2555 HST Cab Jeep rocker switches....

[dickfoster]

My computer history more or less but not totally inclusive or up to date by any stretch.
1st

Then came these
still got a couple around somewhere.
then this
I thought I'd died and gone to heaven after having to use these things.

then there was this thing for a bit it was pure torture to load.
Then one of these
Yeah my finger still remember some of the contorted wordstar commands. Cntl KB, cntl KV etc.
The rest has been the PC litany form the first days. . I've designed logic analyzers around PCs, those had 256K ram with all the programming done in assembly code and some other pretty fancy test equipment too. People would ***** because their workers would be caught playing games on the equipment. LOL I used to think that 1 gig hard drives were the ultimate but now we're into terabytes and still going strong for hard drives. Heck little cheapie thumb drives have way more capacity that a gig on a chip now. Bubble memory anyone? Now there was a flash in the pan.

 

[dickfoster]

Just a bunch of old Geezer's reminiscing......

That's curmudgeon to you.

 

[oldpilgrim]

try programming on of these using DIP switches only. The DEC PDP8:

My first RS Color Computer had 4k ram.

My first Sinclair had 1k ram.

Sorry OP. You opened a can of old worms for us old pharts.

 

[Industrial Toys]

I used to love the smell of the oil on the paper tape, used to load programs onto some early micro.

Or pornography printed on an ASR 33 or LA 36 Decwriter.

 

[JerryK]

The best part of the **** on the TTY's was that you got to look at it for the whole time it was going chunk-chunk-chunk and try to figure out what it was going to turn out to be...

 

[Industrial Toys]

I used to have an ASR 33 with acoustic modem on a time share account. The neighbors kid used to come over and play hours of Star Trek, paying me for the computer time. The people in the apartment below must have wondered.

 

[JerryK]

I liked the way you had to manually key in the boot program on the PDP-8's so it would load the first paper tape. When you were working on something that was having problems and had to power down, you were constantly manually keying in [ remember, flip the keys real quick to the address, press address load key, flip the keys real quick to enter the data then lift the load key, etc.. holding your little frayed DEC book that contained the little program you had to enter up in upper memory, way up near 7777octal... trying not to do it by memory so you would not mess it up THIS TIME in your haste.. ?? ] the boot program, loading the first tape so the POS could read the program tape in... usually in the middle of the night. Key in the start address, check the program you just keyed in, rekey in the start address, load the boot tape into the teletype reader, press start key... clunk, clunk, clunk.... Teletype reader questionable, boot tape questionable, program tape seen it's better days, rinse and repeat..... About as bad as the first home computers with loading/storing programs on cassette tapes.... It's a wonder I still have hair.....

" ______ boys rape our young girls but violet gives willingly "

" I don't know, but I've been told... Eskimo ____ is mighty cold.. sound off, three four... One two three four.... one two, THREE FOUR ... Your left, your left right... your left, your left right.... "

Now is the time for all good men to come to the aid of their country...

The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dogs back 1234567890 times..
he quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dogs back 1234567890 times.. T
e quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dogs back 1234567890 times.. Th
_quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dogs back 1234567890 times.. The
quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dogs back 1234567890 times.. The
uick brown fox jumped over the lazy dogs back 1234567890 times.. The q
ick brown fox jumped over the lazy dogs back 1234567890 times.. The qu
ck brown fox jumped ......... [ chunk, chunk, chunk... ] .................................. memories... long ago...

 

[Industrial Toys]

Amazing how turning our calculators upside down to spell "Shell Oil" could make us smile back then.

 

[JerryK]

I don't know what's worse... Typing the same stories over and over again, not remembering that you have posted it before, or being TOO OLD TO CARE... !!!!

 

[JT42]

You young whippersnappers loading yer zeros and ones into your fancy computin' devices. Why, back in my day we had to chisel our bits in stone! And we didn't have no slick zeros and ones -- We had to use O's and I's!