Young People Try Windows 98

[craigb]

This looks similar to what I started on in 1970:

HP2000 Timeshare.

[John Maar]

On 11/26/2022 at 4:49 PM, Notes_Norton said:

I remember DOS5 and Windows 3.1

I hated DOS. Why? I'm "Typoman" writing all wrongs.

BTW, the only problem I have with Win11 is that I can't move the taskbar to the top of the screen anymore.

My personal personal computer journey started with a home-built S-100 buss computer with a Z80 CPU circuit board and two 8Kx8 RAM circuit boards that cost me over $500 each. I used a cassette deck for mass storage. I later added a 3K Basic ROM to it. Then a couple of 8" DSDD floppies and CP/M (I had to use the included Z80 assembler to write the CP/M drivers for the floppies). I used an ADM3 terminal for the user interface. My next PC was a Heathkit that had two CPUs, a Z80 and an 8088. It ran CP/M, CP/M-86 and DOS. It had 192K of RAM (I couldn't afford the upgrade to 640K to begin with), a 10MB hard drive, two 5" floppies and a color video adapter that was much better than the one shipping with IBM's PC. I was in heaven! I struggled through all of the early versions of Windows. When Win95 was released, it was a MAJOR improvement over previous releases. I ran it for years. I also suffered through the DOS 4 debacle at work, but never installed it on my home machine. I waited for DOS 5. For those who don't remember or didn't have the "pleasure" of dealing with DOS 4, Microsoft added Write caching, AND TURNED IT ON BY DEFAULT WHILE NOT TELLING ANYONE! I remember the cries of agony in the building every time another DB3 database got corrupted.

The younger generations don't know how good they've got it. Have you ever seen a child trying to work with an intelligent device that DOESN'T have a touchscreen? 🤣

Edited December 3, 2022 by John Maar

[craigb]

57 minutes ago, John Maar said:

The younger generations don't know how good they've got it. Have you ever seen a child trying to work with an intelligent device that DOESN'T have a touchscreen? 🤣

*Pfft!*  I would have been happy with a monitor!

We used to do this trick with the acoustic coupler modem where we would whistle into the phone (at 4,800 Hz if I recall correctly) and it would then connect at 300 BAUD instead of only 110!  

For those that just don't realize how good they have it now, at 300 BAUD, it would literally take over a YEAR to download the 20 GB Windows 10 install file! 😮

[Rain]

I guess Iived in the transition period.

During the years I was in highschool, I had typewritting classes, then Word for DOS (can't remember the version, but the screen was all blue) and then basic introduction to computer science. None of these were of any interest to me, of course...

In college we had access to the computer lab but I always preferred my old typewriter. I could work at home late at night, drink coffee, smoke cigarettes, listen to Cannonball Adderley and pretend I was Jack Kerouac or something instead of hanging out with the nerds.

Those were usually the same people who would spend their weekends RPG'ing or LARP'ing and they rarely seemed to break character even when they were not playing, always calling each other by their game names - Turgarok the Troll and such... Not many girls either, and if there was one, no matter what she looked like, she was typically addressed as Milady and treated like a beauty queen. 

I have probably managed to insult a few friends here and for that I am sorry. That's just the way we felt back then.

Edited December 3, 2022 by Rain

[Wibbles]

5 hours ago, craigb said:

*Pfft!*  I would have been happy with a monitor!

We used to do this trick with the acoustic coupler modem where we would whistle into the phone (at 4,800 Hz if I recall correctly) and it would then connect at 300 BAUD instead of only 110!  

For those that just don't realize how good they have it now, at 300 BAUD, it would literally take over a YEAR to download the 20 GB Windows 10 install file! 😮

Go back a little bit further and all they had was this:

[John Maar]

3 hours ago, Rain said:

I guess Iived in the transition period.

During the years I was in highschool, I had typewritting classes, then Word for DOS (can't remember the version, but the screen was all blue) and then basic introduction to computer science. None of these were of any interest to me, of course...

In college we had access to the computer lab but I always preferred my old typewriter. I could work at home late at night, drink coffee, smoke cigarettes, listen to Cannonball Adderley and pretend I was Jack Kerouac or something instead of hanging out with the nerds.

Those were usually the same people who would spend their weekends RPG'ing or LARP'ing and they rarely seemed to break character even when they were not playing, always calling each other by their game names - Turgarok the Troll and such... Not many girls either, and if there was one, no matter what she looked like, she was typically addressed as Milady and treated like a beauty queen. 

I have probably managed to insult a few friends here and for that I am sorry. That's just the way we felt back then.

No insult taken here. One day going into work at Motorola corp in Chicago, I passed an engineer going down the stairs. Typical nerd. White collared shirt, buttoned all the way up. Pocket protector with some drafting pens and pencils in it. Slide rule holder on the belt. Black rimmed glasses. And THEN I realized it was a girl. Embarrassingly, I involuntarily said the following words out loud.:"Girl nerd!" Oops.

[Grem]

I had no interest in computer's when I was coming up. None whatsoever. 

Until I started reading about them being used for recording audio. That got my attention.

[Notes_Norton]

My TI99 computer had a cool little music program on a cartridge (for its day). Other than that, it was pretty useless.

I remember saving data on a cassette tape recorder. Brrrrt brrrt brrt brrrrrrt brt brrt.

 

Then the Atari/ST which was a huge jump. I wrote my first aftermarket Band-in-a-Box user styles on the Atari. Then one day, Peter Gannon from PG Music called. He was happy that I was supporting BiaB, and offered to convert my styles to "IBM Compatible" format.

That's when I got my DOS5 computer, as BiaB was still a DOS program.

Shortly after that, the Apple Classic II

 

It's been fun.

 

Notes ♫

[Rain]

My younger brother received one of these for Christmas in 84 or 85 IIRC.

I remember entering pages and pages of code to get it to play 3 Blind Mice. Quite underwhelming. Might be part of the reason why I wasn't  interested in computers afterwards.

He also got this game with it, which I played with him every now and then. On the small black and white tv. Glorious!

One of my cousins had the same computer but he also had a tape recorder with it to save data.

Edited December 4, 2022 by Rain