Remember when...

[Sebastian Weetabix]

Early to mid ‘70s there was an electronics company called SouthWestTechnicalProducts based in Texas.
I built my first computer kit from them.
Motorola 6800 processor and a whopping 1k of ram.
When I ran my first computer program, it took nearly an hour to debug the code (something about a “get” command).
Those were the days!

 

[SEndorf]

Early to mid ‘70s there was an electronics company called SouthWestTechnicalProducts based in Texas.
I built my first computer kit from them.
Motorola 6800 processor and a whopping 1k of ram.
When I ran my first computer program, it took nearly an hour to debug the code (something about a “get” command).
Those were the days!

Nearly an hour ??
I remember days, approaching nervous breakdown, trying to find a space or comma in the wrong place.

This was college. COBOL on card readers. Admittedly I was not very good at it. I recall a lot of code bloat. I must have killed a forest working on one program.

 

[Sebastian Weetabix]

Oh hell no!
This was the original “Hello World” program!
It took longer to debug than it did to actually input.
But debugging was a point of pride.
And far too often the mistake was one of perception, not incompetence.

 

[passedpawn]

Oh hell no!
This was the original “Hello World” program!
It took longer to debug than it did to actually input.
But debugging was a point of pride.
And far too often the mistake was one of perception, not incompetence.

Yep, I went through the mainframe compiler / fanfold output times, the card entry (Hollerith cards) to mainframe to fanfold times, etc. I still write code daily for my work. Things have changed a bit since then, haha.

That guy Hollerith got the idea for the punch cards from the french, who used a similar card to program their automated looms. Hollerith made the cards the exact same size as the dollar bill (a bill was larger then than now). Hollerith became somewhat successful with this little invention - later, he renamed his company IBM .

 

[Sebastian Weetabix]

Yep, I went through the mainframe compiler / fanfold output times, the card entry (Hollerith cards) to mainframe to fanfold times, etc. I still write code daily for my work. Things have changed a bit since then, haha.

That guy Hollerith got the idea for the punch cards from the french, who used a similar card to program their automated looms. Hollerith made the cards the exact same size as the dollar bill (a bill was larger then than now). Hollerith became somewhat successful with this little invention - later, he renamed his company IBM .

And yet, he tried to get Steve Jobs to write the operating system for the new IBM home computer.
Jobs said he was too busy, but this kid he went to school with would probably do it for him. Kid named Billy Gates.
And Microsoft Windows GUI was born.

 

[bracconiere]

And Microsoft Windows GUI was born.

i thought it was MS-DOS, that was a ripoff of another DOS......my first computer had GeoWorks Ensemble pre loaded.....

 

[Sebastian Weetabix]

That ain’t DOS, the disc operating system.
That is the Graphical User Interface that Gates and Microsoft are best known for.

I could be wrong! I thought I was once way back when, but it turned out I was wrong!

 

[BruceH]

The story I remember is that IBM saw the future of computers in hardware. So some smart MBA types outsourced the dos to some kids named Bill Gates and Paul Allen to lower their costs.

 

[bracconiere]

remember when pkzip was still the archiver of choice?

 

[Sebastian Weetabix]

I am going to date myself now.

I still have my AOL email address for over twenty five years.
And I still use it!

That is SO WRONG on so many levels!

 

[doug293cz]

The story I remember is that IBM saw the future of computers in hardware. So some smart MBA types outsourced the dos to some kids named Bill Gates and Paul Allen to lower their costs.

It was more of a schedule issue. Time to market required they procure a pre-existing OS. They tried for CPM, but the owner's wife and head lawyer wouldn't sign the NDA, so IBM went looking elsewhere. They ended up at Microsoft who had bought (or would go out and buy after the deal) Q-DOS (Quick and Dirty Operating System) from Seattle Computer (IIRC). Q-DOS got rebranded as PC-DOS and MS-DOS. The smartest thing MS did was to license DOS to IBM rather than sell it outright. MS went on to shaft IBM on the OS2 joint development agreement by splitting off Windows as a separate product, and then forcing OS2 to become incompatible with Windows.

Brew on

 

[SEndorf]

You guys are way over my head.
I just remember slide rulers hanging off everyone's belt like a holster...….

 

[passedpawn]

remember when pkzip was still the archiver of choice?

Yep, Phil Katz. I actually paid for a floppy from him with pkzip on it.

 

[BruceH]

I remember when the 3.5" floppy was a big deal. It was smaller and had a hard case.

 

[ba-brewer]

I don't recall the source but I think the GUI made famous by apple and MS was someone else's idea. I want to say it was group at Xerox but it could of been somewhere else.

 

[passedpawn]

My first PC had no hard drive. DOS (3.x) booted from a floppy into RAM. Then you could pull it out and use the floppy to load your software. It was called a PC jr.

I don't recall the source but I think the GUI made famous by apple and MS was someone else's idea. I want to say it was group at Xerox but it could of been somewhere else.

Yea, I think it was Xerox. They also invented the mouse.

 

[doug293cz]

I remember when the 3.5" floppy was a big deal. It was smaller and had a hard case.

How about 8" floppies, or 14" single platter hard disk cartridges (for IBM 1130, etc.)?

Brew on

 

[bracconiere]

I don't recall the source but I think the GUI made famous by apple and MS was someone else's idea. I want to say it was group at Xerox but it could of been somewhere else.

don't forget the Amiga Workbench! and how you had to downgrade it to play games! i always hated that thing....

 

[bracconiere]

How about 8" floppies, or 14" single platter hard disk cartridges (for IBM 1130, etc.)?

Brew on

damn, you got me, yours is bigger then mine! lol

 

[doug293cz]

I don't recall the source but I think the GUI made famous by apple and MS was someone else's idea. I want to say it was group at Xerox but it could of been somewhere else.

Yep, Zerox PARC (Palo Alto Research Center) Jobs visited there, then implemented for Apple. Then Apple sued Microsoft for implementing a similar windowing system in Windows. PARC also invented the mouse.

Brew on

 

[BruceH]

How about 8" floppies, or 14" single platter hard disk cartridges (for IBM 1130, etc.)?

Brew on

I don't. I do remember taking a tour of data in our squadron (Communications, I worked on Weather Equipment) and seeing reel tape drives, it's been a long time.

 

[nobadays]

Anyone remember when weed had seeds?

Heck... Three, even four finger lids for $10 -$15... yeah lots of shake, seeds and stems but hey it worked!

 

[day_trippr]

You left out random dirt clods.

Now I'd pay a bit extra for a few seeds but everything I get is lab grown and cleaned and trimmed to an inch of its herbal life...

 

[BruceH]

Remember when it was just good planning to buy a months worth of groceries so you didn't have to go back for a month?

Now it's almost a crime and called hording. Why? Because we want to have a months worth of groceries so we don't have to go back for a month? New normal, lol.

 

[CodeSection]

Heck... Three, even four finger lids for $10 -$15... yeah lots of shake, seeds and stems but hey it worked!

Now you are showing your age.....recently I was talking to someone (much younger than I), that was describing what an ounce held in a plastic sandwich bag looked like. I said "oh you mean a three finger lid" and his answer was "what is a lid?"

 

[GrogNerd]

Anyone remember when weed had seeds? How about using an album cover to separate them? How about when Schlitz was the number 1 beer and it had Gusto?

Narcos: Mexico season 1 is all about the guys who introduced the world to "sin semilla"

senior year high school, english class assignment was to submit a song as a poem. I did Rush "The Trees" & the teacher wanted to hear the song, so I brought in the album.

I opened it to show her the lyrics and apparently forgotten I had used it to de-weed the seeds in a previous session. She said "don't worry about it" & when she returned the album, it was clean

not surprising, she was a flower child from the 60s & the absolute coolest teacher I ever had

 

[seatazzz]

Our first computer back in the early 80's was a Texas Instruments TI-99. No hard drive, just the cassette tape. Mom bought an RU486 thing to make it faster. I learned to program on that thing; I remember getting Byte magazine and looking for the programs they would include, and typing for what seemed like hours to make pretty patterns on the TV. Then we got an Apple IIc and thought we were hot sh*t. Those were fun days.

 

[CodeSection]

Our first computer back in the early 80's was a Texas Instruments TI-99. No hard drive, just the cassette tape. Mom bought an RU486 thing to make it faster. I learned to program on that thing; I remember getting Byte magazine and looking for the programs they would include, and typing for what seemed like hours to make pretty patterns on the TV. Then we got an Apple IIc and thought we were hot sh*t. Those were fun days.

For me, it was a TRS-80......started using it to produce and print out bills to customers.

 

[seatazzz]

For me, it was a TRS-80......started using it to produce and print out bills to customers.

Is it weird that I just saw you and I joined HBT on the same day but two years apart? I can't sleep.

 

[CodeSection]

Is it weird that I just saw you and I joined HBT on the same day but two years apart? I can't sleep.

Yes, interesting fact! I have a strange schedule compared to most. This is just my routine.