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Topic: when did you start using computers  (Read 7389 times)

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Offline Dracho

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Re: when did you start using computers
« Reply #40 on: August 11, 2005, 10:39:01 am »
Did you know they still manufacture & sell a mini-VAX system?
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Offline E_Look

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Re: when did you start using computers
« Reply #41 on: August 11, 2005, 01:32:28 pm »
I thought VAXs and the pdp's were minicomputers...
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Offline Bonk

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Re: when did you start using computers
« Reply #42 on: August 11, 2005, 01:41:04 pm »
I remember using Maple (It think it was - or some other stats program) on a VAX in university - nothing beat having to come back the next day for your printouts...  ;)
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Offline Dracho

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Re: when did you start using computers
« Reply #43 on: August 11, 2005, 01:55:00 pm »
Quote from: E_Look on August 11, 2005, 01:32:28 pm
I thought VAXs and the pdp's were minicomputers...


Not really.  Here is a VAX v4.4



Here is a 6200


and here is a DEC MicroVax
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Offline E_Look

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Re: when did you start using computers
« Reply #44 on: August 11, 2005, 03:49:19 pm »
Um... yeah, but those are hardly the size of an old IBM or DEC mainframe, say the DEC-20, etc.  Maybe it's just me; I've always thought of those units as minicomputers.  Incidentally, by that I don't mean PCs, etc., which I call microcomputers.
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Offline Jack Morris

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Re: when did you start using computers
« Reply #45 on: August 11, 2005, 04:20:40 pm »
1985, Robbins high school, Austin, TX. Apples, then later on IBMs, and in 88 in the military we only used IBM compatible machines.
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Offline Just plain old Punisher

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Re: when did you start using computers
« Reply #46 on: August 11, 2005, 08:49:28 pm »
Quote from: Ravok on August 10, 2005, 11:34:47 pm
Quote from: Punisher on August 10, 2005, 08:08:11 pm
My first computer was steam powered!

 Ahhh yes the old Eli Whitney 01 . You had to like the look of that baby!!

 Hand hammered riveted steel case, and the 2 man boiler it took to run it.

 and those 3ft floppy disks drives and 1 gig of memory, It was way ahead of its time.

And when the sucker crashed...well believe you me you didn't wanna be anywhere in the same zip code when the boiler blew!
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Offline The Bar-Abbas Anomaly

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Re: when did you start using computers
« Reply #47 on: August 14, 2005, 11:23:28 pm »
 

TRS-80 Model I with expansion port and 'stringy-floppy'!

7th Grade Science Class, 1980.

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Offline Just plain old Punisher

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Re: when did you start using computers
« Reply #48 on: August 15, 2005, 08:27:11 pm »
Is it just me, or is that lady just a little too happy to be next to that VAX
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Offline stoneyface

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Re: when did you start using computers
« Reply #49 on: August 15, 2005, 09:21:50 pm »
this is embarrasing...  ;D

early 80's using this hunk o' crap w/ cpm language

http://oldcomputers.net/televideo.html



yes! it's the Televideo TPC-1! oooooohhhh!!

i played a lot of text-based zork! lol
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Offline Sethan

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Re: when did you start using computers
« Reply #50 on: August 15, 2005, 09:50:56 pm »
1977 Hewlett Packard 2000C and 2000F mainframes via teletype.

First job was as a keypunch operator in 1978

Built a Heathkit in 1978 or 79

Edit: almost forgot - helped the computer techs work on the UNIVAC Q3 from 1981-83 here:

http://www.radomes.org/museum/scripts/acwinfo2x.cgi?site=%22Hancock+Field,+NY%22&key=HancockFieldNY&pic=HancockFieldNY&doc=HancockFieldNY

The computer looked like this (the one pictured is a slightly newer model)



Bought a C64 in 1983, started repairing them in '85.

Got a job repairing HP mainframes in '86.
« Last Edit: August 16, 2005, 08:04:20 am by Sethan »
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Offline NJAntman

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Re: when did you start using computers
« Reply #51 on: August 16, 2005, 12:05:35 am »
Quote from: stoneyface on August 15, 2005, 09:21:50 pm
this is embarrasing...  ;D

early 80's using this hunk o' crap w/ cpm language

http://oldcomputers.net/televideo.html



yes! it's the Televideo TPC-1! oooooohhhh!!

i played a lot of text-based zork! lol


That thing looks like a prop from 2001 Space Odyssey.
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Offline KBF-Angel Slayer

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Re: when did you start using computers
« Reply #52 on: August 16, 2005, 10:57:05 am »
This is what I started working on.  It is really just a huge word processor, but I used it for five years...



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Offline prometheus

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Re: when did you start using computers
« Reply #53 on: August 18, 2005, 04:07:42 pm »
1979 - Commodore PET, I was 4 years old...  "Helped" my father to program a load of primitive games into it to amuse myself and my young friends at the time...

1983 - Commodore VIC 20, where I first started programming BASIC and had my first shot of a flight simulator...

1986 - Commodore Plus 4...  I loved this one for programming, much improved on the old Commodore V2 basic...

1988 - BBC micro computers attatched to a mainframe...  Programmed them in Comal, got first experience of Networks and primitive DOS, and hacked the school computer system... 

1990 - Amiga 500, where I first got into using DOS to write scripts and into Image Manipulation Suites...

1990 - Apple Macintosh, just for desktop publishing work, basically manufacturing false Identification to obtain alcohol...

1997 - Amiga 1200, where I managed to play Deluxe Galaga for a total of 96 hours and be late for work on the 5th day...  This was because a friend and I had a high score vendetta...

1997 - First Pentium PC, A Cyrix 233 MHz running...  yiccchhhh, windows 98 first edition...

2002 - Got my first Delta 10 10 and configured an AMD Athalon 2000 XP PC for Multitrack Recording...
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Offline Commander Maxillius

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Re: when did you start using computers
« Reply #54 on: August 19, 2005, 01:20:53 am »
1986-1993 Elementary school years:  My school had about a million Apple II's and IIe's.  My 5th grade teacher even had a IIc.

1993-1996 Middle school: we had one lab full of Macintosh LC's, and another full of Mac Classics.  I'm still trying to get the version of SimCity that was on them as well as a little game called Artillery.  I've got that on my mini, but since it's a 15 year old program, it has a hard time dealing with a processor that's 200 times the speed it was written for!

1996-2000 High school: one lab was full of what I swear were the same Mac Classics the middle school had, and the other lab started with 166 MHz Compaqs with Win95 and switched to 400 MHz home-made jobs with Win98.

1999: 1st purchased machine: Hewlett-Packard Pavilion 4455; 400 MHz Pentium II MMX.   Originally with Win98, 64 MB RAM, 6.2 gig hard disk, single 32x CD-ROM; upgraded to 256 MB RAM, 4x DVD-ROM and Win XP  The DVD drive was acually the first upgrade and it played a few movied pretty well, but It must've bured the RAM up since after a while it didn't like playing movies anymore lol.  Deceased 2004.  Its motherboard is hanging on my wall :)

2002: 2nd PC: Toshiba Satellite 1405-S151 laptop; 1.2 GHz, instantly upgraded to 512 MB RAM from 256, with Win XP and 30 GB hard disk.  It's serving me quite well, besides the fact that it's on its 2nd hard drive and no longer sleeps or hibernates properly (refuses to wake up).

2003: 3rd PC: Hewlett-Packard Pavilion 725n; Athlon 2400+ @ 2.0 GHz, 512 MB RAM, with WinXP, then Mandrake Linux version 10.0, then back to Win XP after I realized I know enough  Unix commands to shut the machine down and put Windows back on.  However, I permanently messed it up by putting Linux on it.  It still doesn't run right so it's on loan to my sister's boyfriend  :flame:

2005: 4th "PC": Apple Macintosh Mini; 1.25 GHz PowerPC G4, originally with 256 MB RAM, but it took only 2 weeks for me to realize OS X doesn't like anything less than 512, so that 's what I gave it.  It's also the machine I've decided will be my entry back into the Mac world.  I left using System 6, and came back at Mac OS X 10.3 Panther... that's 4 whole versions and a processor shift!
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Offline prometheus

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Re: when did you start using computers
« Reply #55 on: August 19, 2005, 06:59:03 am »
My God!  I remember having to load programs in from a Magnetic Tape now that I think back to this!!!  Waiting half an hour for a program to load into memory and praying that no one in the house would turn a hoover or something on that would cause a voltage spike and crash the bloody thing...  What a nightmare...  I don't think I could live like that any more...
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Offline Sethan

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Re: when did you start using computers
« Reply #56 on: August 19, 2005, 07:02:24 pm »
Heh - try having to toggle instructions in on the front panel for a paper tape loader so you could load an OS.
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Offline prometheus

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Re: when did you start using computers
« Reply #57 on: August 20, 2005, 03:40:01 am »
Thankfully, they were a little before my time...  ;) 

I downloaded a DSKY simulator a while back...  It's a surprsingly rapid and effective way of executing computer programs...   You have a two digit Verb Code to tell the computer what aspect of the program to execute, ie. verb 37 will tell the computer to expect a program change, and then a Noun 12 (in the LEM) would tell the computer to commence a countdown to launch...
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Offline Don Karnage

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Re: when did you start using computers
« Reply #58 on: August 22, 2005, 11:00:17 pm »
well the first computer was a comodor vic20 with the tape cassette, but whe didn't keep it and in the mid 80's i don't know what kind of computer but i remember the software, it was lotus 1-2-3, the software was divide into 4 or 5 disc because the monitor was not color (a stupid excuse to says the computer was not able to read it) and we sell it , in the mid 90's i was a pentium one, 75 Mhz, 8 meg of ram, no sound card, a 256 color svga video card, win 3.11 in it and later the update it to win 95, it was stolen in 98 by my tenent, the cops didn't belive us because there was not trace of infraction, sure the tenent have the key to opend the door, (i stole the refregerator in revenge when we move), after that i get a pentium one,  200Mhz, 32 meg of ram, hd of 10 gyg, video card of 16 meg i think, win 98, the com was efective in 2001 and whe buy a use amd k6   2, 400Mhz, i give it away after i buy a amd athlon duron 1533 Mhz, 64 meg of ram and a few other stuff in it, (i no longer have it) now i have a pentium 4  3.0 Gyg with 1 gyg of ram, 256 meg of ram for the video card, hd 200 Gyg, got another one in ben built with amd athlon 1.8 gyg, video card 256 meg, hd of 40 and 200 gyg, in the future well who know.  ;D
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Offline E_Look

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Re: when did you start using computers
« Reply #59 on: August 23, 2005, 11:44:32 am »
Quote from: Dracho on August 10, 2005, 10:12:28 pm
Our mainframe at work is so old some of the lines of code refer to an abacus..

"If redbead=left"

 ;D

You youngsters get all the coolest stuff.  All our beads were black... and the few inscriptions on the sides were in ancient Chinese.  Not even Toasty is that old.
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