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Some Things We Are Reluctant To Change

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I knew it was a portable with all those wheels under it. :encouragement: PJ
 
HealeyRick said:
Still remember fighting with these as an engineering student. One mistake in the typing and the whole program was doomed:

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But you never had to worry about a head crash with these. Still have a deck of them at home left over from nearly 40 years ago, just as a reminder..

And speaking of vacuum tubes, I don't go back quite as far as that, but did learn basic programming of an analog system, plugging cables into different ports to do different calculations.
 
When all you die, the amount of oil we're going to get back won't be much :glee:
 
pdplot said:
My desktop is about 10 years old, uses Windows XP and locks up when surfing Youtube - a major PITA. Time to buy another one. This was a Dell. Don't know whether to get another desktop, all-in-one or a laptop. I hate to have to dispose of a perfectly good Dell 17" monitor. Trouble is best Buy only carries laptops in store. Any suggestions?
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I haven't liked windows operating systems since XP
 
My first computer class was for ALGOL. When the class was over, they told us it was being discontinued. then I moved on to punch cards.
 
I loved ALGOL at one time. It had a lot of beautiful and elegant features, particularly structural. Even wrote a compiler for it on a national time sharing computer under contract to NASA. It was used to develop the environment for the shuttle. They didn't like the unstructured nature of Fortran. Gee, that goes back a long way.
 
View attachment 40306

OK you history fans - who is the man reading the tape on the right side of the photo?

Bonus points if you know what purpose the tape served!
 
NutmegCT said:
OK you history fans - who is the man reading the tape on the right side of the photo?

Bonus points if you know what purpose the tape served!
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Not sure who he is. Looks a little like Alan Turing, but I don't think so. The computer is the Harwell Dekatron (aka WITCH) which was recently (last few years) restored in the UK to become the oldest functioning computer in the world. The tape is used to program the computer.
 
Basil said:
Not sure who he is. Looks a little like Alan Turing, but I don't think so. The computer is the Harwell Dekatron (aka WITCH) which was recently (last few years) restored in the UK to become the oldest functioning computer in the world. The tape is used to program the computer.
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awinner1.jpg


The Harwell Dekatron (WITCH) it is!

https://www.computerconservationsociety.org/witch.htm

https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-20395212

The two gentlemen are (l) Peter Burden and (r) Frank Hawley.

And the tape indeed holds code for the programming. Other tapes held input data.

And a tip of the Hatlo Hat to you!

hatlo-hat.jpg
 
Wow. We're admitting our age. One of my pals, a Lotus Europa and F-A SCCA guy, sold THESE and we thought we were hot stuff when we could telnet into his mainframe and play a spaceship game remotely on an IBM 5100 on his kitchen table.

...anybody wanna buy a Zylog Z80 processor and manuals, NIB?

And Paul, haven't you come over to the Dark Side?

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nearly 40 years after starting I'm still a MF guy. Wouldn't hardly recognize it as the same type platform if I hadn't lived through it. From punch cards and green bar paper to the Z13 processor we're running now. Skill is going out of it as so much happens in the background to rewrite what you program that tuning by the application writer is becoming irrelevant.
 
I keep a small deck of punchcards and a few k's worth of data on z-fold paper tape in my collection along some 8", 5.25" and 3.5" floppys. I keep them around to remind me of the volatility of our information.

I thought I had a couple of mag tape reels buried in my mom's garage but I haven't found them.

If anybody wants a MicroProfessor MPF-I/88, in the box with all manuals, it's yours for free. Awesome stuff, full QWERTY keyboard, two line display, even. I need more space in the garage for carburetors.

multitech_mpf1-88_2s.jpg
 
Mike said:
Skill is going out of it as so much happens in the background to rewrite what you program that tuning by the application writer is becoming irrelevant.
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Boy, ain't THAT th' truth. The 'script-kiddies' are real beneficiaries. Scary stuff!

PC said:
I need more space in the garage for carburetors.
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AMEN!! I gotta call my local "recycler" to come and remove all the dead carcasses of laptops and desktops, power supplies, old video, sound and NIC cards. It's a mountain of yestertech. I want my garage back!
 
DrEntropy said:
Wow. We're admitting our age. One of my pals, a Lotus Europa and F-A SCCA guy, sold THESE and we thought we were hot stuff when we could telnet into his mainframe and play a spaceship game remotely on an IBM 5100 on his kitchen table.

...anybody wanna buy a Zylog Z80 processor and manuals, NIB?

And Paul, haven't you come over to the Dark Side?

View attachment 40334
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Yes Doc, I have two computers where the little penguin lives! I also have one with W-7 which works pretty good and I play with it on occasion, but Mr. Gates and his crew tick me off at times trying to shove things I don't want at me and I shut it down for a time. So far my favorite OP system is Mint 17.3, which I just upgraded to last week. It's so nice not having someone taking over the machine with programs I don't want or need, but at the same time if I want to run one of MS programs I can. AND it's much faster! :encouragement: PJ
 
Anybody remember 8-level punched paper tape? I went through cartons of that stuff. It was the only (at that time) interface between my terminal and the output unit.
 
The first machine I had with a hard drive was a tower type with a 15 inch monitor that weighed about the same as the computer. It was one of those off the wall brands, but it had a big hard drive of 160 Meg! I was in tall cotton for a while. Had a 5.5 inch floppy drive and one of the new 3.5 jobs. I replaced the HD with a much bigger one of 300 Meg. It was an expensive computer at the time, I think it cost around 600 bucks. Oh yeah, the HD was compressed to except Windows 3.1. How far we have come in a short period of time. :highly_amused:
 
Gliderman8 said:
Anybody remember 8-level punched paper tape? I went through cartons of that stuff. It was the only (at that time) interface between my terminal and the output unit.
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Interesting thing about punched paper tape. On the Bletchley Park Cyclops (WW2), the tape served as memory. The "length" of the tape determined the total storage (similar to RAM).
 
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