Recent History?? or Old Timer??

I have to admit that I am a compulsory hoarder.

I have in my garage a important data set dating from about 1983.

It was supplied to me on a 9 track tape.

I could not read the data and had it translated onto an about 10" reel with corrected block size.

The raw data was then saved in text format on a few 275 K 5" floppies.

The cooked data and programs code to cook it was saved on a set of 5"

duplicated onto hp 3 1/4 " floppies. (different format to IBM)

A backups was later made onto 360K x 5"

and later to 1.2 M 5" floppies

and 720 K , and 1440 K , and tapes on a tape streamer.

A backup was also made on my huge 10Mb disk

and copied to a 30Mb RLL , 85Mb and 210Mb IDE.

The equipment is all here but might not be in working order.

I cannot put the floppies in my only drive available because of the M$ policy to destroy any aliens on sight.

By the way L forgot my password and cannot really remember what the data set contained.

Sorry I cannot get it over my hart to throw the box away - I might just need it again.

I suppose today it would all fit on one flashdrive and you could put it in your pocket!!

I saw an ad on TV today. One of the office supply stores was selling 4 GIG flash drives for $5.99 US.

I bought two last month and the next week they had a 16G for $19.99.

At least cylindrical Edison wax records and Victrola flat disks can still be played, if you scrounge antique shops and garage sales successfully.

I remember the 8" floppies, I used to program CNC macines with a Compact-II computer the size of a desk.

Connected to MDSI with a modem which held the phone receiver....

ahh.. memories....

P.S. here's a bit of old tech which still works....

http://www.wimp.com/connectsinternet/

Yeah, I keep some of the old stuff on a couple of shelves in my office at work. I could use the 300MB disk pack as a door stop in a barn. It's pretty bad when you have to actually explain what a mag tape actually is to the young 'uns. What? Remove the ring on the back to write-protect it? What does that mean?

Paper tape? Forget about it. I don't even think they would understand a 75 baud device's usefulness. Although is was quite fun to fill a co-worker's car fresh air intake with the chad and watch them turn on their defroster...so much fun!

Try explaining bootstrapping, 4k micro-memory, 64k of total memory and interpreting register readings to one of these newbs...they don't really understand computer theory at all in my opinion. Then explain stepping through 50,000 lines of code (translated to machine code) one register at a time and tracking the bit state on an o-scope just so you can find the bad chip and actually repair the card!

_{But I digress...off of soapbox.}

I remember back in the mid 60's watching my dad carry stacks of punch cards over to THE computer for a run, then going back to the key punch because the one of the cards had been mangled. It wasn't uncommon for a big program to require several runs before it executed. My first computer used cassette tapes for storing programs and data. You stuff looks pretty new fangled with all those fancy disks and everything...

Are the 8" disks for a CPM computer?

I have a lot of old data that I still need from time to time on 3.5" and 5" disks. I have one computer that will read the 5" disks and an external 3.5" drive. Maybe I hoard stuff just a little...

Timex Sinclare computers given away as prizes at time share tours. They stored memory on cassettes.

My early years were as a delivery boy at my father's grocery store. One customer was a bank that had a computer that used those "IBM" punch cards.

My mom used to bring home boxes of old punch cards from work (GM). I could sit for hours and make the biggest damned house of cards you ever saw!

I was always fascinated to watch her run that key-punching console as the cards shot through. It wasn't until years later during my education that I realized she was only part of a huge method to program computers.

I threw away my punch cards for making a calendar with Wat4 on the IBM 360 PSU had in the late 1960's about 10 years ago. I had my own - did not have to use my Moms.

Took a one week crash course on programing COBOL at PSU over Easter break in 1968. Was supposed to be for people who had never seen a computer. About 150 people showed up and after 10 minutes of the professors lecture geared to that level, someone asked an obviously advanced question and the lecture took off. Didn't learn a thing but had fun trying. Submit your cards one day, pick up the run the next and spend hours figuring out what was wrong. Then punch more cards and try again. Turned me off to programming for good.

Correction: wasn't COBOL, it was FORTRAN.

That's right - FORTRAN 4 version. That is what it was programmed with. So we called it WAT4. By 1971 they had 5, and WAT5 just didn't sound right.

I'm an oooolllldddd timer, myself.

Started by programming NC (not CNC) on a flex writer (teletype variation) to punch paper tape. Then graduated to APT programming punching cards which then disappeared to our data center for processing on an IBM 370, iirc. Sometime later the card deck and tapes would appear, and debug began.

I still have my Apple ][ with tape recorder/player and 5 1/4 floppy drives. I used to have a $1300 10 megabyte hard drive for the Apple but it died in less than a year.

Hooker

I bought another new computer last week, but I still yearn for the simpler days of computing (sometimes), and I still adore my Commodore 64.

I too bought a new computer last week. I started with a Sinclair ZX81...and had to retune the TV in my parents' room to use it. I lost interest as it couldn't operate programmes long (in code lines) enough to hold my interest.

When I bought my 386 in 1990, I ordered it with both 7.25" and 3.5" drives...7.25" being the norm around them. It was delivered without the 3.5" drive...though I'd been charged for it. When the engieer came to fit it he said I was stupid to have it fitted. I have always blessed my mate who gave me the advice: buy the biggest and most advanced you can afford.

Funny thing is, the Dell XPS 8400 I've just bought cost about the same as my Dell 386, monitor & printer did 21 years ago....mind you I just got £1900 worth of PC for £1100, so I'm still smiling!!

Oh. Yes. The 7.25" and 3.5" discs are still in the loft...along with the 386 and its 486 successor...last time I tried, the 386 still ran!

I think I still have a "control panel" with some plug wires somewhere! You needed to program the card punch somehow!

Oh yeah - I still have the program discs for my Apple II GS. I guess after 26 years I should throw them in the trash. I still have the II GS too. Think it will ever be worth anything as an antique?

I STILL use my Commodor PET and VIC-20 with datacette to play (classic) games with the grandchildren....

As the QC guy for tariff customs clasification I could never get the "younguns" to classify the 3.5" diskettes as floppy discs because they didn't bend and therfore wern't floppy. I finally broke a few open to show them the "floppy" disc inside.

I also had to go to great lenghts to explain why there is a tariff for needles in the section for sound reproducing apparatus parts.

Then there was the whole issue when cameras went digital and suddenly were no longer considered "photographic" by the customs officers, now they are electronic devices.

Okay, I'll bite...

Why is there a tariff for needles?

Needles for record players.

I got that bit, but why an extra tariff?

Oh sorry, industry lingo. When I say tariff i should say tariff number, or tariff item. There is no additional charge, just a separate number that must be declared to customs for the needles.

Parts of record players are 8522.90.90.20, except for the needles, 8522.90.90.10 (see a part of the tariff below)

The "kids" didn't even know there were needles involved in playing those old things.

8522.90.90 - - -Other Free

10 - - - - -Styli (needles for turntables (record-decks) or record players) .............. -

20 - - - - -Tone-arms; other parts of turntables (record-decks) or record players .. -

30 - - - - -Remote controls and parts thereof..................................

Please tell me you didn't know any of those numbers off of the top of your head...

I think one reason some of us save this kind of stuff is it's like a first girlfriend. It represents that first "rush" of combined awe and glee at the "tool" that personal computers were to become. Kind of similar to algebra. I can still remember the first night of algebra homework where I was awed and amazed that I could just write out an equation that I didn't know the answer to and yet the answer was just there waiting for me to do the mechanics to reveal it. Same with computers... the idea of being able to write programs to do a variety of analytical tasks was like ringing bells for Pavlov's dogs.

My first real computer was an Atari 1040ST. What an "under the radar" computer it was! The fierce devotion of Atari computer owners created a community that I've never felt in the Intel/Windows world. Part of that was the fact that so many people thought they were "toy" computers and not "serious" like the IBM/Intel boxes and it was an "us" against "them" bond. It actually took the Intel world quite some time to catch up to these "toys." I remember comparing a 286/33Mhz PC to my 8Mhz 1040ST and seeing the 1040ST perform pretty much the same with equivalent applications. Speed wasn't everything. Memory paging and swap files really crippled the PCs. I'm still amazed with the (now) mind-boggling speeds, processors and gluts of memory that, to a user, while you can do much more with today's PCs and apps., the "apparent" speed to the user is not that much different in some apps. to the older 68000 machines with much less clock speed. Chalk a lot of it up to code bloat, and too many features, in some cases.

Ah... the good old days.

Kind of similar to algebra. I can still remember the first night of algebra homework where I was awed and amazed that I could just write out an equation that I didn't know the answer to and yet the answer was just there waiting for me to do the mechanics to reveal it.

Not me,I was trying to figure out how to get a glimpse of Mary Ellen"s tatas. Oh well, to each his own.