Topic: Fun Poll: Who here remembers loading software with a cassette tape?

[Sirgod]

In another thread, we had started discussing various PC's after talking about the Windows 7 Launch parties.

Scipio came up with this question, and I thought it would be great for a poll, just to see once again, how broad and varied our users here are.

OK, show of hands:  Is there anyone on this board that NEVER saved or loaded a program from a cassette tape?  (I did, for years.)

It's definitely an era marker.

-S'Cipio 

So there we go, what was the earliest Medium you used to load software?

Stephen

[GDA-S'Cipio]

You're a good man, Stephen!

And, judging from the results so far, we're all a bunch of geezers.   

-S'Cipio

[marstone]

First loading of software as the keyboard for me.  Old TRS-80 in the Radio Shack store.  The Apple II.  Moved up quickly from there.  An Amiga 1000, replaced with an Amiga 2000HD then MS boxes.

When I miss the old days, just have to look over in the corner and my Apple II is right there yet.

[Lepton]

My first comp was a TI-99/4A seen below


Saved my little Basic programs on an attached tape deck.
I remember loading a B1 bomber game (text-based of course) from that tape deck if memory serves.

I also remember using some all-in-one Tandy/Radio Shack computers in Junior High.

[Sirgod]

Oh man Lepton, That takes me way back. My old friend Jeff Smith had a TI-99, that he used for about a month. He got tired of it , and every week he would torture me by saying, Who knows Steve, I might let you have it some day.

Stephen

[Lieutenant_Q]

My first computer was a RGB display with two 5 1/4 in floppy drives.  The computer HAD a hard drive, but it was removed before we bought it.  We used that computer exclusively for six years before we upgraded to an IBM PS/1 that had a GUI (not windows) a 500 MB hard drive and a 3.5 in floppy.  It was unfortunate that we never had a computer that had both the 3.5  and the 5.25 drives, because we had some awesome games for the 5.25.  Which is why my father still had that computer up to three years ago.  Finally got a computer with Windows 95 three years after we got the PS/1 because the PS/1 gave up the ghost.

[Dash Jones]

Uhhhhh....

I answered the poll, and when I saw the results I was stupified.  It appears I am the lone and only one who first used CD/DVDs?

[Sirgod]

Well to be fair Dash you are grandfathered in. Wasn't it your uncle who found some of the original Console commands for NWN that you shared with us a long time ago?

IF anything, your not the young man who would Gripe at 30 second Playstation loading times either.

Stephen

[FPF-Tobin Dax]

I had an atari 400 for my first computer. I still have it and the cassette player in the basement. I had Frogger and Zaxxon on cassete. Star Raiders cartridge for the atari 400 is still fun. 

[Just plain old Punisher]

There isn't an option for 10 inch floppies.

[Sirgod]

There isn't an option for 10 inch floppies.

But there is a pill for that now.

Stephen

[Sarek]

I feel inadequate, I never used a 10 inch floppy (10 inch floppy????), my biggest was 8 inches.  Which is why I answered "Other", I used 8" floppies at work before I got an Atari 800 w/cassette drive for my home.

Edit:  Egads, I just remember that before floppy drives and cassette drives I loaded software from punch cards.

[Bonk]

Had to go with "other" myself:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Early_IBM_disk_storage#IBM_1311
pretty sure it was one of those, the description of the 1316 disk pack sounds exactly like what I remember.

Partly because of the question posed:

So there we go, what was the earliest Medium you used to load software?

Though I recall waiting for vic20 or c64 cassette tape to load.

Cool poll! 

[knightstorm]

The first media I used were the 5 1/4 inch floppy's on the computers at school when I was in 3rd grade.

[Corbomite]

This was my first "medium" 

[Dracho]

I had an atari 400 for my first computer. I still have it and the cassette player in the basement. I had Frogger and Zaxxon on cassete. Star Raiders cartridge for the atari 400 is still fun. 

And Basic was a cartridge. 

[GDA-S'Cipio]

Though I recall waiting for vic20 or c64 cassette tape to load.

Cool poll! 

I remember (a thin!) William Shatner doing overdramatic TV commercials advertising the "Power!" of the Vic20.   

The first storage media that I used to load software was a cassette tape.  I had a program on punch cards, but never got to load it on anything.  A company I was visiting as a school trip had just retired their card reading machine, and was giving out the cards as souvenirs.  I never saw another card reader to try it out and see if it worked.

-S'Cipio

[GDA-S'Cipio]

Star Raiders cartridge for the atari 400 is still fun. 

I absolutely *loved* that game!

-S'Cipio

[Dash Jones]

Well to be fair Dash you are grandfathered in. Wasn't it your uncle who found some of the original Console commands for NWN that you shared with us a long time ago?

IF anything, your not the young man who would Gripe at 30 second Playstation loading times either.

Stephen

Yes, Now he's one guy who's big into computers.  He backs everything up it seems via tape, and still has an old box that you can put on the side of a TV to play Pong with some paddles.

PS: interestingly enough, someone mentioned punchcards, His father in law who I've met used punchcards and even older stuff which used  something like ping pong balls which they'd put into the computer which would calculate things out like a calculator does now.

[Andromeda]

A friend of mine's dad still has his Commodore 64 and uses it... He's a major engineering geek.  That was my first experience with a computer.

Later I encountered punch cards, which was my second experience with a computer.  After those stopped being useful, we used the cards for D&D magic items.  You could tell how high level a character was by how many punch cards were next to her character sheet.

5.25" floppies were after that.  We used to get in trouble for pulling the disk out of the computer so it wouldn't save the Star Trek game we just lost.

[Green]

We had a stack of punch cards AND WE LIKED 'EM!

[TAnimaL]

punch cards for me too, that's how I learned BASIC.
Couldn't afford a computer, but I had a friend with who I spent many hours loading programs into a TRS-80 so we could play games.
And when we were bored at the mall, we'd stop by Radio SHack and type a quick 4 or 5 line BASIC program into the TRS80 on display so that it would start adding "1" to the previous line and keep adding until the cows came home. We thought that was hysterical...

[Strayy]

Gads!!!   trs-80's ???   thanks TAnimal.... now I dont feel old and alone      remember makin a slot machine program to run on that p.o.s.

[candle_86]

first computer I used wasnt my own but it was in 1992 at school, Kindergarten to be excat, we had to inset a floopy and type A:\paint.exe. I loved the 2 weeks we got in the computer lab playing with it for art. The principle got alot of angry parents saying our kids dont need to play on a computer at school, they will never need them. He was quite forward thinking id say.

[Pestalence_XC]

My first system was an Adam 8088 then an Adam 8086, then C64 then C128, then Apple II c, and e, then IBM x286 , x386, then Intel x486 SX, LX, DX, DX2, DX4, Pentium I, I version 2, Pent II, III, IV, IV x2 (over 1 Ghz version), Pentium Duo, Intel Core 2, and currently Intel i7.

Yep.. I go all the way back to cassette tapes and plug in cartridges and even card reader in some cases.

Hmm let's see I am 35 years old now and I have been messing with computers since I was 4 years old.. god.. way too much I have forgotten over the years that many this day and age will never know.


as for OS's.. DOS MS dos and Dr Dos and several other DoS programs / versions, OS2 Warp Gold, windows 3.1, Windows 95 , 98, me, 2K, XP, 2K5, 2K8, Vista, and now Windows 7. probably many in there I forgot to list.. but then again it has been quite a while.

[Nemesis]

A friend of mine's dad still has his Commodore 64 and uses it... He's a major engineering geek.  That was my first experience with a computer.

Challenge him to a game of Netracer.

[Lono]

I started on the Apple II-e - with the 5 1/4 Floppy - although I actually got a commodore later with the cartridge and tapes - and I messed with a whole lot of Vic-20's and TRS-80's and the like in the mid 80's...

Ahh - I used to love the hardware hack of using a hole puncher on the 5 1/4 floppies to make them double sided - so very anti-establishment 

Gotta love the no need to change DVD's now days - but Kids (who bitch about having to configure PC's games nowdays) don't know what they missed - stuff like that builds character!

Now Get OFF MY LAWN!!!!

[Nemesis]

Ahh - I used to love the hardware hack of using a hole puncher on the 5 1/4 floppies to make them double sided - so very anti-establishment 

I bought literally hundreds of Nashua single sided floppies and used them as double sided (no punching needed).  About 1% failed on the 2nd side.  Nashua was the no name brand of Dysan, just about the top brand of floppies.

[Age]

I started with 51/4 disks as I am late to computing and my first rig was a hp560W.I still have it but I use custom built one now.I saved more of my info on 31/2 floppies.

[Czar Mohab]

Growing up I had access to all kinds of compy's, but I can only recall the C128, Tandy 1000 and apple IIe by name... there was one we had in the corner (next to the Tandy) whose sole purpose in life was word processing, but I'll be darned if I can remember anything more about it than the monochrome (orange, btw) screen... the C128 we had for a while was my first first compy; but then there was other people's computers - back when DOS was king and Oregon Trail was the big game to have in school (turns out, still is, locally at least) ... Before I date myself here, I have to mention that at the time I was tinkering with the C128, 486s were just hitting the main stream market - we were dirt floor poor and the C128 was a hand-me-down, and I was the fourth owner.

I was just the other day talking to a co-worker about laser discs (as in, what ever happened to the...) and he brought up the 10" computer information saving media, along with stacks of punch cards and other "old school" media that I've only heard of in passing or have a vague memory of.

I have not seen all the various forms of media that others have, but it amazes me how far we have come - and yet, all I have to do right now is head out to the garage and fire up the old Packard-Bell P1 (166Mhz - WOOT!) and get a taste for the good old days.

Czar "I'm waiting for the follow up post that says, "Phooey! Back in my day home computers were as big as the house!"" Mohab

[762_XC]

When I was young, we didn't have no new fangled cassette tapes. We had our data encoded upon birch tree bark by sparrows. And we liked it.

You liked it too Stephen, you old fart.

[Age]

When I was young, we didn't have no new fangled cassette tapes. We had our data encoded upon birch tree bark by sparrows. And we liked it.

You liked it too Stephen, you old fart.

Yeah.When some were playing around with computers I was playing around with cars swung my first wrench at 6 years old.I got into drag racing at 12 years old.

[Capt. Mike]

Gawd, I remember my Atari 800..I was working swing shift when I was stationed in Utah, I'd call the Mrs. at 2000 to load the German invasion of the USSR so it would be ready when I got home..

Anyone have a PC version of Alternate Reality?

Mike