Kids react to old computers...

[snide]

KIDS REACT TO OLD COMPUTERS - YouTube

[Cybercowboy]

Well, first of all it was an old Apple computer, which I wouldn't have the first idea how to get it to do anything either. Give me a CPM or IBM or compatible and I could have made those kids think they were computer gods.

[onedef92]

hello computer - YouTube

[mrvette]

I will never forget the extensive training that an old friend, Bob Tuftie, gave me when I bought my first computer in '95 I paid about 3500 bux for it, 17" CRT monitor was about 350 bux out of that.....Bob was doing some gardening, got sick, went to the bathroom and keeled over dead....wife found him some time later.....:sadangel: he was my age 55 at the time.....

:cert:

[island14]

:lol:

[Cybercowboy]

What you never played Oregon Trail on an Apple II?

The first Apple computer I touched was the predecessor to the Mac, called Lisa I think. And by touch I mean that pretty much literally.

I messed around with Commodore 64, TRS-80, various word processors running proprietary CPM, and of course IBM PC in many variations including every IBM from the first PC to the Jr. to the AT to the PS/2. I bought one of the very first IBM clones made by Dell (the known as PC's Limited) and even talked to Michael Dell himself when they accidentally shipped a 8 Mhz AT clone with their test BIOS chip still in it.

[onedef92]

My first computer was an Atari 1040ST

My first "computer" was the Atari 2600 VGS.

[Cybercowboy]

My first computer was an Atari 1040ST. I had a friend who had a Commodore 64 and a couple of other friends who had Atari 520STs.
I remember us all playing Kings Quest, Space Quest, etc... Ah the good old days. :D

For me, I was writing programs on them. I rarely played any games on computers, although I did play my fair share on the game systems of the time like Atari. My first exposure to the Commodore was when I was sorta an intern at a manufacturing facility and they gave me one to see if I could write a program that would let them print on these funky shrink wrap labels using a daisy wheel printer with a special platen. I did. It was clunky though. The operator had to type in the label information at the end of the program using DATA statements. :lol:

I did write a fair number of computer games though, including a Wheel of Fortune game that was really pretty fun to play and I had a small number of hard-core users that constantly bugged me for new versions. Wrote a cool "star orbit" simulator program called Gravity that I uploaded to some BBS and got comments on from rather interesting people (PhD's in astrophysics and so forth.)

The first program I ever wrote was on a very early HP portable computer that ran GBASIC (HP's special version of BASIC) and had a built in about 3" screen and thermal printer. It cost about $20,000 back in 1979 and my Dad brought it home from work for about two weeks. I taught myself GBASIC and wrote a program that numerically calculated the area under the curve for whatever function was input. Little did I know I was calculating integrals.

[Sea Six]

I didn't write code then, but did do lots of drawings with what "paint" programs were available.

It's interesting looking back at what we used "in the beginning" and what we use now. :yesnod:

It is.

I kind of wish I hadn't thrown out my old TI-99/4A computers and I had all the extra good stuff too.

:sadangel:

[8Up]

My first computer class in about 1981 or 82 we were using TRS-80s. Had no floppy disc drive, we used casett tape players to record the crappy little programs we wrote.

[Joecooool]

I remember when I was in middle school around 1980 sitting in a room with a computer, what brand I have no idea. My reaction then was similar to the reaction these kids had. I remember sitting there wishing they could do so much more.

The only game that computer played was a text based game about walking through the woods and you had to answer yes or no to the questions the computer asked. When you answered incorrectly, a "necromancer" would kill you.

[Cybercowboy]

I remember when I was in middle school around 1980 sitting in a room with a computer, what brand I have no idea. My reaction then was similar to the reaction these kids had. I remember sitting there wishing they could do so much more.

The only game that computer played was a text based game about walking through the woods and you had to answer yes or no to the questions the computer asked. When you answered incorrectly, a "necromancer" would kill you.

Sounds like Zork. I loved that stupid game.

You are in a dark room. You can't see shit.
> Move right.
You have fallen into a pit full of spikes.
*GAME OVER*

[RED-85-Z51]

Kids today are like,,im so smart im so tech savvy...blah blah blah...

And t hen Bill Gates sits down and rapes their minds on an antique...

[DukeAllen]

And all I ever did with my Vic-20 was write programs to have it display insults :D

[mrvette]

In the early/mid 80's I remember my FIL who was retired in North Carolina, from his job at AIL, long island......he was pulled back on the job with his company and sat in his home 'office' with one of the above mentioned early commercial machines......to do the B1 bomber ECM programming, radar vs radar warfare.....:seasix::leaving:

[snide]

I remember when I was in middle school around 1980 sitting in a room with a computer, what brand I have no idea. My reaction then was similar to the reaction these kids had. I remember sitting there wishing they could do so much more.


In high school, there was a computer class. We had Apple II computers. After leaving high school, I joined my dad's company. He was using Datapoint computers, with the Databus language. Didn't take too long to learn that language, and in short order, I was writing business software. The stuff I wrote over 20 years ago, is still being used today. :willy:

I wasn't really interested in playing or creating games. :dunno:

[onedef92]

My first computer class in about 1981 or 82 we were using TRS-80s. Had no floppy disc drive, we used casett tape players to record the crappy little programs we wrote.

I remember those jokers, too. Radio Shack/Tandy.



http://i194.photobucket.com/albums/z33/Sean224/tandy1989.jpg

[RED-85-Z51]

yall old...

My first computer was a 1999 HP Pavillion with Windows ME, and a Pentium 3 PRocessor.


It sucked balls, ME spent alot of time crashing, I had to reformat the HD about 30 times in just 3 years, many programs faulted, it was slow...games were slow, I hated it.

[Cybercowboy]

yall old...

My first computer was a 1999 HP Pavillion with Windows ME, and a Pentium 3 PRocessor.


It sucked balls, ME spent alot of time crashing, I had to reformat the HD about 30 times in just 3 years, many programs faulted, it was slow...games were slow, I hated it.

That computer was probably, oh, 512 Mhz 32-bit processor or so and probably 128 MB RAM. The first IBM PC I used was 4.7 Mhz 8-bit processor and had 64 KB RAM. That's right, KB. I upgraded it to 256 KB and added a 5 MB hard drive, yo. The card for the RAM upgrade was a full length card, about 12" long, and you had to plug in about 36 little RAM chips into the thing. Then you had to set an array of dip switches and a few jumpers to properly configure the thing so it would work. IRQ set wrong? FAIL! Bad RAM chip? Good luck finding the sucker.

The hard drive plugged into another card and was external, about the size of a loaf of bread. The cable looked like an old parallel printer cable. You had to park the heads using a little utility before you turned it off. You did not boot off it. You booted from a floppy. The first hard drive I had that was bootable, I thought I'd died and gone to heaven. The first sub 60ms access time HD, one that came in the IBM AT, was a wonder. So fast!

[mrvette]

That computer was probably, oh, 512 Mhz 32-bit processor or so and probably 128 MB RAM. The first IBM PC I used was 4.7 Mhz 8-bit processor and had 64 KB RAM. That's right, KB. I upgraded it to 256 KB and added a 5 MB hard drive, yo. The card for the RAM upgrade was a full length card, about 12" long, and you had to plug in about 36 little RAM chips into the thing. Then you had to set an array of dip switches and a few jumpers to properly configure the thing so it would work. IRQ set wrong? FAIL! Bad RAM chip? Good luck finding the sucker.

Sounds like what my ex/kids' mom had in the early 80's she would check out her old machine on a federal property loan, bring it home and I would wind up changing cards of some sort in it.....she be doing work on it....weird.....

:leaving:

[snide]

That computer was probably, oh, 512 Mhz 32-bit processor or so and probably 128 MB RAM. The first IBM PC I used was 4.7 Mhz 8-bit processor and had 64 KB RAM. That's right, KB. I upgraded it to 256 KB and added a 5 MB hard drive, yo. The card for the RAM upgrade was a full length card, about 12" long, and you had to plug in about 36 little RAM chips into the thing. Then you had to set an array of dip switches and a few jumpers to properly configure the thing so it would work. IRQ set wrong? FAIL! Bad RAM chip? Good luck finding the sucker.

I still have an IBM PC in my basement. It came with a 20MB(!) hard drive, and 640k of RAM. Over the years, I modded it with a 60MB hard drive, a 386 chip on a card, and 1024MB of RAM. It might still work...

[Cybercowboy]

I still have an IBM PC in my basement. It came with a 20MB(!) hard drive, and 640k of RAM. Over the years, I modded it with a 60MB hard drive, a 386 chip on a card, and 1024MB of RAM. It might still work...

I had one of those Hauppauge (sp?) 386 accelerator cards in one of our old PC's too. 8-bit card but did make the old girl fast enough to run AutoCad 2.12. Wasn't it amazing to put 2 MB RAM in one of those old AT computers and set it up as extended/expanded memory and use it for a RAM disk or cache? Or, perhaps, load your video driver and/or network driver into expanded or extended memory (two different specs there) and actually get it to work? Black art, that.

The first computer I bought for myself (and still have up in the attic) was a 386 16Mhz clone with an Orchid 1024x768 interlaced video card, 200 MB hard drive (that was HUGE!) and a 80387 math coprocessor chip. Had at least 4 MB RAM too, and a 28.8kb modem. Was the bomb. With monitor it was over $2500 at the time.

[RED-85-Z51]

In elementary school, our computer lab cosisted of, basically antiquated old donated piles of crap...I recall names like IBM, Macintosh, Apple....but..old logos, lol.

All of them were outfitted with the large floppy drives. It took 2 people to keep 15 kids going on them at the same time, constantly swapping discs as the programs ended, calling for the next disc to be inserted. And SLOW..omg, and simple. It was like, a math learning program, a problem would pop on the screen...you would type in your numerical answer and tap enter, it would calculate if you were correct, and if you got like 10 in a row, a rocket would take off on the screen...

It was amazing to a 7 year old in 1993....

[snide]

I had one of those Hauppauge (sp?) 386 accelerator cards in one of our old PC's too. 8-bit card but did make the old girl fast enough to run AutoCad 2.12. Wasn't it amazing to put 2 MB RAM in one of those old AT computers and set it up as extended/expanded memory and use it for a RAM disk or cache? Or, perhaps, load your video driver and/or network driver into expanded or extended memory (two different specs there) and actually get it to work? Black art, that.

The first computer I bought for myself (and still have up in the attic) was a 386 16Mhz clone with an Orchid 1024x768 interlaced video card, 200 MB hard drive (that was HUGE!) and a 80387 math coprocessor chip. Had at least 4 MB RAM too, and a 28.8kb modem. Was the bomb. With monitor it was over $2500 at the time.

The Hauppauge 386 card is what I had. Made the PC run at ludicrous speed. :funnier:

I also have a Compaq Portable III. It has the expansion chassis with a 120MB hard drive on a card. The 2nd slot is filled with an ARCnet card. I used both computers to develop and test. One machine was used for development, and I used the other for testing. Easy to do, as I had my own little LAN. Ah, good times.

[RED-85-Z51]

http://www.whatisthe2gs.apple2.org.za/files/MathBlasterPlus8bit/ScreenGrab_2/Math-Blaster_02.gif

[Cybercowboy]

The Hauppauge 386 card is what I had. Made the PC run at ludicrous speed. :funnier:

I also have a Compaq Portable III. It has the expansion chassis with a 120MB hard drive on a card. The 2nd slot is filled with an ARCnet card. I used both computers to develop and test. One machine was used for development, and I used the other for testing. Easy to do, as I had my own little LAN. Ah, good times.

For awhile they wanted me to learn how to write report code for our mainframe, and their vendor's proprietary language for report writing was terrible - something called MRCS. Out of an entire class of 30+ people we sent there, only two of us managed to write something of any usefulness. Me and another programmer. But even so it sucked. So I got a terminal emulation card that would emulate an IBM something or other (dumb terminal) and wrote a Basic program that would scrape the screen, simulate keystrokes to change screens, and compile a database. But that sucked, and it sorta worked but one little change on the mainframe side would break it.

So I got smart. I forced myself to write three MRCS reports that essentially dumped the entire database to a special printer I had access to - one that queued stuff up to a hard drive. I'd put those reports in suspend mode, pull them off the printer to our Novell network, and convert the data into a FoxPro database and *tada* now we could actually do stuff with it.

This was all because our mainframe programmers were so set in their ways, if they couldn't see why we needed something, you'd never get it out of them. I set this up to run every night, and automated it completely. Twas a marvel of the day.

[DukeAllen]

http://www.whatisthe2gs.apple2.org.za/files/MathBlasterPlus8bit/ScreenGrab_2/Math-Blaster_02.gif

You must be using dark magic, future boy!
Try...
http://www.simplyeighties.com/resources/VIC-20_Boot_Screen.gif

I also had
http://blog.codinghorror.com/content/images/uploads/2008/04/6a0120a85dcdae970b0120a86dddcf970b-pi.jpg

[DukeAllen]

Holy crap is that a real cart?

Yes. The pic is from the web but I still have mine in storage.

[mrvette]

I had one of those Hauppauge (sp?) 386 accelerator cards in one of our old PC's too. 8-bit card but did make the old girl fast enough to run AutoCad 2.12. Wasn't it amazing to put 2 MB RAM in one of those old AT computers and set it up as extended/expanded memory and use it for a RAM disk or cache? Or, perhaps, load your video driver and/or network driver into expanded or extended memory (two different specs there) and actually get it to work? Black art, that.

The first computer I bought for myself (and still have up in the attic) was a 386 16Mhz clone with an Orchid 1024x768 interlaced video card, 200 MB hard drive (that was HUGE!) and a 80387 math coprocessor chip. Had at least 4 MB RAM too, and a 28.8kb modem. Was the bomb. With monitor it was over $2500 at the time.

What that sound?? shhh, shhh, bing bong, ding dong, heheheheheh.....

sounded like laughter.... gotta be a link on how that sounded.....:lol::cert:

[mrvette]

For awhile they wanted me to learn how to write report code for our mainframe, and their vendor's proprietary language for report writing was terrible - something called MRCS. Out of an entire class of 30+ people we sent there, only two of us managed to write something of any usefulness. Me and another programmer. But even so it sucked. So I got a terminal emulation card that would emulate an IBM something or other (dumb terminal) and wrote a Basic program that would scrape the screen, simulate keystrokes to change screens, and compile a database. But that sucked, and it sorta worked but one little change on the mainframe side would break it.

So I got smart. I forced myself to write three MRCS reports that essentially dumped the entire database to a special printer I had access to - one that queued stuff up to a hard drive. I'd put those reports in suspend mode, pull them off the printer to our Novell network, and convert the data into a FoxPro database and *tada* now we could actually do stuff with it.

This was all because our mainframe programmers were so set in their ways, if they couldn't see why we needed something, you'd never get it out of them. I set this up to run every night, and automated it completely. Twas a marvel of the day.

At the National Library of Medicine (spin off of the Walter Reed Medical Library from decades ago) my ex worked on the upper levels, in the mezzanine of the joint....so was issued via IBM who ran the huge tape machines in the basement.....a thing known as an 'Intelligent terminal' IBM's catch phrase for a PC......huge tape drives and something known as DOS 1.0, she could get NO support from any of the IBM field crews as they knew nothing, so she started effing around with it and figgered out the shit on her own, nice to be working for the FEDS doing much of nothing important on her REAL job......but anyway back in the early 80's she became the guru of the entire library on running these 'intelligent' terminals.....and trained the staff on them....so went from that to 3.1 by time of the divorce in '90......

been a while.....I just remember all the conversations with her about this shit, when prompted.....just olde tyme shit, otherwise.....


:shots::D

[Kevin_73]

I remember in first or second grade we had a school assembly in the lunchroom. They wheeled in a IBM computer with a tape drive (reel to reel) on it, then used the "modem" to connect it to another computer (I think it was at a college somewhere).
The "modem" was a cradle that the telephone handset sat in, so they had to call the phone number, then when the tones started they put the handset into the cradle so the computers could talk to each other.

The teachers were really amazed at this thing, but as I recall we students were not really interested. :lol:

[Cybercowboy]

I actually used an aucoustic modem for about a year. Maxed out at 1024 baud.

[DAB]

pfft. have a K&E log log duplex slide rule, and the instruction manual. :smash:

when the EMP hits, i'm still good. :dance::dance:

[NeedSpeed]

Too funny :lol:

Kids these days.

A Magazine Is an iPad That Does Not Work.m4v - YouTube

[mrvette]

I remember in first or second grade we had a school assembly in the lunchroom. They wheeled in a IBM computer with a tape drive (reel to reel) on it, then used the "modem" to connect it to another computer (I think it was at a college somewhere).
The "modem" was a cradle that the telephone handset sat in, so they had to call the phone number, then when the tones started they put the handset into the cradle so the computers could talk to each other.

The teachers were really amazed at this thing, but as I recall we students were not really interested. :lol:

I actually used an aucoustic modem for about a year. Maxed out at 1024 baud.



When I first saw one of them, and listened into the 'conversation' I immediately said.....WTF?? why not just connect the WIRES??? and it was like some sort of revelation......

BUT in fact, AS I RECALL it was some sort of FEDERAL telecom law that made it illegal to do that, at the time.....rapidly changed of course.....

:issues::dance:

[SnikPlosskin]

The first Apple computer I touched was the predecessor to the Mac, called Lisa I think. And by touch I mean that pretty much literally.

I messed around with Commodore 64, TRS-80, various word processors running proprietary CPM, and of course IBM PC in many variations including every IBM from the first PC to the Jr. to the AT to the PS/2. I bought one of the very first IBM clones made by Dell (the known as PC's Limited) and even talked to Michael Dell himself when they accidentally shipped a 8 Mhz AT clone with their test BIOS chip still in it.

We had one of the early Lisas because my father worked for Control Data back in the day and Apple was beta testing. Hard to believe that machine became the Macintosh.

[NEED-A-VETTE]

Priceless. :lol:

We had the Apple IIe in grade school. Oregon Trails, ftw. :dance:

[VatorMan]

Our first computer was a 286 Packard Bell that had a 8/16 mHZ turbo switch. :rofl: Blazingly fast HP dot matrix printer. Sounded like a sawzall in metal while printing. 2400 baud modem that we used to dial into Prodigy.

Think we paid $1800 for that thing in 1983.

[onedef92]

Ah the sounds of my youth. :funny:

56k Dialup Modem Ringtone - YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Yc0Nw7IlKs)

That U.S. Robotics V.92 was a bad huckachuka back in the day...

[onedef92]

Oh yeah. :yesnod:

I remember when someone would pick up the phone when I was dialed in and knock me off. :funny: :cuss:

Yeah, via AOL at our household. I remember it taking forever to load web pages. :yesnod: Fortunately, the previous owner of our first home added a second land line for FAX/internet.

[onedef92]

IT didn't get the name AOHell by chance. :funny:

What was the other major ISP at that time? Compuserve and shit? :confused5:

[jaxgator]

Sounds like Zork. I loved that stupid game.

You are in a dark room. You can't see shit.
> Move right.
You have fallen into a pit full of spikes.
*GAME OVER*

:rofl:

[snide]

What was the other major ISP at that time? Compuserve and shit? :confused5:

:yesnod: Where are they now? :funny:

[mrvette]

LONG ago in the DC region there was a chain of TV/Stereo shops known as Erols owned by Erol Onyion (sp?) a Turkish fellow who started out as a TV tech.....well the chain failed when CC & BB showed on the horizon....so he reinvented himself into an ISP, and so they were my first ISP......I remember going to the store front and setting at the desk, and they asked what my handle was supposed to be.....I just went blank...they said like on CB radio....

An old friend had the handle of MrGTO @xxx.com so I have been MRVETTE since forever on most forums.....and [email protected] for some years now.....:D

[snide]

An old friend had the handle of MrGTO @xxx.com so I have been MRVETTE since forever on most forums.....and [email protected] for some years now.....:D

Are you still paying AT&T $14.95/month for that email account?

(I had AT&T dialup for years, at $14.95/month. Didn't use it for a couple of years, so I cancelled it.)

[onedef92]

Are you still paying AT&T $14.95/month for that email account?

(I had AT&T dialup for years, at $14.95/month. Didn't use it for a couple of years, so I cancelled it.)

I still have a netzero email account (non-dialup, though.)

[DukeAllen]

LONG ago in the DC region there was a chain of TV/Stereo shops known as Erols owned by Erol Onyion (sp?) a Turkish fellow who started out as a TV tech.....well the chain failed when CC & BB showed on the horizon....so he reinvented himself into an ISP, and so they were my first ISP......I remember going to the store front and setting at the desk, and they asked what my handle was supposed to be.....I just went blank...they said like on CB radio....

An old friend had the handle of MrGTO @xxx.com so I have been MRVETTE since forever on most forums.....and [email protected] for some years now.....:D

I still have some VHS tapes in Erol's boxes :funny:

My first ISPs were dial-up text only through the local library, AOHell at 9600, and then a regular, blazing 28.8 with another library :funny:

[onedef92]

I still have some VHS tapes in Erol's boxes :funny:

My first ISPs were dial-up text only through the local library, AOHell at 9600, and then a regular, blazing 28.8 with another library :funny:

We had a local ISP named IgLou. 28.8 with them, too.