end of an era

[k0ua]

From the top of my head without looking it up I think ASCII means American Standard Code for Information Interchange.

An older 5 level code is called Baudot.. do you have any idea what or who that was named after? or what it means?

 

[dave1949]

If you don't know what "9-edge face down" means, you don't know. . . . If you never walked into a computer room and had to scream over the sound of blower fans and line printers, you don't know. . . All the sciences used Fortran (FORmula TRANslation) , but COBOL (COmmon Business Oriented Language) was the language that built business. Anyone know what the acronym ASCII stands for off the top of your head? I just say that I'm old enough to know all those things and remember the time when you really needed to know them to do anything with computers. Today, you just touch the screen and drag icons around to do work. We've gone from being pencil pushers to picture pushers.

BTW: Remember serial port printers? I talking about the old serial ports. In some ways, the printers have come full circle from serial to parallel and back to serial (USB) again. However, I love my wireless (WIFI) printer, an Epson Artisan 837. It has been very robust ever since I installed it. I guess you could really say we've come full circle from writing with a feather quill to inkjet printers that spray ink onto the page. All that laser stuff and toner mess was just a bump in the road.

Well, Fortran punch cards were made for "Talk like a Pirate Day" Arrgh! Turn in your deck, wait in the hallway, get the print-out back, repeat.

The wireless keyboard on our PC went bad the other day. The replacement (keyboard, mouse and little, tiny plug-in USB wireless (without wires too :laughing receiver) cost $20.

 

[rekees4300]

I remember punch cards and Fortran.

I love these trips down IT Memory Lane. Punch cards and COBOL were the bread & butter of my IT career and they enabled me to retired early. COBOL was the primary language for business applications. Used Fortran very little since it was mostly used for scientific applications. Lordy I must have punch millions of holes using IBM 029 card punch.

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[Soundguy]

Wow. I forgot all about Geos. You kinda dated your self with DOS and Geos. :laughing::laughing::laughing:

Later,
Dan

how about cpm.. all the feel of dos.. just older..

 

[Soundguy]

If you don't know what "9-edge face down" means, you don't know. . . . If you never walked into a computer room and had to scream over the sound of blower fans and line printers, you don't know. . . All the sciences used Fortran (FORmula TRANslation) , but COBOL (COmmon Business Oriented Language) was the language that built business. Anyone know what the acronym ASCII stands for off the top of your head? I just say that I'm old enough to know all those things and remember the time when you really needed to know them to do anything with computers. Today, you just touch the screen and drag icons around to do work. We've gone from being pencil pushers to picture pushers.

BTW: Remember serial port printers? I talking about the old serial ports. In some ways, the printers have come full circle from serial to parallel and back to serial (USB) again. However, I love my wireless (WIFI) printer, an Epson Artisan 837. It has been very robust ever since I installed it. I guess you could really say we've come full circle from writing with a feather quill to inkjet printers that spray ink onto the page. All that laser stuff and toner mess was just a bump in the road.

ascii is american standard code for information interchange ... But I think you knew that and were testing us. Remember the DMP10 printers.. and the early okidata color printers that used WAX ribbons!

 

[Soundguy]

I love these trips down IT Memory Lane. Punch cards and COBOL were the bread & butter of my IT career and they enabled me to retired early. COBOL was the primary language for business applications. Used Fortran very little since it was mostly used for scientific applications. Lordy I must have punch millions of holes using IBM 029 card punch.

View attachment 337590

I remember having to help a buddy that was a kash n Kary manager when they got a ibm 360.

My wife used to be a switchboard operator. back when they had the patchbays with cables you connected. ( true! )

 

[creekbend]

I'll be 29 on my next birthday!

My Daddy use to say, "You can go to H*LL for LYING, just as much as You can for STEALING.

 

[farmgirl19]

My Daddy use to say, "You can go to H*LL for LYING, just as much as You can for STEALING.

That's not a very nice thing to imply!

 

[flyerdan]

Remember the old PC XT's that had a lot of cast aluminum in them? Got three in a pallet of old computer stuff from the state surplus place many years ago. Still have these squirreled away in the shop, and they did power up.

 

[dave1949]

I love these trips down IT Memory Lane. Punch cards and COBOL were the bread & butter of my IT career and they enabled me to retired early. COBOL was the primary language for business applications. Used Fortran very little since it was mostly used for scientific applications. Lordy I must have punch millions of holes using IBM 029 card punch.

Do you recall the phrase "bit bucket?"

Punch cards were good for business all around. Readers and punches were at the end of their life cycles when I entered field service. I never had to deal with them, but I think they made more than a few house payments for those who did earlier. All things considered, it was a wonder they worked as well as they did. Some larger sites had multiple readers, mostly because if the reader was down, your "mainframe" was out of business. :laughing: