On Mon, 29 Oct 2007 20:42:40 -0400, Wayne.B
wrote:

On Mon, 29 Oct 2007 18:37:45 -0400, HK wrote:

Old Wayne sounds like those losing control IT managers of the mid 1980s
who were terrified by PCs because they meant that users could kind of do
things their way instead of his way.

Oh no, just because I managed large corporate systems, I never had
that mentality although there are certainly some who do. I've been
dabbling in home computers for a long time, well before the IBM PC,
MS/DOS, etc. My first was actually a DIY project using a board level
engineering prototype called the SC/MP. It was made by National
Advanced Systems back in the 70s and was programmed in hexadecimal
machine language via a keypad device. Those were the days. Of
course it didn't do much compared to what we now have. My first
"boxed" home computer was the Commodore VIC-20 which used an audio
cassette for input/output. It had a decent Basic compiler and could
do some useful things. Well before all of that I had a TI-59
programmable hand held with all the bells and whistles. It was an
amazing device in its day.

Oh man does that bring back memories.

When I was in high school, the Math Club used to work at the Sylvania
plant over in Danvers "programming" one of their computers - with
phone jacks of all things.

My first exposure to the mini-computer was a Digital Research CP/M
machine working with the IBM P/LM compiler. From there it was a few
home built computers that essentially did nothing more than play Lunar
Lander, Kingdom and Collassal Cave. Used to bootstrap the earlier
computers eventually moving the paper tape which I found at a ham flea
market.

Proably the most fun computer was the VIC-20 and when I upgraded to
the Commodore 64 I was in hog heaven - man, could I do some stuff with
that. It still runs.

Short Wave Sportfishing wrote:
On Mon, 29 Oct 2007 20:42:40 -0400, Wayne.B
wrote:

On Mon, 29 Oct 2007 18:37:45 -0400, HK wrote:

Old Wayne sounds like those losing control IT managers of the mid 1980s
who were terrified by PCs because they meant that users could kind of do
things their way instead of his way.
Oh no, just because I managed large corporate systems, I never had
that mentality although there are certainly some who do. I've been
dabbling in home computers for a long time, well before the IBM PC,
MS/DOS, etc. My first was actually a DIY project using a board level
engineering prototype called the SC/MP. It was made by National
Advanced Systems back in the 70s and was programmed in hexadecimal
machine language via a keypad device. Those were the days. Of
course it didn't do much compared to what we now have. My first
"boxed" home computer was the Commodore VIC-20 which used an audio
cassette for input/output. It had a decent Basic compiler and could
do some useful things. Well before all of that I had a TI-59
programmable hand held with all the bells and whistles. It was an
amazing device in its day.

Oh man does that bring back memories.

When I was in high school, the Math Club used to work at the Sylvania
plant over in Danvers "programming" one of their computers - with
phone jacks of all things.

My wife claims to be a mathlete when she was in high school. Alternate
for the It's Academic team too.

My first exposure to the mini-computer was a Digital Research CP/M
machine working with the IBM P/LM compiler. From there it was a few
home built computers that essentially did nothing more than play Lunar
Lander, Kingdom and Collassal Cave. Used to bootstrap the earlier
computers eventually moving the paper tape which I found at a ham flea
market.

I really liked programing in P/L M, P/L 1, P/L M86. Great languages.

Proably the most fun computer was the VIC-20 and when I upgraded to
the Commodore 64 I was in hog heaven - man, could I do some stuff with
that. It still runs.

You should donate it to a computer museum.

On Mon, 29 Oct 2007 22:08:15 -0400, BAR wrote:

Proably the most fun computer was the VIC-20 and when I upgraded to
the Commodore 64 I was in hog heaven - man, could I do some stuff with
that. It still runs.

You should donate it to a computer museum.

I would, but I have a problem with old pieces like this - I tend to
keep them.

Besides, you can't get video games like the ones that ran on the C-64
- in particular "Omega Race" which I still enjoy playing once in a
while. :)

There is a ham here in Woodstock who still has his packet node running
on a C-64.

I've got my packet node, weather station and KAM running on a old 486
machine which, for my money, was one of the best processors ever
designed. It's gone through one power supply, but still runs like a
champ. I don't think it's been turned off in ten years or so (power
interruptions excepted).

On Tue, 30 Oct 2007 01:29:17 GMT, Short Wave Sportfishing
wrote:

Proably the most fun computer was the VIC-20 and when I upgraded to
the Commodore 64 I was in hog heaven - man, could I do some stuff with
that. It still runs.

Yes, and it was a great glass teletype for logging onto Compuserve and
some of the early Bulletin Board systems. Those were the days. Look
how far we've come and how little has changed. :-) I once caught
something resembling a virus on the "64".

There used to be a company that offered a service close to universal
connectivity. You dialed into one number and from there you could
connect to a variety of different systems. Can't remember the name of
it but at the time it seemed like a great concept. Old stuff to those
on the old ARPANET I suppose.

Wayne.B wrote:
On Tue, 30 Oct 2007 01:29:17 GMT, Short Wave Sportfishing
wrote:

Proably the most fun computer was the VIC-20 and when I upgraded to
the Commodore 64 I was in hog heaven - man, could I do some stuff with
that. It still runs.

Yes, and it was a great glass teletype for logging onto Compuserve and
some of the early Bulletin Board systems. Those were the days. Look
how far we've come and how little has changed. :-) I once caught
something resembling a virus on the "64".

There used to be a company that offered a service close to universal
connectivity. You dialed into one number and from there you could
connect to a variety of different systems. Can't remember the name of
it but at the time it seemed like a great concept. Old stuff to those
on the old ARPANET I suppose.


I used to dial into the actual NSA from a phone number assigned to me as
an outside contractor. When we moved to North Florida, I was assigned a
phone number there. It was only good for email and some controlled
message boards, but it was kinda fun.

In the 1980s, I was a partner in a rather infamous dial up chat board
that started out with four incoming phone lines, grew to eight, then 16,
then 32. That was even more fun. This was 1984 or so, I think. Maybe a
year later.

On Mon, 29 Oct 2007 22:29:40 -0400, HK wrote:

I used to dial into the actual NSA

No Such Agency but they won't be amused.

"Wayne.B" wrote in message
...
On Tue, 30 Oct 2007 01:29:17 GMT, Short Wave Sportfishing
wrote:

Proably the most fun computer was the VIC-20 and when I upgraded to
the Commodore 64 I was in hog heaven - man, could I do some stuff with
that. It still runs.

Yes, and it was a great glass teletype for logging onto Compuserve and
some of the early Bulletin Board systems. Those were the days. Look
how far we've come and how little has changed. :-) I once caught
something resembling a virus on the "64".

There used to be a company that offered a service close to universal
connectivity. You dialed into one number and from there you could
connect to a variety of different systems. Can't remember the name of
it but at the time it seemed like a great concept. Old stuff to those
on the old ARPANET I suppose.

My first system was an NCR 315. 6 microsecond clock cycle. 10K decimal
memory. 12 bit machine. Mag cards and tape and paper tape an punch cards
input. Online bank system with 110 baud lease lines. When they first
demonstrated a 9600 baud modem and the 1966 Fall Joint Computer Conference
in San Francisco, we were stunned. First personal computer was a North Star
S100 computer. Then the first IBM PC was about 1982. A few versions of it
later and I still have a ROM Emulator that plugs into the XT Bus. Then
worked on a DEC 11/34 as the interface to a $250k laser printer that hooked
into an IBM 360 I/O Channel. Emulated an IBM 3800. The 370 had 8 megabytes
of memory. Designed disk controllers with Mote 6800 and then a 68000
processor. The early code was done on Tandy 68K running SCO Unix. Then
converted to SUN workstations. As my wife says the first computer I showed
her that I worked on filled a large room. And cost $150k in 1960 dollars.
Lots more power in my desktop $500 and my $1000 Dell laptop. Except for the
I/O channels.