"In the old days we...."

antikythera · Post by **antikythera** » Tue Jan 05, 2021 8:10 am

I remember RCA and reel to reel. My family used to volunteer at the local Hospital Radio station when I was a nipper so I got dragged along.

They still used reel to reel into the late 90s.

I ended up getting involved too and later helping with their computerised systems in the noughties when they finally went digital. They used them for a music library lookup and also off-air automated playback of MP3 with proprietary software that would generate fresh random easy listening music playlists each day with station jingles, adverts for paying local businesses and live program adverts.

They still broadcast but on digital radio only now.

MurphCID · Post by **MurphCID** » Thu Sep 30, 2021 6:27 am

I miss the cup holder that my earlier computers had. Push the little button and the cup holder slides right out. Darn technology, nothing good ever stays it always gets replaced.

AndyMH · Post by **AndyMH** » Thu Sep 30, 2021 6:58 am

Don't think antikythera has posted since April, hope he is okay.

MurphCID · Post by **MurphCID** » Thu Sep 30, 2021 7:13 am

AndyMH wrote: ⤴Thu Sep 30, 2021 6:58 am Don't think antikythera has posted since April, hope he is okay.

I agree.

MurphCID · Post by **MurphCID** » Thu Sep 30, 2021 11:29 am

His take on Microsoft's Windows 11 fiasco: https://www.dedoimedo.com/computers/win ... sta-8.html While he is certainly opinionated, I used him a lot in my early return to Linux days.

AndyMH · Post by **AndyMH** » Thu Sep 30, 2021 12:07 pm

Read the link, interesting, and some of his other pages. Didn't realise he was Dedoimedo, how did you find out?

MurphCID · Post by **MurphCID** » Thu Sep 30, 2021 12:16 pm

AndyMH wrote: ⤴Thu Sep 30, 2021 12:07 pm Read the link, interesting, and some of his other pages. Didn't realise he was Dedoimedo, how did you find out?

Just started looking for Linux stuff and his page popped up.

DAMIEN1307 · Post by **DAMIEN1307** » Thu Sep 30, 2021 12:50 pm

MurphCID wrote: ⤴Thu Sep 30, 2021 11:29 am His take on Microsoft's Windows 11 fiasco: https://www.dedoimedo.com/computers/win ... sta-8.html While he is certainly opinionated, I used him a lot in my early return to Linux days.

AndyMH wrote: ⤴Thu Sep 30, 2021 12:07 pm Read the link, interesting, and some of his other pages. Didn't realise he was Dedoimedo, how did you find out?

Well i didnt think it was possible but here it is!...Dedoimedo actually, finally wrote a decent, coherent article...lol...DAMIEN

fstjohn · Post by **fstjohn** » Thu Sep 30, 2021 2:34 pm

MurphCID wrote: ⤴Tue Jan 05, 2021 7:57 am Listened to music on reel-to-reel tapes

Reel-to-reel, yes. I had a Revox reel-to-reel. I was at Thule in Greenland (late 60's) working for RCA and had lots of money with nothing but Stereo and Photo stuff to spend it on. Mail ordered the Revox from Switzerland, waited for it to be put in production and had a serial# under 100. Took 10" reels. Along with my Dynaco Stereo 120, Dynaco preamp (both from kits) and AR3's, AR turntable I had a system that could do Doors, Cream, Joplin, Hendrix, Country Joe and all the rest proud. Remember Tiny Tim? His original album (Tiptoe) was great, the second was crap. Turn the album cover upside down and Tim's nose looks like a wall-mounted urinal.

MurphCID · Post by **MurphCID** » Thu Sep 30, 2021 3:19 pm

fstjohn wrote: ⤴Thu Sep 30, 2021 2:34 pm
MurphCID wrote: ⤴Tue Jan 05, 2021 7:57 am Listened to music on reel-to-reel tapes
Reel-to-reel, yes. I had a Revox reel-to-reel. I was at Thule in Greenland (late 60's) working for RCA and had lots of money with nothing but Stereo and Photo stuff to spend it on. Mail ordered the Revox from Switzerland, waited for it to be put in production and had a serial# under 100. Took 10" reels. Along with my Dynaco Stereo 120, Dynaco preamp (both from kits) and AR3's, AR turntable I had a system that could do Doors, Cream, Joplin, Hendrix, Country Joe and all the rest proud. Remember Tiny Tim? His original album (Tiptoe) was great, the second was crap. Turn the album cover upside down and Tim's nose looks like a wall-mounted urinal.

I had a hand me down Akai from my dad. I remember Tiny Tim.

MikeNovember · Post by **MikeNovember** » Thu Sep 30, 2021 5:06 pm

Hi,

The first computer I used was equipped with ferrous-magnetic tores RAM, and the program was written using punched cards (1 instruction per card).

I have then used mainframes (some with punched cards, then with terminals).

I have used Digital VAX VMS, and a whole bunch of micro-computers: Apple II with an extra Z80 processor and three operating systems, DOS 3.3, Prodos and CP/M; IBM PC with MS-DOS, GEM, Windows with its two branches from version 2.0 to 98 (home), Nt 3 to 2000 (office), then XP / 7 / 10 (merged branches); OSX from Leopard to Big Sur, with all intermediate versions; various Linux versions, Knoppix on CD-ROM, Ubuntu, several versions of Linux Mint.

I have programmed in Cobol, Fortran, several kinds of Basic (interpreted or compiled), and mathematics specific languages such as Mathcad or Smath Studio.

I use today Linux Mint 20.2 Mate on an Asus G74SX, with Windows 10 Pro running in a VMware virtual machine. And a Macbook Pro with Big Sur.

The most amusing era was Apple II one, with fantastic possibilities of extension boards, including some I have built, and a "war" between software editors and people who just wanted to have a copy of the software without paying it... And tools like Locksmith to make copies, or the "board of the pirat", allowing to make a memory dump of the software. All this with 8 bits processors, 64 KB RAM and 1,44 MB floppy disks...

Things have changed!

Regards,

MN

AndyMH · Post by **AndyMH** » Thu Sep 30, 2021 5:27 pm

fstjohn wrote: ⤴Thu Sep 30, 2021 2:34 pm AR3's, AR turntable

Now that is a blast from the past, and still have them up in the attic, a pair of AR-4xa's that cost me a month's salary circa 1973. Need new tweeters. Couldn't afford an AR turntable, home built Sugden Connoisseur BD1, also in the attic belt perished.

fstjohn · Post by **fstjohn** » Thu Sep 30, 2021 5:57 pm

My first computer (well, it wasn't actually MINE) was in the Army Security Agency in 1963. It was a special purpose machine, contained in (as I remember) some 4 full height relay racks, and it's purpose was as a Teletype demultiplexer receiver. It could run up to 32 Teletype machines simultaneously and was all vacuum tubes, mechanical relays and thyratrons (vacuum tube predecessor to the SCR, more or less) . It was programmed with a large patch panel. After my Army days I worked for RCA, then Burroughs Corp (Later Unisys) maintaining mainframes for the Air Force in the US and overseas. Along about 1984 I realized mainframes were dinosaurs and microcomputers were the future. To learn about them I bought a BBC Micro, made by Acorn Computers in Cambridge (UK). It was a unique machine, designed from the ground up as an adjunct to the BBC's televised computer literacy project. I got it in the mail the day before I was to fly back to the US for a management course. Took the BBC Basic manual with me and studied it both directions across the pond. BBC Basic is very Pascal-like, with named variables and subroutines. Learned some Cobol courtesy of the Air Force, Pascal from Burroughs. Commodores (64 and 128) BBS's, AOL, Compuserv, a series of increasingly faster PC's and here I am..... Retired and having a ball. Haven't used Windows since soon after retirement in 2008. Cinnamon 19.3. Oh, and as an addendum, courtesy of the Army on my first hitch I'm an expert in one of the world's most obsolete skills, International Morse Code (I was a Morse Intercept Operator).

ivar · Post by **ivar** » Thu Sep 30, 2021 9:09 pm

a bit late to the party but..
My cousin had a Radio Shack TRS-80, not too common over here on Norway. I found it very intriiuging... The when the same cousin started importing ORIC-1microcomputers from UK (a 6502 based competitor for the zx spectrum) I was all set, I guess

But I didn't really get into computing before I attended some job-training course in 1991, usuing 286 clones to access a novell network with IPX. The next years was all netware and we laughed at our colleague that said "believe me, windows NT server will be the new king!"

Now , in my current job, I've been supporting windows servers and clients for about 23 years, lol!

fstjohn · Post by **fstjohn** » Fri Oct 01, 2021 12:40 am

As a result of the Sperry/Burroughs merger, the resulting Unisys was on hard times. "Marriage made in Hell". Stock dropped to pennies and mass lay-offs in the Philadelphia area, me included. Ended up looking for work for months, driving for Domino's Pizza nights and temp work days to pay the mortgage. One of the temp jobs was with a national contract therapy company, that did physical and occupational therapy in nursing homes. They needed a technical person to help with their budget since the key guy had just quit. The budget was in Lotus 123 in DOS (no Windows yet and no internet). I didn't have a clue, had never used a spreadsheet, but managed to teach myself Lotus to the extent I produced an updated budget (using the old guy's budget as a template) for distribution to the field offices. I also found a software company that sold a Lotus 123 compiler and convinced the CFO to buy it. That let me make an .exe file from the resulting budget spreadsheet to lock in the budget formulas. End result, the budget was a success except that in the middle of the distribution to the field offices via floppy disk and snail-mail we found that some of the field offices had been infected with a boot sector virus and many of the floppies we were receiving had the virus. I found a free AV from Fprot in Iceland and emergency distributed to the field, plus running against all the returned floppies from the field (many wrapped in adult diapers; this was from nursing homes-LOL). Result? Successful budget and a job for me, plus a great dinner for all concerned and spouses at The Striped Bass in Philadelphia.

MurphCID · Post by **MurphCID** » Fri Oct 01, 2021 11:42 am

Inspiring stories from the days of the Computing dark ages. I remember Lotus 1-2-3 under DOS, it was the killer app. I also remember Dbase 2 /3. I had a buddy who made a nice living creating Dbase custon databases.

gittiest personITW · Post by **gittiest personITW** » Fri Oct 01, 2021 3:54 pm

Pre 1990 I managed to blag a job in a legal firm as a legal clerk.
Do you know how to use a word processor was one of many of the questions asked in the interview. 'Of course, no problem'. Thought that that was the posh name for a type writer.

Anyway, after having a bit of a laugh and flirt with the secretary on my first day, sat down to the amstrad green screen word processor.
Unfortunately, it was off. Unfortunately it didn't have an obvious 'on' button.
Spent 15 minutes looking busy molesting the poor screen - starting to sweat - before sheepishly having to ask how to switch the thing on which the secretary was very sweet about and told me she did the same thing when she first started and was wondering how long it would take me to ask where the button was.

Once it was on, oh dear oh dear.
Didn't know about tabs or anything non-typewriter like.
All the formatting I did was with the space bar. I pity the poor soul who might have had to edit the docs after me.

fstjohn · Post by **fstjohn** » Fri Oct 01, 2021 5:01 pm

gittiest personITW wrote: ⤴Fri Oct 01, 2021 3:54 pm
Once it was on, oh dear oh dear.
Didn't know about tabs or anything non-typewriter like.
All the formatting I did was with the space bar. I pity the poor soul who might have had to edit the docs after me.

Great story. Somewhat similar story here. The IT guys came around and installed Windows 3.1 on our machines and walked away. Scramble to find books on how to operate Windows. First thing we found was how to return to DOS so we could get some work done. Windows was there to experiment with when you didn't have anything else to do.

gittiest personITW · Post by **gittiest personITW** » Fri Oct 01, 2021 6:45 pm

fstjohn wrote: ⤴Fri Oct 01, 2021 5:01 pm
gittiest personITW wrote: ⤴Fri Oct 01, 2021 3:54 pm
Once it was on, oh dear oh dear.
Didn't know about tabs or anything non-typewriter like.
All the formatting I did was with the space bar. I pity the poor soul who might have had to edit the docs after me.
Great story. Somewhat similar story here. The IT guys came around and installed Windows 3.1 on our machines and walked away. Scramble to find books on how to operate Windows. First thing we found was how to return to DOS so we could get some work done. Windows was there to experiment with when you didn't have anything else to do.

But you found 'Patience' I assume? 3.1 was like HAL.

MurphCID · Post by **MurphCID** » Sat Oct 02, 2021 8:43 am

I'm bored. Completely bored. I cannot do anything much until my knee surgery this wednesday and so I am stuck pretty much immobile. So I have installed, uninstalled, six different Linux variants on the old Darter Pro: Manjaro KDE, Magiea (did not work), Fedora 34 Cinnamon (did not work), Fedora Gnome (worked but sucked), Manjaro Cinnamon, Debian XFCE (Version 11), and now I am back on Manjaro Cinnamon with the 5.14 Kernel which works pretty well on this particular machine. Battery life still sucks. Coreboot absolutely would not let Magiea work at all, just like it does not let LMDE 4 run either. I am bored, so I am doing my best to play. I am also drinking way too much tea and coffee......

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