(13) You remember when disk drives were as large as a washing machine, had 14" platters, and held 40 MB.
Once upon a time I bought a surplus IBM computer. Came as a desk sized machine. The HD was =huge= physically, 17 MB storage! Platters were about ~24 inches across (inside a clear plexiglass cover), the drive motor was the size of a washing machine unit. It ran on 220 volts and when turned on sounded like a turbojet winding up.
Or you are a hopeless geek, and you still have two Motorola MEK6800D2 kits, a SYM-1, CCS S-100 Chassis with Z80 CPU card, TUART, Paper tape Reader/Punch, COCO 2, COCO 3's.
Or if you remember computers called AST or ALR or Basic4. Or the one year wonder, Hyundai computer. We had a contest at at store that I worked at in Atlanta, Soft Warehouse before becoming CompUSA,that had a Hyundai car filled filled with mice, (the computer kind), and the person guessing the quantity won a new computer.
Leading Edge was mentioned. How about Packard Bell?
Any one except me actually met Dennis Hayes. Good man.
Sold my Altair 10 years ago on ebay.They were getting a lot of money then. Miss it.
if you programmed a system in binary using one set of switches to set the address another for the data, and a toggle to pull the write line low before the system would do anything.
OUCH! That hurt. There are only about 2 comments I don't understand.
You are really old if you programed in Fortran on punched cards.
You are really old if you spell Disc instead of Disk.
You are really old if you used a Univac 1004 Printer.
You are really old if you had to enter the mainframe bootstrap on toggle switches before the next program was read on punched paper tape from an ASR33 which then read the real program from punched cards from the 1004, and it used magnetic drums for storage.
You are really old if you remember the announcement (not availability) of the first UART in a single 40 pin ceramic package. Previoius UARTs were separate receivers and transmitters in 24 pin ceramic packages. These preceeded microprocessors!
You are really old if you can recall the release of the Intel 4004 and 8008.
You are really old if you know what an Intel 1702 is.
You are really old if your first computer was the length of your garage (Singer System Ten 1975 minicomputer bought in 1977 and working until 2000).
You are really old if you ever did head adjustments to disc drives that were the size of washing machines with an amazing storage of 10MB.
You are really old if the first commercial (mini) computer you really worked on typically only had 20K (of 6 bits) core memory and a single 10MB disc drive.
You are really old if you bought rejected 7400 series gates from a company in the UK that sold them cheap (like $2 for a faulty 7400).
You are really old if you started work before LEDs were made (and had to change lillyput globes).
You are even older if you can only remember some of these!!!
I started working for Sperry/Univac in 1980 and got to play with these "state of the art" babies:
Sperry/Univac 1100/80 - released in 1979
To a 20 year old kid who grew up on Altairs and other such collections of lights and switches, this was HEAVEN!! Plus, it was a TRUE multiprocessor from its early ancestors on!!
The UNIVAC 1108 was the second member of Sperry Univac's UNIVAC 1100 series of computers, introduced in 1964. It was the first multiprocessor machine in the series, capable of expansion to three CPUs and two IOCs (Input/Output Control Units). To support this, it had up to 262144 words of eight-ported main memory: separate instruction and data paths for each CPU, and one path for each IOC. The memory was organized in physical banks of 65536 words, with separate odd and even ports in each bank. The instruction set was very similar to that of the 1107, but included some additional instructions, including the "Test and Set" instruction for multiprocessor synchronization. Some models of the 1108 implemented the ability to divide words into 4 – 9-bit bytes, allowing use of ASCII characters.
Sometimes older tech has some merits. In general, I like how accessable it is today. Then, it may have been difficult, often was, but now with our ability to archive, look back and play, it's particularly entertaining.
@Forrest: Never trust a computer you can walk inside! )
On a more important note to anyone doing late night work on an 1100/80, there was a spot or two you could put a bottle of pop in where it kept cold and a few spots where you could put a pizza box to warm it back up.....or so I had heard......
You personally learned the law that you never drop a sequenced deck of cards and always drop a deck with no sequence numbers.
Happy hour was 6-10 p.m. and on a good night you could run your program 3 times.
You remember watching grad students BEAM WITH JOY as they taught their to use an IBM 029 card punch. And you were jealous because you had to type your own.
You were impressed in 1963 by an IBM 1401 (16KB max)
Became very angry when someone tore the paper tape coming out of the teletype before you finished the listing.
Had a banner on your dorm room with your name in dots on a paper tape.
Remember the start up switch sequence on a PDP-11
Really did get to laugh at the freshman who believed you when you told him his program would not compile unless every tenth punch card was red.
Aligned a 10" floppy disk drive with a greeney and a scope.
Still think the Model100 was one of the greatest machines ever designed (and have 5 of them in the garage in a box).
Complained about how expensive thermal paper was.
Put wire ties around the logic chips in your Apple 3.
Fell asleep to the warm glow red LEDs on your HP-48.
Revelled in the power of your HP calculator and looked with pity on the poor fools that could not get RPN.
Finally,,,
If you had a few beers then went to the lab to entertain your girlfriend with a color monitor and a degauseing ring.
you might be an old geek...
Great Thread!
Revelled in the power of your HP calculator and looked with pity on the poor fools that could not get RPN.
I competed in several city-wide UI calculator contests back in '76-'77. The "HP" kids looked down on us poor "TI" kids. After all, their calculators cost far more, so they must have been superior, right?
So how come I won 4 times (tying an HP user once) with my SR-51A?
(Yes, we were jealous... we all dreamed of having HP's)
And I will admit that HP's quality was far superior to TI's.
(Yes, we were jealous... we all dreamed of having HP's)
And I will admit that HP's quality was far superior to TI's.
When I got an academic scholarship that comfortably covered my college tuition and books with a bit left over, I spent the bit left over on a HP11C. I was quite upset when that calculator finally died after close to 20 years that HP no longer made it or anything remotely similar.
It cost $135 in 1981 and was the low-cost alternative to the HP41. I loved that calculator, and there are good simulations available but somehow using a mouse or touchscreen to operate an emulation just isn't the same as the real thing.
And I wasn't snobbish about it; I used a TI-35 for years before getting the HP. It was very noticeable that you could grab the ends of the TI and twist it quite easily, but when you did the same thing to the HP with the same amount of force it deflected about as much as a ceramic tile would.
It was nice to have an effectively "can I borrow your calculator" proof calc. I learned to answer that question "sure, no problem," knowing that it would quickly be handed back after the answer to the question "Dude, where's the equals key?"
all your test equipment have vaccum tubes, along with your tv and stereo
a bridge rectifier as big as a shoe box (selenium rectifiers) your transistors came in big metal cans your computer was a bunch of cards in a rack mount
Does anybody remember the Keypad overlays for the Atari 2600 game console? That was perhaps my first taste of programming in BASIC. I was programming in BASIC before the ATARI 400 was even released, but shortly after the release of the Atari 400 at the age of eleven, I was programming in 6502 Assembly. Some of that seems like it was yesterday. ... wiping a tear from my face. ... sniff!
I had help from my dad .... He was a pioneer in the Engineering field as well ... he worked for Occidental Petroleum in their IT security and communications. Several communication and security standards used today came out of that Corporation team.
Beau...
What a super cool father for a young geeky boy to have :-)
I read Steve Wozniak's biography and his dad was also just
perfect for a budding genius like him...a wonderful
accident or maybe it is just that the genetics works to produce this
fortuitous outcome.
I was an old geek when I typed in a full TRS-80 Basic program (from a magazine) that calculated the location of the sun, the planets, the moon etc and it fitted in 16K RAM, and it worked first time.
I was an old geek when I spent my lunch times at work manually working out machine language for a Z80 CPU while I designed a terminal program to fit inside an EPROM that would reside in the memory hole of the TRS-80.
I was an old geek when I used the 128x72 graphics of the TRS-80 to draw porn pictures....
I think a geek is someone who spends their time on their hobby while other people are going out and having fun and their hobby doesn't necessarily have to be old.
@Chuckz: You make it sound like what we do isn't fun! May I suggest:
"I think a geek is someone who finds more fun and reward in spending time on their hobby, learning and creating than going out with other people and wading through a social wasteland of banalities and false camaraderie."
Comments
Once upon a time I bought a surplus IBM computer. Came as a desk sized machine. The HD was =huge= physically, 17 MB storage! Platters were about ~24 inches across (inside a clear plexiglass cover), the drive motor was the size of a washing machine unit. It ran on 220 volts and when turned on sounded like a turbojet winding up.
Ah... I was a somewhat poor Army Staff Sergeant serving in Italy. Still, it was really difficult to justify the ~$100 for the kit.
Or if you remember computers called AST or ALR or Basic4. Or the one year wonder, Hyundai computer. We had a contest at at store that I worked at in Atlanta, Soft Warehouse before becoming CompUSA,that had a Hyundai car filled filled with mice, (the computer kind), and the person guessing the quantity won a new computer.
Leading Edge was mentioned. How about Packard Bell?
Any one except me actually met Dennis Hayes. Good man.
Sold my Altair 10 years ago on ebay.They were getting a lot of money then. Miss it.
-Phil
-Phil
You are really old if you programed in Fortran on punched cards.
You are really old if you spell Disc instead of Disk.
You are really old if you used a Univac 1004 Printer.
You are really old if you had to enter the mainframe bootstrap on toggle switches before the next program was read on punched paper tape from an ASR33 which then read the real program from punched cards from the 1004, and it used magnetic drums for storage.
You are really old if you remember the announcement (not availability) of the first UART in a single 40 pin ceramic package. Previoius UARTs were separate receivers and transmitters in 24 pin ceramic packages. These preceeded microprocessors!
You are really old if you can recall the release of the Intel 4004 and 8008.
You are really old if you know what an Intel 1702 is.
You are really old if your first computer was the length of your garage (Singer System Ten 1975 minicomputer bought in 1977 and working until 2000).
You are really old if you ever did head adjustments to disc drives that were the size of washing machines with an amazing storage of 10MB.
You are really old if the first commercial (mini) computer you really worked on typically only had 20K (of 6 bits) core memory and a single 10MB disc drive.
You are really old if you bought rejected 7400 series gates from a company in the UK that sold them cheap (like $2 for a faulty 7400).
You are really old if you started work before LEDs were made (and had to change lillyput globes).
You are even older if you can only remember some of these!!!
Sperry/Univac 1100/80 - released in 1979
To a 20 year old kid who grew up on Altairs and other such collections of lights and switches, this was HEAVEN!! Plus, it was a TRUE multiprocessor from its early ancestors on!!
The UNIVAC 1108 was the second member of Sperry Univac's UNIVAC 1100 series of computers, introduced in 1964. It was the first multiprocessor machine in the series, capable of expansion to three CPUs and two IOCs (Input/Output Control Units). To support this, it had up to 262144 words of eight-ported main memory: separate instruction and data paths for each CPU, and one path for each IOC. The memory was organized in physical banks of 65536 words, with separate odd and even ports in each bank. The instruction set was very similar to that of the 1107, but included some additional instructions, including the "Test and Set" instruction for multiprocessor synchronization. Some models of the 1108 implemented the ability to divide words into 4 – 9-bit bytes, allowing use of ASCII characters.
Forgive me, I'm getting a bit teary eyed......
Rick
-Phil
Sometimes older tech has some merits. In general, I like how accessable it is today. Then, it may have been difficult, often was, but now with our ability to archive, look back and play, it's particularly entertaining.
As Steve Jobs once said, never trust a computer you can't pick up.
Forrest
On a more important note to anyone doing late night work on an 1100/80, there was a spot or two you could put a bottle of pop in where it kept cold and a few spots where you could put a pizza box to warm it back up.....or so I had heard......
Happy hour was 6-10 p.m. and on a good night you could run your program 3 times.
You remember watching grad students BEAM WITH JOY as they taught their to use an IBM 029 card punch. And you were jealous because you had to type your own.
You were impressed in 1963 by an IBM 1401 (16KB max)
John Abshier
Had a banner on your dorm room with your name in dots on a paper tape.
Remember the start up switch sequence on a PDP-11
Really did get to laugh at the freshman who believed you when you told him his program would not compile unless every tenth punch card was red.
Aligned a 10" floppy disk drive with a greeney and a scope.
Still think the Model100 was one of the greatest machines ever designed (and have 5 of them in the garage in a box).
Complained about how expensive thermal paper was.
Put wire ties around the logic chips in your Apple 3.
Fell asleep to the warm glow red LEDs on your HP-48.
Revelled in the power of your HP calculator and looked with pity on the poor fools that could not get RPN.
Finally,,,
If you had a few beers then went to the lab to entertain your girlfriend with a color monitor and a degauseing ring.
you might be an old geek...
Great Thread!
I competed in several city-wide UI calculator contests back in '76-'77. The "HP" kids looked down on us poor "TI" kids. After all, their calculators cost far more, so they must have been superior, right?
So how come I won 4 times (tying an HP user once) with my SR-51A?
(Yes, we were jealous... we all dreamed of having HP's)
And I will admit that HP's quality was far superior to TI's.
Walter
When I got an academic scholarship that comfortably covered my college tuition and books with a bit left over, I spent the bit left over on a HP11C. I was quite upset when that calculator finally died after close to 20 years that HP no longer made it or anything remotely similar.
It cost $135 in 1981 and was the low-cost alternative to the HP41. I loved that calculator, and there are good simulations available but somehow using a mouse or touchscreen to operate an emulation just isn't the same as the real thing.
And I wasn't snobbish about it; I used a TI-35 for years before getting the HP. It was very noticeable that you could grab the ends of the TI and twist it quite easily, but when you did the same thing to the HP with the same amount of force it deflected about as much as a ceramic tile would.
It was nice to have an effectively "can I borrow your calculator" proof calc. I learned to answer that question "sure, no problem," knowing that it would quickly be handed back after the answer to the question "Dude, where's the equals key?"
all your test equipment have vaccum tubes, along with your tv and stereo
a bridge rectifier as big as a shoe box (selenium rectifiers)
your transistors came in big metal cans
your computer was a bunch of cards in a rack mount
You had ASCII printouts of semi-nudes (or otherwise) hanging on your wall...
You've ever used tape to make a loop of your punch-tape to reprint the same form letter over and over.
If you know what "sys 64738" was for...
Or if you've ever used LOAD"Program Name",8: (SHIFT)(RUN/STOP)
OBC
SYS 64738 seemed so familiar but I had to Google it before I remembered my C64 days...
A blast from the past...
http://www.atariage.com/overlay_page.html?SystemID=2600&SoftwareID=852&ItemTypeID=OVERLAY
http://www.pcmuseum.ca/details.asp?id=36232&type=software
WoW!
6502 asm looks like it would be pretty simple to use
but programming in asm at 11 is really something special!
You were a geek prodigy :-)
I had help from my dad .... He was a pioneer in the Engineering field as well ... he worked for Occidental Petroleum in their IT security and communications. Several communication and security standards used today came out of that Corporation team.
What a super cool father for a young geeky boy to have :-)
I read Steve Wozniak's biography and his dad was also just
perfect for a budding genius like him...a wonderful
accident or maybe it is just that the genetics works to produce this
fortuitous outcome.
I was an old geek when I spent my lunch times at work manually working out machine language for a Z80 CPU while I designed a terminal program to fit inside an EPROM that would reside in the memory hole of the TRS-80.
I was an old geek when I used the 128x72 graphics of the TRS-80 to draw porn pictures....
128x72 pixel porn?!
I'm trying to imagine stick figure porn...LoL
@Chuckz: You make it sound like what we do isn't fun! May I suggest:
"I think a geek is someone who finds more fun and reward in spending time on their hobby, learning and creating than going out with other people and wading through a social wasteland of banalities and false camaraderie."
Score one for the geeks!!
Rick