Let's Talk With Bill G Awhile

[Bill G]

By young, you mean just under 60, right? Lol

Well then you grew up in the era of the real Honda Odyssey. You made sure you strapped your hands to the semi square steering wheel because it was not if...it was when you rolled it you did not want your arms to go flailing

 

[Bill G]

My first computer was Windows 3.1.

Mine was a VIC 20. It was attached to a 13 inch Gold Star black and white TV. I think the computer itself (really just a keyboard) was $100. I wanted a printer but that was another $150. I did not want to spend that. That was in 1983 or 1984 and I bought it from a local place that was making good money selling and installing the big satellite TV dishes but was just getting into selling computers. The TV came from the Pamida store and I believe it was on sale for $69.99. I later added a cassette tape storage drive for another $60 or so. Back in those days that was a poo lot of money invested in a system that did nothing.

Not mine but you get the idea.

 

[hacskaroly]

I later added a cassette tape storage drive for another $60 or so.

In the middle of playing a game, it would freeze and you would have to flip the cassette over to continue the game....what a pain!!

 

[MS261CM]

First computer? I'll play!
DEC PDP8/E. Ok, it belonged to my high school. A couple of us programmed it to play tic-tac-toe in some ancient version of Basic. About 400 millimips I think.

The bootloader was loaded manually with front panel switches. Enter 12 bit binary word, enter a memory address on another switch row, toggle a write switch, rinse & repeat until fingers are tired. Hope you didn't make any mistakes.

Next an interpreter or compiler was added via punched paper tape. Tick-tick-tick...

Then you could toggle a few more switches and load your program via punched paper tape. More tick-tick-tick...

Then you could play tic-tac-toe. The computer always won or tied because you were exhausted at this point.

In college I moved on to a CDC3300 and Fortran. Storage was punch card decks. 800 millimips I think!

This message was sent from my Eniac

 

[Duce]

Commadore 64 was the Jam!

 

[MS261CM]

Commadore 64 was the Jam!

You guys and your flashy new machines...

Edit: Sig would have been here but another damn tube went ouuuu.........oitnv ;oybky A,

 

[Lnk]

Mine was a VIC 20. It was attached to a 13 inch Gold Star black and white TV. I think the computer itself (really just a keyboard) was $100. I wanted a printer but that was another $150. I did not want to spend that. That was in 1983 or 1984 and I bought it from a local place that was making good money selling and installing the big satellite TV dishes but was just getting into selling computers. The TV came from the Pamida store and I believe it was on sale for $69.99. I later added a cassette tape storage drive for another $60 or so. Back in those days that was a poo lot of money invested in a system that did nothing.

Not mine but you get the idea.

View attachment 422130

Way more advanced than my Tandy color computer. Cassette tape for loading a text base program. Learned a little basic, would have learned more if the internet had been around to look stuff up.

 

[Bill G]

In the middle of playing a game, it would freeze and you would have to flip the cassette over to continue the game....what a pain!!

I never played games heck that was what the Atari 2600 was for
I was trying to type papers but I failed miserably at it.
As for tapes I used discount cassettes from Radio Shack while rich folks used Memorex

Who remembers this.........Is it live or is it Memorex.......

 

[Partner]

I am not familiar with that car but here is a solution.

Ask Tom Hanks they sent him this wheelie.

 

[Partner]

After the cassette, this floppy disk was a hit 5.25"

 

[Partner]

Industrial 12" computer cassette

 

[Bill G]

After the cassette, this floppy disk was a hit 5.25"

Yes I had those......640K


Then the advancement...... 1.3mb

 

[Bill G]

Next ...........the short lived Iomega...

 

[MS261CM]

Try doing this in a Fiat 126

Or a '65 MG Midget. Where there's a will...

 

[MS261CM]

I held off quite a while before I owned any sort of computer. There was always something at work but I waited for home hardware to get cheap. I think my first machine was some home brew closeout 8086 MB and two big bad 360k floppies. Too long ago to fully remember. Low rez monochrome orange crt monitor of course.

I'm retired with plenty of time to waste so I did have a bit of fun researching early computing hardware. "Computer" was originally a job description, referring to those rows of slide-rule clad soldier wives in large buildings calculating bullet trajectories. Distributed processing for sure.

Eniac is sometimes referred to as the first electronic computer but it didn't have anything to do with currently accepted computer architecture. That seemed to be developed later in the UK. In modern day terms Eniac would be considered a very small, slow and weak FPGA. It worked in base 10 instead of binary because that is what those other rows of "computers" did. Hundreds of kW worth on vacuum tube based base 10 shift registers, adjustable clocks, analog integrators and a bit of A-D mixed in. It appeared to process only small portions of a task at a time, needing to be "re-programmed" with telephone patch cords before the next segment. Much like those other rows of "computers". It seemed to be half modeled after the "computor" job description. It likely was also modeled after mechanical adding machines of the era and their base 10 shift registers.

This message was sent from my Enixxxxxxxxx oh damn there goes another tubk61tdiyo.....lgf

 

[Partner]

Or a '65 MG Midget. Where there's a will...

Hanks can take 3 people with him on a trip around the USA

 

[Partner]

See this one

 

[Partner]

Commadore 64 was the Jam!

And its competitor Atari

 

[LAWN BOY]

See this one

I actually saw one of those cars in person a couple weeks ago. BMW Isetta, it was in a trailer behind a Chevy Suburban.

 

[jblnut]

After the cassette, this floppy disk was a hit 5.25"

I spent aloooooooooooot of hours playing Oregon Trail off a 5.25” floppy