Old Computer Geeks

Anyone out there remember Tron? And if so, did you laugh during the movie while most folks looked at you? Well, that was over 2 decades ago.

Here's something the younger computer geeks should enjoy.

[ame="http://www.collegehumor.com/video:1788161"]24, the 1994 Unaired Pilot[/ame].

I was too young when Tron came out to know better, but I was absolutely appalled at Hackers, Independence Day, and Swordfish. At least The Matrix used some actual *nix commands in the opening.

Married w/1 child when I got hooked on Atari Space Invaders

How's that for a stab from the past!

I had Atari also...

Orfy: I wasn't sure if you were looking for "Old" computer geeks or "old computer" geeks...

I just took my Nintendo-0001 out of the closet and hooked it up...Mario Bros and Duck Hunter here I come...

I had pong and breakout first. I thought Atari was the greatest thing EVER when it came out

Bunch of kids . . . How 'bout Zork on a Trash80 and Commodore 64.

The Atari 2600 was like the 2nd coming.

Chad

My pong set had the flipper type controller rather than the dial type. It had FOUR different pong type games and you could control the ball speed AND paddle size.

I first started programming in Fortran on an IBM mainframe using punch cards! I still have nightmares about dropping stacks of a thousand plus cards!

Trash 80's and basic were a quantum leap!

Zork was da bomb for its time!

I'm a bit of a computer geek myself but I don't have too much of a problem with most of the errors in movies like Tron, Swordfish, hackers and the like.

You see, the subject matter is complicated and there's a limited amount of time to convey the subject during a movie, especially one where the purpose is primarily entertainment. The kinds of erroneous information found in movies is the natural result of boiling down a compliciated subject to a sound bite.

It's liek a lot of things in movies-- it isn't real and often it isn't even possible they way they portray it. What 'it' is doesn't matter. 'It' could be a car chase, a tactical room entry, a police proceedure, a legal precedent, a loving relationship. The movies takes some liberties in making a subject seem exciting and look interesting if they didn't most movies woudl be drab, boring affairs that no one wants to see.

Chad said:

Bunch of kids . . . How 'bout Zork on a Trash80 and Commodore 64.

Click to expand...

I have the whole infocom series for PC.

You want to see some horrendous onscreen *nix? Watch Jurassic Park. That was horrible. I prefer using a GUI when I can, but even I know just random made up command line when I see/hear it.

pldoolittle said:

I have the whole infocom series for PC.

Click to expand...

<sigh> I used to love the Infoccom games, in part due to the extras they woud include in the boxes. Neat stuff.

A Mind Forever Voyaging, though a commercial flop, always sticks in my mind as a truly radical experiment in gaming.

Chad

kappclark said:

Married w/1 child when I got hooked on Atari Space Invaders

How's that for a stab from the past!

Click to expand...

ma2brew said:

You want to see some horrendous onscreen *nix? Watch Jurassic Park. That was horrible.

Click to expand...

Yeah, but it made enough sense for that little girl. She was all like "I'm in ur *NIX releasin ur dinoz!"

That video was freaking hilarious.

Ah the Glory days of Tandy TRS-80 "CoCo's" with their cassette tape storage, plugged into the tv monitor and program your self basic games (unless you could find the handful of cartridged programs available), I remember mine had 8 k of RAM..... ahh, it was so much simpler then.

Then after short haitus with an Amiga 500, and the every-one-had-one Atari 2600.....

......I upgraded to my Zenith Data Systems AT compatible 'puter with a lightning quick 20 mhz processor an upgraded 640Kb ISA Memory card, for a whopping 1.2 Mb of RAM, VGA graphics, 20 Mb harddrive 5.25 floppy (1.2 Mb of course) and a AdLib sound card. It could burn through Wing Commander, Ultima VI, Duke Nukem and Castle Wolfenstein like a somewhat warm butter knife. Lurking around UseNet and Compuserve was wicked fast on its 14.4 baud external modem. Of course being the power user I was I dumped a small fortune on MS-DOS 4.01, Windows was for the weak.

Anybody remember the Odyssey game system? When I was a 10 or so, this kid on the next street over had one, it was the envy of the whole neighborhood.

Magnavox Odyssey

Anyone remember CP/M ? How about Applesoft or Integer Basic ?

I was a CoCo kid growing up, typing in programs by hand from Rainbow magazine.... it actually was great for me, taught me algebra basics when I was in like second or third grade.

Anyone who wants a blast from the past.... http://members.cox.net/javacoco/

I can't even remember what year it was (it would have been early-mid 80's), but the first 'computer' I had was from Radio Shack. No hard drive, no floppy, just a cassette deck and a monochrome monitor.

I never had much of an opportunity to work with Unix until about 5 years or so ago, but I've been working in the IBM mid-range world for about 15 years now - S/34, S/36, AS/400. I'm mostly a windows/sql/exchange/cisco geek now, but I still have IBM midrange systems that I'm responsible for maintaining.

Ah, Tron. That was hilarious/awesome, at the same time.

My first comp was also a Radioshack Trash-80 -- missed the punch card era for sure. Man, that thing was awesome. I spent way too long playing w/ Basic. Damn tape drive never worked worth a damn.

I still have the CoCo 3 (and I think the CoCo 2) at my folk's house, my mother bugs me to take them with me every time I'm up there! Wonder if I could still get those programs off the tape drive.......

My buddy had a CoCo and I had a VIC20. We used to argue about which was best.

My first 'real' computer was a TRS80 located at the local hobby shop. I rented time by the hour ($5.00/hr IIRC).

rdwj said:

I had pong and breakout first. I thought Atari was the greatest thing EVER when it came out

Click to expand...

For those of us that were kids and got your Atari gratis, here's something to thank your parents for:

Atari retail in 1977: $199.00 That's equal to $677.45 today.

Carts: $20-40 That's equal to $68-136 today.
I had about 20-30 carts, or $1400- $4000 worth of games.

So, how many of us are out there dropping $700 for a game system and $2000 for games? Not me.

My mom is getting a very belated thank you letter today....

"It's fiction, people." Although there are times when I'll stop reading a story because the author is so far off as to be ridiculous.

My first computer: 48KB of hand-soldered 2K-bit DIPS.

I actually used a TRS-80 CoCo 2 (bought in 1983) until 1992 for word processing. Which it was horrible at, by the way. Used Scripsit II... it really sucked donkey balls.

And saving and loading stuff to and from freaking audio tapes was just an exercise in pain. It worked correctly maybe 10% of the time.

ED....Hats off to you....that was highlareous!

Ah. The good old days. I started programming on a Commador Pet computer in Jr. High. The first one I owned was a TI/99-4a in 84. It had a whopping 27k. Woo Hoo! My dad programed for the military in the 50's using punch cards. I don't know what language he used.

Punch cards FORTRAN, Assembley or PL/I

No games, X-ray diffraction and simultaneous equations.

Pong at the U sandwich shop

(1971)