Tech talk - religious wars on editors - and other old time s

[qbv8]

Well, then let's have a look at the math:

300 baud = 300 bits / second = 37.5 Bytes / second
64 kB = 65535 bytes
65535 / 37.5 = 1748 Seconds = 30 Minutes

Therefore, if we do not count overhead, a 60 minutes cassette tape can hold 64 kBytes on each side.

[almeida67]

I'm getting old, after I read your records, but I was quite young when I begin. The first personal computer was a Radio-Shack, really I don't remember the O/S. In my memory it remains that we cleaned the 8" disk with the help of a magnetic eraser. All this after the punching cards in University for Basic in Mainframes. I worked with DRI CP/M in another one, I don't remember the model, but I think it was one of the first Apple. After it was an Epson with a Japanese near DOS O/S. Finally an IBM with the first DOS.
I needed by this time a very strong Graphical Interface for work, so we got a specific high graphics powered Digital MiniVax Server with VMS O/S, two graphic double screen workstations (ONE COLOR SCREEN! the other green for commands code lines and ASCII data) and several VMS command stations. When we finished with it, we send it to trash, nobody wanted it. And we begin with some Unix graphics powered Work Stations, and several DOS machines with X-Windows or Excedd for Unix emulation. Most high-end graphical software change by the end of the century from Unix to Mr. Bill Gates NT, and we reach Windows NT Workstations. At home and at clients offices we work with normal MS-DOS and I remember Windows 1.1. and by needs all the others MS-DOS and NT O/S, and sequential MS Windows.
Conclusion: I HATE COMMAND LINES, I HATE THE VIRTUAL DOS COMMAND PROMPT IN XP, I HATE EVERYTHING THAT DOESN'T HAVE A GUI AND MOUSE INTERFACE.
I'm a user of computers, and I need work done! Perhaps this is the reason.

[coder]

@qbv8
I forgot that baud is bit/s and not byte/s and C60 is 30 minutes/site. There was definitely more than one game per site of the tape, more than 10 at least.

Conclusions: The actually achieved baud rates must have been much higher. (special loading techniques used)
And most importantly:
I shouldn't try to think before 12 in the afternoon.

[qbv8]

[coder]

@almeida67: On NT I found that microsoft had extended the command prompt with 'for' as a line interpreter. I worked with a printing company then and each day I switched on the computer it automatically took the date of the last working day, created a directory yy-mm-dd and moved all the jobs we had done that day in there for backup purposes, all with a simple batch file I had written for that goal.
I admit it's more scrïpting than direct command line usage, but it was much nicer than doing it every day by clicking and dragging.

I mainly use the command line for troubleshooting. First thing I do when someone has network problems in windows is open a prompt and type ipconfig. There are other ways, but this one just is the fastest.

I must admit though that after being used to the linux command line, it's rather irritating to have to type every single character of a file/directory when I'm on a windows machine.

All that said the mouse is a great invention and gui's make life much easier for normal use of the computer.

[Trucla]

almeida67 wrote : Conclusion: I HATE COMMAND LINES, I HATE THE VIRTUAL DOS COMMAND PROMPT IN XP, I HATE EVERYTHING THAT DOESN'T HAVE A GUI AND MOUSE INTERFACE.
I'm a user of computers, and I need work done! Perhaps this is the reason.

coder wrote : On NT I found that microsoft had extended the command prompt with 'for' as a line interpreter. I worked with a printing company then and each day I switched on the computer it automatically took the date of the last working day, created a directory yy-mm-dd and moved all the jobs we had done that day in there for backup purposes, all with a simple batch file I had written for that goal.
I admit it's more scrïpting than direct command line usage, but it was much nicer than doing it every day by clicking and dragging.

I am much more with coder, by a simple reason: I want to dominate the machine and not being dominated by it. And for that I need to know exactly what it does and how it does it! Yes because - without shouting - I hate being dominated!

coder wrote : All that said the mouse is a great invention and gui's make life much easier for normal use of the computer.

I agree entirely!

Cheers!

[Mimailia]

Trucla wrote : OK let's talk about how I got involved with computers, without never being a real coder.

Many many moons ago by Xmas a friend of mine offered to my children a Sinclair 1000, a very powerful machine with 16 KB (yes, I said KB, not MB, nor GB) of RAM. As a monitor it used a TV set (I helped myself with an old little black and white TV) and for storing there were those cassettes that we put in a tape reader/recorder, the cheapest the best. I've installed the puppy got some games (in cassettes) and explained the kids how to use the stuff. From time to time I've watched them playing, and they seem to enjoy it.
Some months later in one of those rainy boring days I was alone at home and decided to open the manual and started reading the parts devoted to programming (a kind of Basic).



So I turned on the computer and tried the first commands/instructions it suggested. And I was amazed how the machine obeyed to my orders! After half a dozen of commands, I decided to close the manual and try things on my own. Of course when I got stuck I checked the manual for finding the correct way of speaking to the machine.

Only difference in my story, it was a TI-99. (Texas Instruments-bought when JC Penney decided to get out of electronics.)

And yes 16K was a ton.

M

[Trucla]

Mimailia wrote :

Only difference in my story, it was a TI-99. (Texas Instruments-bought when JC Penney decided to get out of electronics.)

And yes 16K was a ton.

M

Welcome aboard, partner!

[madjaffa]

When I was at school the math teacher had a terminal in the storeroom the produced punch paper, once a week a guy came from the local University with a reader and a phone coupled modem, after ages reading the punch paper and sending the data to the computer, we would wait for 20-30 minutes for the phone to ring, connect it to the modem and a new punch paper was produced, this was the taken to the terminal, and read, to produce text, if the programme failed we had a week to rewrite the programme, before we could run it again. It took over a month to get the programme to sort the numbers 1-9 in the numeric order from a random order.
My first computer was a Dragon 32, one of the few British/Welsh computers.

[co90921]

Hey Guys:

After reading all of the posts above and seeing those old computer pictures, does all of this remind everyone of "Green-Bar" Paper, Punch Cards, and 2001: A Space Odyssey. Remember "Hal"? HAL 9000 on Discovery One.

[sharkfan]

I know nothing about programming but I have to respond when someone mentions an amazing movie like 2001: a Space Odyssey. And of course the rumor that HAL is a reference to IBM because they didn't let them use IBM in the movie. Arthur C. Clark and Stanley Kubrick still influence Sci-Fi movies today. WOO HOO

Open the pod bay doors HAL.

[Arnulf]

My first approach to this matter was a HP25 programmable pocket calaulator. I made some hi-levelled programs for this little device, always limited by the very small storage and programming capacity. The best programme, I made with this HP25 was a detector to search and find prime-numbers. Input was a number and the programm had to find the nearest positioned prime number, indicating also the case when the higher positioned and the lower positioned solution was in equal distance to the input-number.(for example: Input is 12 and the solutions 11 and 13 are of equal diestance to 12. In this case the output number was flashing))

Then I tried some exercises with a TI59 equipped with a docked thermo printer device. There I managed to make a Rubik's Cube solution program. It was divided in three sections for solving subsequently the upper, middle and base part of the cube, which had to be loaded seperately (with magnetic stripes). This program took about 24 hours to for the whole sequence.

I think I remember that the capacity of the TI59 was about 1K

[coder]

So you're the operator with your pocket calculator.

[co90921]

sharkfan wrote : I know nothing about programming but I have to respond when someone mentions an amazing movie like 2001: a Space Odyssey. And of course the rumor that HAL is a reference to IBM because they didn't let them use IBM in the movie. Arthur C. Clark and Stanley Kubrick still influence Sci-Fi movies today. WOO HOO

Open the pod bay doors HAL.

Sharkfan:

The rest of the "Pod Bay Doors" scenario.....

Dave Bowman: Hello, HAL do you read me, HAL?
HAL: Affirmative, Dave, I read you.
Dave Bowman: Open the pod bay doors, HAL.
HAL: I'm sorry Dave, I'm afraid I can't do that.
Dave Bowman: What's the problem?
HAL: I think you know what the problem is just as well as I do.
Dave Bowman: What are you talking about, HAL?
HAL: This mission is too important for me to allow you to jeopardize it.
Dave Bowman: I don't know what you're talking about, HAL?
HAL: I know you and Frank were planning to disconnect me, and I'm afraid that's something I cannot allow to happen.
Dave Bowman: Where the hell'd you get that idea, HAL?
HAL: Dave, although you took thorough precautions in the pod against my hearing you, I could see your lips move.

[Trucla]

Hi hi hi!

About operating systems, have a look at this text dated 2002 that for being current only needs changing XP to Vista: Wolf and RedHat
It's just 35KB but long enough for pasting it here, let alone the lot of work for formatting the text. In my opinion it is worth reading...

Cheers!