled, our first computer had basic, and had to be coupled up to a TV and a casette recorder to work.

    ...we had one of the the old Apple ][ s with the external single sided HDDs almost as big as a shoebox.

    To connect to the usenet at the local college campus we needed an acoustic handset modem (thus tying up the phone) which had a "ripping" 600 baud transfer rate.

    At the college where I first took courses in that "mystical" subject known as "CS", We still used teletype terminals, punched tape. and punched cards. Only the SYSOP was privileged enough to have one of those fancy (monochrome) CRT terminals. You know those refrigerator sized tape drives you see in all old the SciFi films and television programmmes? I've loaded tapes on those.


    Oh, you kids and your hippity-hoppity music. I remember when making an image actually meant using this flimsy stuff called... uhm... oh, right! Paper.
    ...I used to do that until Arthritis decided to take up residence in all my joints. I used to not only draw and paint, but lay my own paper,, stretch my own canvas, and even mix my own pigments.

    If I were still into programming (and up on the latest lingos) I'd probably be scripting my own morphs if not writing my own software.

  • DWGDWG Posts: 770
    edited December 1969

    Staffa24 said:
    the days when PCs didn't have a hard drive and everything was stored on 740 Kb floppy disks
    and there was no Windows UI, just DOS

    Some of us are pre-DOS ;)

    My first computer was a ZX-81, with 1K RAM and (often only theoretically!) the ability to use a tape recorder for storage. Though by then I'd already used an Ohio Superboard and a Research Machines 380Z at school.

    The first year of my degree course was done with batch-processed punched cards on an ICL 1906 mainframe that only worked intermittently in the summer (soldered joints cracked every time it got too warm).

    And to totally wow people's minds, a friend's first job on joining the company we worked for was wiring RAM - not wiring RAM chips together, wiring RAM bit by single bit from transistors.

  • ChoholeChohole Posts: 33,604
    edited September 2012

    My first job after leaving school I was operating a National ledger posting machine, that fed stuff on to this punched tape, which was taken once a week to the big IBM place to be processed. Once I got to visit the IBM place....them wasn't the sort of pooters you could have had at home.

    Post edited by Chohole on
  • RKane_1RKane_1 Posts: 3,037
    edited December 1969

    When I learned to code Basic on a TRS-80 which was the height of technology... unil the Coco came out... IT HAD COLOR! :)

  • Richard HaseltineRichard Haseltine Posts: 96,658
    edited December 1969

    Well, my first computer was an Acorn Atom - which was contemporary with the ZX80.

  • ZaarinZaarin Posts: 356
    edited December 1969

    I'll show my age and say that my family's first computer was Windows 95 and my first computer of my own was XP. :P

  • chrisschellchrisschell Posts: 267
    edited September 2012

    Oh boy does this thread take me back... lmao...

    The first computer I ever got to play with when I was about 8 was an atari 400, I remember Tandy and the COCO2 and can remember having to use game code books to program in the games you wanted to play... I remember playing my first ever 3d game... Dungeons of Dagorath... was all wireframe graphics... but was 3d and actually had 1st person view... lmao

    I learned programing in Highschool on a Unisys Icon system and I remember the big stir when the 286 came along... The year I started college, they'd just upgraded to the (then) state-of-the-art 386's and win 3.1

    *Edit* it was a huge and I mean HUGE deal when windows switched from being a dos promptt operation to a full fledged interface...

    Post edited by chrisschell on
  • MuzeMuze Posts: 182
    edited December 1969

    I remember in highschool in 90's, one of my friends said that she couldn't live without spellcheck. I was wondering how she could spellcheck with DOS. Everyone was using their new PC's while i was still using our Tandy EX1000. It wasn't until 96 when we finally got windows 95.

  • LeatherGryphonLeatherGryphon Posts: 11,163
    edited September 2012

    Ah, the good old days (1968). Back when a removable "floppy" disk was nearly the size of a modern spare tire (14 inches) weighed several pounds and held a whole megabyte of data.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Disk_Cartridge_2315_type.jb.jpg

    Post edited by LeatherGryphon on
  • MattymanxMattymanx Posts: 6,879
    edited December 1969

    Avid C64 gammer here. Bought my first one when I was 10 I think. Had a Vic20 before that. A friend of mine gave me a disc box full of games that i just loved to play.

  • TaozTaoz Posts: 9,722
    edited December 1969

    Skiriki said:
    Oh, you kids and your hippity-hoppity music. I remember when making an image actually meant using this flimsy stuff called... uhm... oh, right! Paper.

    You mean that stuff which doesn't have ctrl-z and you gotta use... hmmm... eraser, right?

    I was also used for a now long forgotten art called handwriting...

  • TaozTaoz Posts: 9,722
    edited September 2012

    Skiriki said:
    Oh, you kids and your hippity-hoppity music. I remember when making an image actually meant using this flimsy stuff called... uhm... oh, right! Paper.

    You mean that stuff which doesn't have ctrl-z and you gotta use... hmmm... eraser, right?

    It was also used for a now long forgotten art called handwriting...

    Post edited by Taoz on
  • SickleYieldSickleYield Posts: 7,629
    edited September 2012

    Ooo, I'll play!


    Our first computer was a Kaypro. I was 4. I played space invaders on it. Later we had one of those TI consoles that you could put game cartridges into and play Moon Patrol and TI Invaders, which was like space invaders but with color. There was also Hunt the Wumpus, but I think it was technically impossible to win that game.


    I did my first word processing on some knockoff IBM thing with a black screen and green text. We were ecstatic when we saw our first Windows 3.1 machine handed down by my uncle. From there we pretty much graduated through OSs like everyone else. I didn't have real internet access until college.


    I came to Poser/DAZ late, though - all the way into the XP era,when V4 was just coming out. :D I did my first full new build from parts in hopes of being able to play TES IV: Oblivion on it. I did, but ouch the load times. Skyrim is much more efficient on any system I've played it on.

    Post edited by SickleYield on
  • SkirikiSkiriki Posts: 4,975
    edited December 1969

    Taozen said:
    It was also used for a now long forgotten art called handwriting...

    You scare me with these oldthink ideas. *shudder* Handwriting. That painfully slow way of expressing my thoughts. With limited editing capabilities. Poor cut-paste, and let's not talk about erasing there either.

  • SickleYieldSickleYield Posts: 7,629
    edited December 1969

    Skiriki said:
    Taozen said:
    It was also used for a now long forgotten art called handwriting...

    You scare me with these oldthink ideas. *shudder* Handwriting. That painfully slow way of expressing my thoughts. With limited editing capabilities. Poor cut-paste, and let's not talk about erasing there either.

    Not to mention the terrible font selection. It could take YEARS to install another one.

  • namffuaknamffuak Posts: 4,058
    edited December 1969

    OK - OF here.

    My first 'puter was an IBM 7094 Mod II at Purdue - I worked second shift weekends hanging tapes and doing some Fortran programming on the side.

    I held out until the IBM PC came out - and those first gen 5.25 inch floppy drives were single-side, 160 KB. And cost $540 each. And the 300 baud Smartmodem, with a hack that let you run it at 450 baud . . .

    I just got the monochrome screen - the color graphics just wasn't all that good early on. Played Colossal Cave (aka Dungeon) and Zork (1 and 2) on it, used it for writing mostly - and some programming. Picked up a used Atari 800 XL for game play and then didn't play that many games - Age of Adventure and Wizard's Crown, for the most part. Seems that even then, on systems of that age, my eye-hand co-ordination sucked! :red:

    And I've been on the upgrade treadmill ever since - dual-sided half-height floppy drives, dual-sided half-height quad density floppy drives, 30 MB hard drive, faster modems, more memory, change to an XT, upgrade to a 386, bigger svga monitor, bigger hard drives, windows, ran a one-line BBS for a couple of years, faster system, more memory, bigger hard drives - and still bigger hard drives - and yet again larger hard drives (did I say anything about even larger hard drives?). There was a brief side-trip through OS/2 and then back on the MS-Windows treadmill.

    Professionally, much the same thing - IBM to Burroughs to Honeywell to IBM and then IBM - 360-DOS to MCP-V to GCOS-3 to MVS (and the upgrade treadmill - 4381-II MVS to MVS-XA to a 3090-J and then a 9672-R2 and MVS-ESA, then IBM SP-Frames running AIX) with side trips trough Raytheon PTS-1200 key-to-disk and Honeywell DPS-6 running GCOS-6 (almost exactly 100% not quite UNIX); dial-up lines to leased lines to statistical multiplexers and X.25 packet-switching, SNA, and finally TCP/IP on high-speed leased lines.

    And now that I've retired I look back at all that and wonder - just what was so bad about pointed sticks and clay slabs? :-)

  • fixmypcmikefixmypcmike Posts: 19,565
    edited December 1969

    I first learned to program (on punch cards, of course) in High School in the 70's on an IBM 1130, which was obsolete before I was born -- the school got it in the late 50's when Sputnik scared the US into upping math and science funding in schools.

    Our first home computer was a Franklin Ace -- my brother chose it because it was upgradeable: 2K of RAM, but it had enough slots for 8K. The tape-recorder cassettes they used typically had two copies of each program, as the error rate was awfully high. And you had to listen to it for the sound later popularized by modems to know when to plug it into the computer.

  • TaozTaoz Posts: 9,722
    edited December 1969

    Skiriki said:
    Taozen said:
    It was also used for a now long forgotten art called handwriting...

    You scare me with these oldthink ideas. *shudder* Handwriting. That painfully slow way of expressing my thoughts. With limited editing capabilities. Poor cut-paste, and let's not talk about erasing there either.

    Not to mention the terrible font selection. It could take YEARS to install another one.

    And some were almost unreadable, particularly the fonts Scrawl and Henscratch.

  • kyoto kidkyoto kid Posts: 40,560
    edited September 2012

    Skiriki said:
    Taozen said:
    It was also used for a now long forgotten art called handwriting...

    You scare me with these oldthink ideas. *shudder* Handwriting. That painfully slow way of expressing my thoughts. With limited editing capabilities. Poor cut-paste, and let's not talk about erasing there either.
    ...with my arthritis, my handwriting has become about as legible as a physician's prescription note for the pharmacist.

    The first "productivity" oriented computer I actually "owned" was an old 12 mHz 80286 with 4MB RAM a 20MB HDD (that took up a good part of the case interior), a DD/DS 5.75" floppy drive, MSDOS 4.01, and an Amber screen Monochrome monitor (20 MB, how would I ever fill that?). I usually used it for WordPerfect 5.5 and Lotus 1-2-3 as well as connecting to various local BBS's.with an old Intel 144/144e Smartmodem (which I still have in a box somewhere).

    Post edited by kyoto kid on
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