craigb Posted April 1, 2019 Share Posted April 1, 2019 I like being delusional. I mean, have you really taken a good look at what's actually happening out in the so-called "real" world lately??? *Bleh!* 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Øyvind Skald Posted April 1, 2019 Share Posted April 1, 2019 12 hours ago, craigb said: I like being delusional. I mean, have you really taken a good look at what's actually happening out in the so-called "real" world lately??? *Bleh!* I have! Thats why I go to my neighbour instead of sending a message! 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bitflipper Posted April 1, 2019 Share Posted April 1, 2019 Whenever I think about the past, it brings up so many memories! When I sit around with my geezer contemporaries these days, we're not talking about CP/M or Berkeley vs. AT&T as much as about what body parts are failing at the moment. Although sometimes I do get nostalgic for vi. Back then, composing a text message was a real skill. 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bitman Posted April 1, 2019 Share Posted April 1, 2019 I wax nostalgic too. I remember sitting around broke in an apartment wishing I could get this and that. Now I can! sudo su apt-get this_and_that. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
craigb Posted April 1, 2019 Share Posted April 1, 2019 The "bits" have chimed in! ? I wonder if kids are even taught there's such thing as registers... Or if they even know what a nibble is! 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
InstrEd Posted April 1, 2019 Share Posted April 1, 2019 28 minutes ago, craigb said: The "bits" have chimed in! ? I wonder if kids are even taught there's such thing as registers... Or if they even know what a nibble is! I am Groot? 2 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
abacab Posted April 1, 2019 Share Posted April 1, 2019 The very first program I wrote was in BASIC for a high school physics class, punched on paper tape, then sent from a TTY keyboard/printer terminal over a dial up to a time sharing computer system 20 miles away. The first mainframe I worked with was a Univac. It was octal based, rather than hexadecimal. And it had real magnetic core memory, (the kind with tiny ferric rings for each bit, pre-dating semiconductor memory). So when we did "core dumps", we were really dumping the "core"! The console operation was strictly TTY. Punched cards were the normal input media used. Also with large numbers of vacuum capstan reel to reel mag tape drives, for sorts, backups, and general I/O. Plus lots of little blinky lights and buttons on the main panel for system access. My first college level programming class was in COBOL, where programs were first written on paper, then we punched them into 80 column cards and submitted them for compile and run tests. Later on I worked with IBM System/370 series mainframes running MVS. This was just about the time personal computers were beginning to hit the mainstream, but way before the LAN/WAN and client/server technology took off with TCP/IP based networks. Data center computing was mostly still connected with proprietary point to point links, and packet networks were still limited in large commercial applications. Ahh, the good old days! Like the kind of days where you could actually walk down the sidewalk without accidentally bumping into somebody staring down at a smartphone, LOL!!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
craigb Posted April 1, 2019 Share Posted April 1, 2019 I somehow missed out on paper tape (NOT complaining! LOL), but also had a class that did the punch cards. The fun prank was to rubber cement two of the cards together about 2/3's of the way back and put everything back in someone's deck (but weren't those boxes cool?). They would load their program into the hopper and it would chug along just fine until it hit our "surprise" - hehe...? Coleman had both IBM 370's and a nice 4341 mini-mainframe that was prominently placed right in the middle of the school (and named Kermit). I actually saw one of the techs fix it with a soldering iron! Fortunately, I'm NOT old enough to have ever seen (or performed) true debugging which is where a tube (or valve for you Brits) has attracted and killed a moth or two so someone has to go in there with a feather duster and "de-bug" the workings! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
abacab Posted April 1, 2019 Share Posted April 1, 2019 9 minutes ago, craigb said: Fortunately, I'm NOT old enough to have ever seen (or performed) true debugging which is where a tube (or valve for you Brits) has attracted and killed a moth or two so someone has to go in there with a feather duster and "de-bug" the workings! LOL! Me either, fortunately I started my career in the transistor age, and vacuum tubes were well behind me by that point. For reference, Bill Gates and Steve Jobs are a about a year older than me. And I'm not a Brit, by the way, but thanks for the compliment (I think). I'm an American. From 'merica. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
InstrEd Posted April 1, 2019 Share Posted April 1, 2019 I had COBOL in college too. We had some CRT terminals that you would type on and then would punch out the cards and we also had direct terminals to punch out the cards. Had to be early or stay late to get one of the CRT terminals? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
craigb Posted April 2, 2019 Share Posted April 2, 2019 Apple, 1977 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
abacab Posted April 2, 2019 Share Posted April 2, 2019 3 minutes ago, InstrEd said: I had COBOL in college too. We had some CRT terminals that you would type on and then would punch out the cards and we also had direct terminals to punch out the cards. Had to be early or stay late to get one of the CRT terminals? I hear you! Sitting down at a keypunch machine was the most tedious task I have ever undertaken. Moving to online terminals and virtual data entry was like the cyber equivalent invention of the wheel, or fire, or something like that! I took a class in Python programming a few years ago. Just wow!!! Look ma, no compiler!!! It is so very cool to be able to code, execute, and debug at brain speed (real -time) on your personal computer, without having to wait for a compile step. Interpreted languages are the bees knees!!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
abacab Posted April 2, 2019 Share Posted April 2, 2019 1 minute ago, craigb said: Apple, 1977 If only ... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
craigb Posted April 2, 2019 Share Posted April 2, 2019 That 'ol thought experiment. If you were to suddenly be able to relive your life, but with the knowledge you've gained, what would you do differently? #1 would be to put as much money into Microsoft when it was first created that I could (and sell it all in August of 1999). Sure, there are other things, but all of those are only enhanced (or become possible) with sufficient funding! 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
abacab Posted April 2, 2019 Share Posted April 2, 2019 2 minutes ago, craigb said: That 'ol thought experiment. If you were to suddenly be able to relive your life, but with the knowledge you've gained, what would you do differently? #1 would be to put as much money into Microsoft when it was first created that I could (and sell it all in August of 1999). Sure, there are other things, but all of those are only enhanced (or become possible) with sufficient funding! Absolutely!!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
InstrEd Posted April 2, 2019 Share Posted April 2, 2019 Or take back with you the sports almanac like in Back To The Future II 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
abacab Posted April 2, 2019 Share Posted April 2, 2019 Now where did I put my hoverboard??? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
InstrEd Posted April 2, 2019 Share Posted April 2, 2019 1 hour ago, abacab said: Now where did I put my hovercraft??? Fixed it for you because you know we are still waiting for one in an update? 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
abacab Posted April 2, 2019 Share Posted April 2, 2019 Ya, but I still have the flux capacitor, and I'm not revealing where it is located! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
InstrEd Posted April 2, 2019 Share Posted April 2, 2019 That's okay because I have moved on to the train in Back To The Future III Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts