end of an era

[Soundguy]

at work today i just took our last 'parallel' printer offline.

Pretty much the last bit of 'legacy' hardware we were dealing with.

many years ago.. at least 6-7 or more, we got rid of our last serial device.

After that, we got rid of our last supported 3.5" floppy drive 2-3 ys ago.. it was a usb job anyway.. so technically it is still kicking around in a drawer.. but it has not been used in a couple years.. previous to that.. our last pc with a floppy was probably 6-7 ys ago...

For parallel ports.. as of last year, we had 3 devices.. an old PP scanner, and 2 printers still.

scanner went a year ago.. one of the other printers beginning of this year.. and as of today, right in the middle of payroll, the last parallel job went.. right in the middle of the check run too.

Our last laptop using PCMCIA cards went away 1 year ago. and we no longer even used a wired network.

end of an era.. kinda melodramatic..

 

[Egbert]

I can certainly relate, having been in the realm for 40 years.

I watched the very first computers roll in during the very early 70s. Before I left, there were many thousands of networked devices running on a 10 gig backbone and "N" wireless everywhere. Lots of change - Lots of challenges - "sometimes" lots of fun

 

[troutsqueezer]

Computers by their nature never stop evolving, as you know. You've pointed out some of the more obvious changes but under the hood, nothing lasts for long. Generally integrated components only last for one fab cycle. Tick Tock, as they say in the business.

The most obvious change for me is the transition to tablets for surfing the web. I'll never get rid of my main desktop systems for productivity but for just reading and checking email, it's much more efficient to use my Kindles/iPads.

 

[Soundguy]

and as the cherry on top. the new usb printer is fighting with our accounting software.

reports print fine.

general documents from word..e tc. prints fine.

but in the accounting software.. the checks don't print.. it just continously spits paper.

ARGH.. been holding for tech supt for over an hour now. ...

if the drum for the last parallel job didn't cost 225$ I'd order another one.... and get back to work..

 

[PhysAssist]

Computers by their nature never stop evolving, as you know. You've pointed out some of the more obvious changes but under the hood, nothing lasts for long. Generally integrated components only last for one fab cycle. Tick Tock, as they say in the business.

The most obvious change for me is the transition to tablets for surfing the web. I'll never get rid of my main desktop systems for productivity but for just reading and checking email, it's much more efficient to use my Kindles/iPads.

What he said, but I have to admit that because of having been a DOS guy, who was dragged to Windows kicking and screaming (I liked another interface that was less of a hog called Geos) I can get lost on my tablets without my keyboard shortcuts. At work where because of electronic medical records, I'm copying and pasting constantly.

Thanks for the heads-up on the end of that era, now how many of us have held onto printers etc. that have been upgraded past, but are more reliable or have a feature newer ones do not?

Thomas

 

[Soundguy]

I too was a dos guy. I still got a boxed copy of ver 1... I used cpm,.. various other bitty box OS's and pre 'PC' computers... everything from the sinclair to coco's slant 4's and some limited unix running boxes.. even a wang MF... pet even...

all ancient history..

 

[dragoneggs]

What about the Fortran card decks? Anyone remember those?

 

[brin]

The first computer we bought for our company was custom built...it had a , get this, 5 megabyte hard drive...and a floppy drive, we also bought some software and a dot matrix printer total price was ...$ 15,000.00 - the printer alone was $3,000.00+ & Yeah it was all DOS \ LOL

Just imagine the cost in today's dollars....that was 1983 or so...

 

[Soundguy]

The first computer we bought for our company was custom built...it had a , get this, 5 megabyte hard drive...and a floppy drive, we also bought some software and a dot matrix printer total price was ...$ 15,000.00 - the printer alone was $3,000.00+ & Yeah it was all DOS \ LOL

Just imagine the cost in today's dollars....that was 1983 or so...

i remember days like that. in 81 we got a pc at work.. NO HDD, 320k memory and basic on rom! dual floppy drive. no printer. 4 grand.

When I was in college.. they dropped fortran as a requirement a semester before i took it and instead i took microcomputer applications

First floppy drives I played with were them ? 8" dual jobs...

 

[stuckmotor]

It doesn't seem long ago that there were no video stores in our town. Then, they were all over the place. The last one closed last year and now, there are no video stores in our town.

 

[aczlan]

We have 2 left at work (dot matrix receipt and tractor feed printers on an A/B switch). Have another tractor feed printer (bought recently) which has a parallel port, but we use the network card to talk to it.

Aaron Z

 

[creekbend]

Technology is advancing at a rapid rate. A few months ago on the History Channel, it was stated that the Computer in the average cell phone today, is 5X more powerful than the Computers used by NASA during the Appolo 13 mission.

 

[MossRoad]

and as the cherry on top. the new usb printer is fighting with our accounting software.

reports print fine.

general documents from word..e tc. prints fine.

but in the accounting software.. the checks don't print.. it just continously spits paper.

ARGH.. been holding for tech supt for over an hour now. ...

if the drum for the last parallel job didn't cost 225$ I'd order another one.... and get back to work..

Just curious, what's the make and model of printer?

 

[MossRoad]

Technology is advancing at a rapid rate. A few months ago on the History Channel, it was stated that the Computer in the average cell phone today, is 5X more powerful than the Computers used by NASA during the Appolo 13 mission.

Heck, 15 years ago they said a 4 function calculator that you could buy for $5 at the grocery store checkout was more powerful than the computers on the lunar landing module.

 

[creekbend]

Heck, 15 years ago they said a 4 function calculator that you could buy for $5 at the grocery store checkout was more powerful than the computers on the lunar landing module.

I am older than You, but I remember when a Slide Rule was used in our Physics Class. I also remember when the people that wanted to become office workers would take Tying and Shorthand classes. Buy, have times changed.

 

[4shorts]

Do you remember this computer?

The Writer Automaton

 

[newbury]

Since this thread seems to be a trip down memory lane -
I worked at IBM Burlington (Vermont) in 1970-72. My job was in the place they sliced the wafers into separate chips. I was there when they had a bunch of French researchers come in and the big excitement was that they were able to get THREE transistors on a chip. A few years before that the plant had a large section where the ladies strung magnets on wire for memory.
I've read they get a lot more transistors on a chip today

 

[Rayster]

What about the Fortran card decks? Anyone remember those?

Yes, I do and the disk platters after those. I do not miss that line of work at all (it was a thankless job).

 

[farmgirl19]

What about the Fortran card decks? Anyone remember those?

Yes! I have always stunk at typing, and the keypunch cards drove me insane. COBOL and Fortran were considered "cutting edge".

After reading your posting Soundguy, it makes me glad that I never bothered to learn some of that stuff! :laughing: I still loved my DOS 5.01 though. For some reason, DOS made sense to me, where looking for a desktop icon, never has.

My first PC was a 386, with 4 MB of memory, that I upgraded to 6 and 64 cache to make it "fast". It would probably still be faster than I am with a computer, if it still existed! :laughing:

What is replacing printers and scanners? Should I be getting another 4 in one to "save", so that I don't have to learn something new, before the "bugs" are all worked out?

 

[murphy1244]

Yes! I have always stunk at typing, and the keypunch cards drove me insane. COBOL and Fortran were considered "cutting edge".

After reading your posting Soundguy, it makes me glad that I never bothered to learn some of that stuff! :laughing: I still loved my DOS 5.01 though. For some reason, DOS made sense to me, where looking for a desktop icon, never has.

My first PC was a 386, with 4 MB of memory, that I upgraded to 6 and 64 cache to make it "fast". It would probably still be faster than I am with a computer, if it still existed! :laughing:

What is replacing printers and scanners? Should I be getting another 4 in one to "save", so that I don't have to learn something new, before the "bugs" are all worked out?

How old are you?