YKYGOW...
Charles Richmond
>
> [snip...] [snip...] [snip...]
>
> You know you're getting old when all the people you looked up to
> and admired in your youth are dead.
>
You know you're getting old when (YKYGOW)...
A coin made in the year you were born...has all the details
almost completely worn off of it...
The memory card for a $100 computer game unit has *four*
times the memory of the first mega-dollar *mainframe*
computer you used...
You remember when audio recordings had *grooves* instead of
pits to be read by a laser...
Your first TV set had the horizontal and vertical hold adjustments
in an easily-accessable place...
You remember when it was called a "transistor radio" instead of
just a radio...
--
+-------------------------------------------------------------+
| Charles and Francis Richmond <rich...@plano.net> |
+-------------------------------------------------------------+
Alan J. Wylie
> You remember when it was called a "transistor radio" instead of just
> a radio...
YRW it was called a "wireless" and glowed in the dark.
--
Alan J. Wylie http://www.glaramara.freeserve.co.uk/
"Perfection [in design] is achieved not when there is nothing left to add,
but rather when there is nothing left to take away."
Antoine de Saint-Exupery
Michael Roach
In article <wgae1i4...@nospam.glaramara.freeserve.co.uk>,
Alan J. Wylie <alan....@glaramara.freeserve.co.uk> wrote:
>On Thu, 02 Aug 2001 13:26:30 -0700, Charles Richmond <rich...@ev1.net> said:
>
>> You remember when it was called a "transistor radio" instead of just
>> a radio...
What was it called before there were transistors?
>YRW it was called a "wireless" and glowed in the dark.
Hey, that's my cellphone!
--
If I don't see you in the future, I'll see you in the pasture.
Dr Ivan D. Reid
>jchausler wrote:
>> [snip...] [snip...] [snip...]
>> You know you're getting old when all the people you looked up to
>> and admired in your youth are dead.
>You know you're getting old when (YKYGOW)...
>A coin made in the year you were born...has all the details
>almost completely worn off of it...
Found such a 20 Rp piece in Switzerland the other day, but not worn.
Looked almost exactly like a modern one, except for a slightly different
patina and its being rejected by the Coke machine, both due to its silver
content I believe.
>The memory card for a $100 computer game unit has *four*
>times the memory of the first mega-dollar *mainframe*
>computer you used...
How much core did a 360/50 have? We just submitted cards...
>You remember when audio recordings had *grooves* instead of
>pits to be read by a laser...
...and they were just hill-'n'-dale rather than variations in
two orthogonal directions. Extra points if you remember cactus spines
or bamboo meedles.
>Your first TV set had the horizontal and vertical hold adjustments
>in an easily-accessable place...
...and was black-and-white!
>You remember when it was called a "transistor radio" instead of
>just a radio...
You used to send a 12V lead-acid accumulator into town once a
month to be charged up to run your valve radio, and your telephone was
powered by _very_ large 1.5V carbon-zinc batteries.
--
Ivan Reid, Physics & Astronomy, University College London. i...@hep.ucl.ac.uk
GSX600F, RG250WD. "You Porsche. Me pass!" DoD #484 JKLO# 003, 005
WP7# 3000 LC Unit #2368 (tinlc) UKMC#00009 BOTAFOT#16 UKRMMA#7 (Hon)
KotPT -- "for stupidity above and beyond the call of duty".
J. Steven York
cassettes.
Adding a serial port to your computer meant the ability to hook up a
surplus teletype.
One word: BASIC
You could tell a really ADVANCED printer, because it had lower case.
You remember the excitement the first time you saw a REAL disk drive
attached to a home computer (and not just the pictures in a magazine).
Punch Cards.
On Thu, 02 Aug 2001 13:26:30 -0700, Charles Richmond
<rich...@ev1.net> wrote:
>jchausler wrote:
>>
>> [snip...] [snip...] [snip...]
>>
>> You know you're getting old when all the people you looked up to
>> and admired in your youth are dead.
>>
>You know you're getting old when (YKYGOW)...
>
>A coin made in the year you were born...has all the details
>almost completely worn off of it...
>
>The memory card for a $100 computer game unit has *four*
>times the memory of the first mega-dollar *mainframe*
>computer you used...
>
>You remember when audio recordings had *grooves* instead of
>pits to be read by a laser...
>
>Your first TV set had the horizontal and vertical hold adjustments
>in an easily-accessable place...
>
>You remember when it was called a "transistor radio" instead of
>just a radio...
J. Steven York - www.sff.net/people/j-steven-york - Writer
Generation X Novels: Crossroads, Genogoths
Bolo, Old Guard (Now in stores, from Baen Books)
Steve O'Hara-Smith
CR> You know you're getting old when (YKYGOW)...
Oh dear, I just made a full score and I thought I was one of the
younger ones here :( I wish to call for an ammendment,
YKYGOW these describe events you consider *recent*.
CR> You remember when audio recordings had *grooves* instead of
CR> pits to be read by a laser...
CR>
CR> Your first TV set had the horizontal and vertical hold adjustments
CR> in an easily-accessable place...
CR>
CR> You remember when it was called a "transistor radio" instead of
CR> just a radio...
And one more,
You groaned aloud when in 1987 the posters loudly proclaimed
It *was* twenty years ago today ...
--
Directable Mirrors - A Better Way To Focus The Sun
Brian {Hamilton Kelly}
i...@hep.ucl.ac.uk "Dr Ivan D. Reid" writes:
> On Thu, 02 Aug 2001 13:26:30 -0700, Charles Richmond <rich...@ev1.net>
> wrote in <3B69B776...@ev1.net>:
>
> >You remember when audio recordings had *grooves* instead of
> >pits to be read by a laser...
>
> ...and they were just hill-'n'-dale rather than variations in
> two orthogonal directions. Extra points if you remember cactus spines
> or bamboo meedles.
Yup: and the little gizmo for "sharpening fibre needles". Not to mention
the little pot, with a magnet, that had about 100 nicely chromed steel
spare needles, just alongside the tone arm.
How about uncoupling the pickup from the end of the tone arm and
substituting an *electric pickup* (which still used the steel or fibre
needles)? This was then connected into an auxiliary input (marked
"Gram") at the rear of the Ekco wireless, and the waveband switch
twiddled round to use this signal source. Long (in our house, 30yds)
two-core cable, with multiple very fine strands, with DSC (double silk
covering). [That particular length of twisted-pair cable had been
liberated from the original HMY Britannia between the wars; the silk was
a nice royal-blue, and it had apparently been strung everywhere as "bell
wire".]
> >You remember when it was called a "transistor radio" instead of
> >just a radio...
>
> You used to send a 12V lead-acid accumulator into town once a
> month to be charged up to run your valve radio, and your telephone was
> powered by _very_ large 1.5V carbon-zinc batteries.
ISTR that the accumulator for the filaments was a single-cell 2V job.
Oh, and how about a proper glass Leclanche cell? (I never saw one
deployed on a local-battery phone, but did see them in use for the front
door bell.)
--
Brian {Hamilton Kelly} b...@dsl.co.uk
"We have gone from a world of concentrated knowledge and wisdom to one of
distributed ignorance. And we know and understand less while being incr-
easingly capable." Prof. Peter Cochrane, formerly of BT Labs
Gene Wirchenko
>You remember saving (or rather, NOT saving) programs on audio
>cassettes.
You remember arguing whether Radio Shack's special computer
cassette tape's "Certified / Leaderless" meant the tape was certified
and was leaderless or was just certified leaderless.
>Adding a serial port to your computer meant the ability to hook up a
>surplus teletype.
>
>One word: BASIC
>
>You could tell a really ADVANCED printer, because it had lower case.
Your Epson printer could be easily picked up, and this impressed
a fellow computer club member.
>You remember the excitement the first time you saw a REAL disk drive
>attached to a home computer (and not just the pictures in a magazine).
You remember the excitement the first time you saw a modem
attached to a personal computer.
"personal computer" and "IBM" were antonyms.
>Punch Cards.
[snipped previous]
Sincerely,
Gene Wirchenko
Computerese Irregular Verb Conjugation:
I have preferences.
You have biases.
He/She has prejudices.
Sol Taibi
in "carriage return" looked like.
Howard S Shubs
never...@panics.com.invalid (Michael Roach) wrote:
> What was it called before there were transistors?
It was called a "radio". Later, they needed to distinguish the new transistor
type from the older tube-based kind.
--
Howard S Shubs
"Run in circles, scream and shout!" "I hope you have good backups!"
J. Steven York
have a portable one sitting under my desk right now. <G>)
On Thu, 02 Aug 2001 13:26:30 -0700, Charles Richmond
<rich...@ev1.net> wrote:
>jchausler wrote:
>>
>> [snip...] [snip...] [snip...]
>>
>> You know you're getting old when all the people you looked up to
>> and admired in your youth are dead.
>>
>You know you're getting old when (YKYGOW)...
>
>A coin made in the year you were born...has all the details
>almost completely worn off of it...
>
>The memory card for a $100 computer game unit has *four*
>times the memory of the first mega-dollar *mainframe*
>computer you used...
>
>You remember when audio recordings had *grooves* instead of
>pits to be read by a laser...
>
>Your first TV set had the horizontal and vertical hold adjustments
>in an easily-accessable place...
>
>You remember when it was called a "transistor radio" instead of
>just a radio...
J. Steven York - www.sff.net/people/j-steven-york - Writer
CBFalconer
>
> On Thu, 02 Aug 2001 13:26:30 -0700
> Charles Richmond <rich...@ev1.net> wrote:
>
> CR> You know you're getting old when (YKYGOW)...
>
> Oh dear, I just made a full score and I thought I was one of the
> younger ones here :( I wish to call for an ammendment,
>
> YKYGOW these describe events you consider *recent*.
>
> CR> You remember when audio recordings had *grooves* instead of
> CR> pits to be read by a laser...
> CR>
> CR> Your first TV set had the horizontal and vertical hold adjustments
> CR> in an easily-accessable place...
> CR>
> CR> You remember when it was called a "transistor radio" instead of
> CR> just a radio...
>
> And one more,
>
> You groaned aloud when in 1987 the posters loudly proclaimed
>
> It *was* twenty years ago today ...
A few more:
You can clearly remember VE day
your reaction to Hiroshima.
the All-American 5.
Loctal.
gM in millimhos.
2N404.
DTL and RTL
running boards and rumble seats.
FDR and HST
McCarthy and HUSAC
--
Chuck F (cbfal...@yahoo.com) (cbfal...@XXXXworldnet.att.net)
(Remove "XXXX" from reply address. yahoo works unmodified)
mailto:u...@ftc.gov (for spambots to harvest)
S.C.Sprong
>You know you're getting old when (YKYGOW)...
[ 5 out of 5...Bingo! ]
Thanks, I didn't need that.
How about:
...the television screen used to be smaller and almost as round as
your head. Now the screen is almost as tall as you are and is flatter
than your belly^Wback.
...sending a letter was cheaper than using a telephone.
scsprong
Dr Ivan D. Reid
wrote in <howard-BD5B89....@enews.newsguy.com>:
>> What was it called before there were transistors?
>It was called a "radio". Later, they needed to distinguish the new transistor
>type from the older tube-based kind.
And the number of transistors was important[1]! I recall at least
one model where the manufacturer used defective transistors as diodes, to
up the "count" displayed on the front.
[1] A bit like the number of jewels in a wristwatch.
mkurtti
Marv
Joe Morris
CR> You know you're getting old when (YKYGOW)...
CR> You remember when it was called a "transistor radio" instead of
CR> just a radio...
...or even worse, when the "in" crowd was calling them "transistors".
From personal experience: you go to a commercial battery distributor
(for electrical equipment, not automotive) where the staffer is
approaching retirement age -- and have to explain what an "ABC"
battery might be.
Or go to an electronics part store and innocently ask for Fahenstock (sp?)
clips.
Joe Morris
Joe Morris
>Charles Richmond <rich...@ev1.net> wrote:
>>You remember when audio recordings had *grooves* instead of
>>pits to be read by a laser...
> ...and they were just hill-'n'-dale rather than variations in
>two orthogonal directions. Extra points if you remember cactus spines
>or bamboo meedles.
Or if you remember playing with the old crank Victrola in the attic
of your house, complete with the swivel-arm pickup and the little
tray where you kept extra needles...and it wasn't considered to be
a Valuable Antique That You Must Not Touch.
>>Your first TV set had the horizontal and vertical hold adjustments
>>in an easily-accessable place...
> ...and was black-and-white!
...and went off the air each night to the tune of the National Anthem
(at least in the US). This results in numerous jokes, cartoons, and
movie scenes of a TV screen changing from a picture of a flag to pure
noise, a concept that probably is totally lost on the Young Whippersnappers
who have come to expect 7x24 broadcasting.
Joe Morris (who for a while routinely shut down a TV station each
weekday night at 10:00 PM)
Joe Morris
>YKYGOW you know what the "carriage" as
>in "carriage return" looked like.
Or you don't have to stop and think about the etymology of "dial tone".
You remember "acoustic couplers" that came in hardwood cases.
You remember (with great loathing) the Data Access Arrangement boxes.
"Carterphone" doesn't have to be explained to you even if you never
actually saw one of the products of the company for which the legal
decision is named.
You used STR (Synchronous Transmit-Receive) to communicate with a
remote data station.
You remember proudly showing off your computer center's modem pool:
racks and racks of Bell 103A2 modems (300 baud! Wow!), each with
its own handset and control head in addition to the modem itself.
Computer-controlled dialing meant using an 801C ACU (AutoCall Unit),
and the idea of a dialer built into a modem was an impossible dream.
Joe Morris
Eric Sosman
YKYGOW you can remember learning that "Hz" was
just a new-fangled synonym for "cps."
Sol Taibi
> You have ever owned a tube tester. (Extra points if you still do. I
> have a portable one sitting under my desk right now. <G>)
>
You remember the Curta Calculator.
Your first electronic pocket calculator had a red LED
display and sucked a 9 volt radio battery dry in a week.
Dr Ivan D. Reid
wrote in <9ke8sp$fpo$1...@top.mitre.org>:
>> ...and was black-and-white!
Same in Oz, but we didn't get B&W until 1956, nor colour until 1972.
There was a Schwabish cartoon clip on German TV once, of popular horse
and monkey characters[1], and their lady poodle-dog friend, all asleep in
front of the TV. Suddenly it flips to grey and the sound to white noise,
waking the girl up. "Schade! Es war *so-o-o* spannende!"
>Joe Morris (who for a while routinely shut down a TV station each
> weekday night at 10:00 PM)
[1] alt.fan.aeffle.and.pferdle
Peter Ibbotson
"Eric Sosman" <Eric....@sun.com> wrote in message
news:3B6ACB82...@sun.com...
>
> YKYGOW you can remember learning that "Hz" was
> just a new-fangled synonym for "cps."
>
I read that as characters the first time. Then I remembered cycles.
--
Work pet...@lakeview.co.uk.plugh.org | remove magic word .org to reply
Home pe...@ibbotson.co.uk.plugh.org | I own the domain but theres no MX
Brian {Hamilton Kelly}
mku...@knology.net "mkurtti" writes:
> And when you breadboarded a project you used a real breadboard.>
Ah yes, using fahnstock (sp?) clips, no doubt?
Back in the 1950s and early 60s, I used to have a subscription to Popular
Electronics, which arrived each month by sea mail from the USA about
three weeks after publication date. Many of their projects used these
clips in breadboarded construction: TTBOMK, there has never been anything
like that on sale over here.
OTOH, back in about 1954, my grandfather and I constructed a three-valve
TRF MW receiver, using some old parts that he'd got dating back to the
1920s. So these were Mullard valves, on 4-pin bases, with 2V filaments
(to run off an accumulator). For the wiring, we used some copper wire
that he'd bought to do this sort of construction back in the 20s, which
was of SQUARE cross-section (about 0.8mm), and was pre-tinned. Nice neat
bends; soldered to heads of nails driven into a piece of 7-ply. No
insulation at all, so some of the wires resembled the way that schematics
used to show wires that crossed without connection (i.e. with a little
"humped-back bridge" in them).
A year or two later, we constructed a transistorized receiver, using the
germanium "reject" transistors one could then buy: they didn't have part
or model numbers, but were "green-and-yellow-dot", etc.
(Oh, they both worked well.)
Morten Reistad
J. Steven York <j-stev...@sff.net> wrote:
>You remember saving (or rather, NOT saving) programs on audio
>cassettes.
>
>Adding a serial port to your computer meant the ability to hook up a
>surplus teletype.
>
>One word: BASIC
>
>You could tell a really ADVANCED printer, because it had lower case.
>
>You remember the excitement the first time you saw a REAL disk drive
>attached to a home computer (and not just the pictures in a magazine).
>
>Punch Cards.
And you remember the glory of the 029 punch (and the horrors of the 026).
(And all the wonderful (and some less wonderful) uses of chad. )
And you consider TOPS20 a recent invention.
And you programmed in Fortran66. (No strings; arithmetic ifs)
And your new pocket camera has more storage than the first mainframe
you used.
You remember buying new pentodes to repair your aunts radio.
Morten Reistad
John Francis
Morten Reistad <m...@reistad.priv.no> wrote:
>
>And your new pocket camera has more storage than the first mainframe
>you used.
By several orders of magnitude ...
The Atlas at Cambridge vs. a Canon Powershot G1.
I've only got the 128Mb memory card, but you can
put a 1Gb microdrive in the thing!
ic0c...@ic24.net
wrote:
>And you remember the glory of the 029 punch (and the horrors of the 026).
>
Are you sure you got that the right way round? If you wern't an engineer
then you could be forgiven.
--
aml
Charlie Gibbs
(CBFalconer) writes:
>You can clearly remember VE day
> your reaction to Hiroshima.
Nope, can't quite go back that far.
> the All-American 5.
Which one: octal (12SK7/12SA7/12SQ7/50L6/35Z5)
or mini (12BE6/12BA6/12AV6/50...damn/35W4)?
> FDR and HST
Which one: British Rail's High Speed Train or Canada's Harmonized
Sales Tax (or Human Sexuality Tax if you're into parodies)?
--
cgi...@nowhere.in.particular (Charlie Gibbs)
I'm switching ISPs - watch this space.
Charlie Gibbs
solomo...@computer.org (Sol Taibi) writes:
>j-stev...@sff.net (J. Steven York) wrote in message
>news:<3b6e2ad0....@enews.newsguy.com>...
>
>> You have ever owned a tube tester. (Extra points if you still do.
>> I have a portable one sitting under my desk right now. <G>)
>>
>You remember the public tube tester at the hardware store.
Yup.
>You remember the Curta Calculator.
We drooled over the ads in Scientific American but never actually
saw one.
>Your first electronic pocket calculator had a red LED
So did your first electronic wristwatch.
>display and sucked a 9 volt radio battery dry in a week.
You had to press a button on the watch to see the time
so it wouldn't suck its battery dry a lot faster than that.
Charles Richmond
was killed on 22-NOV-63. Robert was killed in 1968...
--
+-------------------------------------------------------------+
| Charles and Francis Richmond <rich...@plano.net> |
+-------------------------------------------------------------+
Charles Richmond
>
> On Thu, 02 Aug 2001 23:43:12 -0400, Howard S Shubs <how...@shubs.net>
> wrote in <howard-BD5B89....@enews.newsguy.com>:
> >In article <9kcjrg$jib$2...@news.panix.com>,
> > never...@panics.com.invalid (Michael Roach) wrote:
>
> >> What was it called before there were transistors?
>
> >It was called a "radio". Later, they needed to distinguish the new transistor
> >type from the older tube-based kind.
>
> And the number of transistors was important[1]! I recall at least
> one model where the manufacturer used defective transistors as diodes, to
> up the "count" displayed on the front.
>
*not* connected at all... But the transisors were *there*, by gum, so
they could count them...
Charles Richmond
>
> You remember saving (or rather, NOT saving) programs on audio
> cassettes.
>
> Adding a serial port to your computer meant the ability to hook up a
> surplus teletype.
>
> One word: BASIC
>
> You could tell a really ADVANCED printer, because it had lower case.
>
> You remember the excitement the first time you saw a REAL disk drive
> attached to a home computer (and not just the pictures in a magazine).
>
> Punch Cards.
>
Using Paper Tape...
Using DecTape...
Using a William's Tube...
Listening to the memory drum as it came up to speed...
Charles Richmond
>
> YKYGOW you know what the "carriage" as
> in "carriage return" looked like.
>
of text...to give the carriage on the physical terminal time
to do the carriage return...
Charles Richmond
actually know what it means...
CBFalconer
>
> i...@hep.ucl.ac.uk (Dr Ivan D. Reid) writes:
>
> >Charles Richmond <rich...@ev1.net> wrote:
>
> >>You remember when audio recordings had *grooves* instead of
> >>pits to be read by a laser...
>
> > ...and they were just hill-'n'-dale rather than variations in
> >two orthogonal directions. Extra points if you remember cactus spines
> >or bamboo meedles.
>
> Or if you remember playing with the old crank Victrola in the attic
> of your house, complete with the swivel-arm pickup and the little
> tray where you kept extra needles...and it wasn't considered to be
> a Valuable Antique That You Must Not Touch.
But they weren't hill and dale, they were side to side modulated
since long before even I was born. Hills and dales were added to
get the orthogonal channel for stereo.
Maniac
> You have ever owned a tube tester. (Extra points if you still do. I
> have a portable one sitting under my desk right now. <G>)
Know that a slide rule had more uses than just drawing straight lines. )
I used to be able to use the slide rule faster than my classmates could
punch up the numbers on their "state of the art 7 segment LED calculators".
And speaking of calculators did anyone ever "check" the results of the
early calculators to make sure that they weren't wrong?
Now days with the reliance on computers does anyone really know how to
add/subtract numbers or is my latest trip to the fast food joint just
unusual?
--
Man...@alltel.net 40° 37' 9" N, 96° 57' 24" W
A single tasking guy in multi tasking world.
Maniac
> In article <3b6acd1f....@enews.newsguy.com>,
> J. Steven York <j-stev...@sff.net> wrote:
>>You remember saving (or rather, NOT saving) programs on audio
>>cassettes.
>>
>>Adding a serial port to your computer meant the ability to hook up a
>>surplus teletype.
>>
>>One word: BASIC
>>
>>You could tell a really ADVANCED printer, because it had lower case.
>>
>>You remember the excitement the first time you saw a REAL disk drive
>>attached to a home computer (and not just the pictures in a magazine).
>>
>>Punch Cards.
>
> And you remember the glory of the 029 punch (and the horrors of the 026).
>
> (And all the wonderful (and some less wonderful) uses of chad. )
Chads? So that's what those dinglehoppers are called. )
We tried to use them as bedding for earthworms (night crawlers) but found
out that you can't really keep damp.
> And you consider TOPS20 a recent invention.
>
> And you programmed in Fortran66. (No strings; arithmetic ifs)
>
--
Sol Taibi
> Sol Taibi wrote:
> >
> > j-stev...@sff.net (J. Steven York) wrote in message news:<3b6e2ad0....@enews.newsguy.com>...
> > > You have ever owned a tube tester. (Extra points if you still do. I
> > > have a portable one sitting under my desk right now. <G>)
> > >
> > You remember the public tube tester at the hardware store.
> >
> > You remember the Curta Calculator.
> >
> > Your first electronic pocket calculator had a red LED
> > display and sucked a 9 volt radio battery dry in a week.
> >
> Or if you ever heard the word "hoot-nanny"...extra points if you
> actually know what it means...
In my universe, "hootenanny" has something (I won't say what
at this point) to do with extreme left-wing politics (and I
have a long white beard).
What does it mean in your universe?
Heinz W. Wiggeshoff
>
> In my universe, "hootenanny" has something (I won't say what
> at this point) to do with extreme left-wing politics (and I
> have a long white beard).
You be one of those ZZ Top guys?
> What does it mean in your universe?
Lots of amateur musicians who can hum the tune
"Walk right in, set right down, ... "
and ending the session with
"Where have all the flowers gone, long time passing?"
Roland Hutchinson
<cbfal...@yahoo.com>wrote:
> Joe Morris wrote:
>>
>> i...@hep.ucl.ac.uk (Dr Ivan D. Reid) writes:
>>
>> >Charles Richmond <rich...@ev1.net> wrote:
>>
>> >>You remember when audio recordings had *grooves* instead of
>> >>pits to be read by a laser...
>>
>> > ...and they were just hill-'n'-dale rather than variations
>> > in two orthogonal directions.
...
> But they weren't hill and dale, they were side to side modulated
> since long before even I was born. Hills and dales were added to
> get the orthogonal channel for stereo.
Early Edison disks were hill-and-dale. The Betamax of the 78-rpm era
(for sufficiently scattered values of 78).
--
Roland Hutchinson Will play viola da gamba for food.
NB mail to rolands....@usa.net is heavily filtered to
remove spam. If your message looks like spam I may not see it.
Howard S Shubs
Roland Hutchinson <rolands....@usa.net> wrote:
> Early Edison disks were hill-and-dale. The Betamax of the 78-rpm era
> (for sufficiently scattered values of 78).
Which explains why you can't play 'em on a Victrola. I've seen it tried.
--
Howard S Shubs
"Run in circles, scream and shout!" "I hope you have good backups!"
Jim Shaffer, Jr.
>> Early Edison disks were hill-and-dale. The Betamax of the 78-rpm era
>> (for sufficiently scattered values of 78).
>
>Which explains why you can't play 'em on a Victrola. I've seen it tried.
Last night on Antiques Roadshow I saw a phonograph that looked like a 78 but the
spindle was about twice as wide so you had to buy all your disks from the same
company.
Brian Boutel
>
> But they weren't hill and dale, they were side to side modulated
> since long before even I was born. Hills and dales were added to
> get the orthogonal channel for stereo.
>
To be more precise, the stereo coding had the side-to-side as the sum
L+R and the hill-and-dale as the difference L-R. That way a mono pickup
would play the sum, which was better than just playing one channel, and
a stereo pickup would play a mono record correctly.
In effect, L and R were modulations at 45 degrees to the vertical.
--brian
D_Jim
... when you are talking about Buffalo Bob and someone standing nearby
thinks you mean Buffalo Bill and his Wild West Show.
JimP.
--
djim55 atty datasync dotty com Disclaimer: Standard
http://djim51.crosswinds.net/
http://www.crosswinds.net/~drivein/ drive-in movie theaters update August 2,2001
Dowe Keller
>j-stev...@sff.net (J. Steven York) wrote in message news:<3b6e2ad0....@enews.newsguy.com>...
>> You have ever owned a tube tester. (Extra points if you still do. I
>> have a portable one sitting under my desk right now. <G>)
>>
>You remember the public tube tester at the hardware store.
>
>You remember the Curta Calculator.
O.K. this stuff sounds ancient
>Your first electronic pocket calculator had a red LED
>display and sucked a 9 volt radio battery dry in a week.
But I had one of these, and while it would fit in my pocket, it was a
*very* tight fit. At 33 (as of ~5:00pm today) I'm far from a card
carying member of the Old Farts Club.
--
do...@sierratel.com Homepage: http://www.sierratel.com/dowe
Project : http://freshmeat.net/projects/vsh
Bruce B. Reynolds
>
You remember building a Heathkit tube tester.
Bruce B. Reynolds, Trailing Edge Technologies, Glenside PA
--
Bruce B. Reynolds, Independent/Legacy Systems Consultant: Trailing Edge
Technologies, Glenside PA---Sweeping Up Behind Data Processing Dinosaurs
Charles Richmond
>
> In article <9kh8c1$4grfp$1...@ID-99522.news.dfncis.de>,
> Roland Hutchinson <rolands....@usa.net> wrote:
>
> > Early Edison disks were hill-and-dale. The Betamax of the 78-rpm era
> > (for sufficiently scattered values of 78).
>
> Which explains why you can't play 'em on a Victrola. I've seen it tried.
>
using a screw mechanism...the arm did *not* use the grooves in the
record to move down... (IIRC)
Hans-Christian Becker
Hash: SHA1
In article <slrn9mplj...@localhost.localdomain>, Dowe Keller
<do...@krikkit.localdomain> wrote:
> >Your first electronic pocket calculator had a red LED
> >display and sucked a 9 volt radio battery dry in a week.
I had one too, and it did *all* of the four basic math operations. I
remember the joy of finding out that it actually used the overflow
"E" (or was it a "C"?) as a kind of carry flag, so that
999999 x 10
= C9.9999
999999 x 100
=C99.999
> But I had one of these, and while it would fit in my pocket, it was
> a *very* tight fit. At 33 (as of ~5:00pm today) I'm far from a card
> carying member of the Old Farts Club.
(Congratulations!) At 30.5, neither am I, but the ignorance about
what preceded the "PC" kind of makes me at least a hangaround...
Best regards,
Hans-Christian
(My dad's TI-30 conserved energy by blanking the display and showing
a horisontally scrolling '-'. It took a while to figure *that* out!)
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Hans-Christian Becker
Hash: SHA1
> (Congratulations!) At 30.5, neither am I, but the ignorance about
> what preceded the "PC" kind of makes me at least a hangaround...
I guess I meant to say "the ignorance of today's young[er] people"
Hans-Christian
(Thinking before speaking is like wiping your behind before
crapping.)
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jmfb...@aol.com
do...@krikkit.localdomain (Dowe Keller) wrote:
>On 3 Aug 2001 09:26:23 -0700, Sol Taibi <solomo...@computer.org> wrote:
>>j-stev...@sff.net (J. Steven York) wrote in message
news:<3b6e2ad0....@enews.newsguy.com>...
>>> You have ever owned a tube tester. (Extra points if you still do. I
>>> have a portable one sitting under my desk right now. <G>)
>>>
>>You remember the public tube tester at the hardware store.
>>
>>You remember the Curta Calculator.
>
>O.K. this stuff sounds ancient
>
>>Your first electronic pocket calculator had a red LED
>>display and sucked a 9 volt radio battery dry in a week.
>
>But I had one of these, and while it would fit in my pocket, it was a
>*very* tight fit. At 33 (as of ~5:00pm today) I'm far from a card
>carying member of the Old Farts Club.
>
whew! I was going to check the mirror for grey nose hairs.
/BAH
Subtract a hundred and four for e-mail.
Brian {Hamilton Kelly}
br...@boutel.co.nz "Brian Boutel" writes:
> In effect, L and R were modulations at 45 degrees to the vertical.
QPSK?
--
Brian {Hamilton Kelly} b...@dsl.co.uk
"We have gone from a world of concentrated knowledge and wisdom to one of
distributed ignorance. And we know and understand less while being incr-
easingly capable." Prof. Peter Cochrane, formerly of BT Labs
Don Chiasson
"Brian {Hamilton Kelly}" <b...@dsl.co.uk> wrote in message
news:996974...@dsl.co.uk...
> In article <3B6C7B2E...@boutel.co.nz>
> br...@boutel.co.nz "Brian Boutel" writes:
>
> > In effect, L and R were modulations at 45 degrees
> > to the vertical.
>
> QPSK?
>
Nothing that complicated. The sensors connected
to the needle were magnetic (sensing motion) or
piezoelectric (sensing loading) with the sensors mounted
at 45 degrees to the vertical. One gave left channel, the other
gave right. A mono cartridge sensed only left-right, i.e. the
sum of the two channels. If you were to have a vertical sensor,
you would get (I think - my vectors are weak at this time
of morning) the difference. Gave backward computability
so you could play mono records on a stereo and stereo
records on a mono system.
Don
e-mail: it's not not, it's hot.
jchausler
Charles Richmond wrote:
> > And the number of transistors was important[1]! I recall at least
> > one model where the manufacturer used defective transistors as diodes, to
> > up the "count" displayed on the front.
> >
> There were *twelve* transistor models that had three or four transistors
> *not* connected at all... But the transisors were *there*, by gum, so
> they could count them...
Spares for when the connected ones "burned out"..........
Chris
AN GETTO$;DUMP;RUN,ALGOL,TAPE
$$
jchausler
"J. Steven York" wrote:
> You remember saving (or rather, NOT saving) programs on audio
> cassettes.
I never had any problems with Kansas City Standard
> Adding a serial port to your computer meant the ability to hook up a
> surplus teletype.
Yes or in my case a borrowed 33
> One word: BASIC
Nah, that was for wimps and gamers, real hobby computer users
programmed in hand assembled machine code (for a couple of
years my machine did not have enough memory to run the
assembler.)
> You could tell a really ADVANCED printer, because it had lower case.
And you wondered about the need for lower case as upper case had
been all you had needed for years.
> You remember the excitement the first time you saw a REAL disk drive
> attached to a home computer (and not just the pictures in a magazine).
Having used them at work for years, there was no excitement (now, on
the other hand, a DECtape on a micro would have caused excitement :-)
> Punch Cards.
As I've stated in this NG before, I have quite a stash of blank punch
cards from the mid 60's a few of which I use as note cards. When
I first started doing this all the time, maybe 15 years ago or so, people
would instantly recognize them as such and comment on them.
YKY truly GOW people see them in your pocket and don't notice
or even more commonly don't recognize what they are...................
> >jchausler wrote:
> >>
> >> [snip...] [snip...] [snip...]
> >>
> >> You know you're getting old when all the people you looked up to
> >> and admired in your youth are dead.
Brian {Hamilton Kelly}
don_ch...@notmail.com "Don Chiasson" writes:
I knew that, actually; should have added a smiley.
(I built myself a stereo cartridge from two mono ones back in about 1958,
following plans that were in a Popular Electronics of the time.)
Julian Thomas
at 01:48 PM, jcmo...@mitre.org (Joe Morris) said:
>You remember proudly showing off your computer center's modem pool: racks
>and racks of Bell 103A2 modems (300 baud! Wow!), each with its own
>handset and control head in addition to the modem itself.
and each with its own plugin transformer (not yet known as wall warts).
--
Julian Thomas: jt . jt-mj @ net http://jt-mj.net
remove letter a for email (or switch . and @)
In the beautiful Finger Lakes Wine Country of New York State!
Boardmember of POSSI.org - Phoenix OS/2 Society, Inc
http://www.possi.org
-- --
99 percent of lawyers give the rest a bad name.
Julian Thomas
>Listening to the memory drum as it came up to speed...
or watching a Univac I mercury delay line as it got up to operating
temperature....
--
Julian Thomas: jt . jt-mj @ net http://jt-mj.net
remove letter a for email (or switch . and @)
In the beautiful Finger Lakes Wine Country of New York State!
Boardmember of POSSI.org - Phoenix OS/2 Society, Inc
http://www.possi.org
-- --
Why does the hardware keep getting faster, and the software slower?
John Varela
> You remember proudly showing off your computer center's modem pool:
> racks and racks of Bell 103A2 modems (300 baud! Wow!), each with
> its own handset and control head in addition to the modem itself.
You remember walking around inside the computer, feeling the heat coming off
of the tubes, and admiring the core memory in its glass case.
Sense switches.
--
John Varela
John Varela
> ....and went off the air each night to the tune of the National Anthem
Test patterns.
--
John Varela
J. Steven York
admittedly, this was well into the personal computer era when it
started) that every computer shipped with some version of BASIC is
pretty much gone. I think GWBasic or QBasic or something is still
hidden on the Windows 98 CD somewhere if you know where to look for
it, but I have no idea about later versions. Even MS application
macro-languages have dumped their basic-like features.
On Sun, 05 Aug 2001 17:54:07 GMT, jchausler <jcha...@earthlink.net>
wrote:
>> One word: BASIC
>
>Nah, that was for wimps and gamers, real hobby computer users
>programmed in hand assembled machine code (for a couple of
>years my machine did not have enough memory to run the
>assembler.)
J. Steven York - www.sff.net/people/j-steven-york - Writer
Generation X Novels: Crossroads, Genogoths
Bolo, Old Guard (Now in stores, from Baen Books)
Gary Tait, Very Real
Charlie Gibbs wrote:
>
> In article <3B6A5656...@yahoo.com> cbfal...@yahoo.com
> (CBFalconer) writes:
>
> >You can clearly remember VE day
> > your reaction to Hiroshima.
>
> Nope, can't quite go back that far.
>
> > the All-American 5.
>
> Which one: octal (12SK7/12SA7/12SQ7/50L6/35Z5)
> or mini (12BE6/12BA6/12AV6/50...damn/35W4)?
>
50C5
Or the record player with a 25EH5 tube amplifier.
> > FDR and HST
>
> Which one: British Rail's High Speed Train or Canada's Harmonized
> Sales Tax (or Human Sexuality Tax if you're into parodies)?
>
> --
> cgi...@nowhere.in.particular (Charlie Gibbs)
> I'm switching ISPs - watch this space.
--
Gary Tait,VE3VBF Homepage: http://www.primeline.net/~tait
**** Do not Email back me newsgroup responses, just post them. ****
---- Replace x with e , and y to a to email me, if required ----
-----= Posted via Newsfeeds.Com, Uncensored Usenet News =-----
http://www.newsfeeds.com - The #1 Newsgroup Service in the World!
-----== Over 80,000 Newsgroups - 16 Different Servers! =-----
Gary Tait, Very Real
Joe Morris wrote:
>
> i...@hep.ucl.ac.uk (Dr Ivan D. Reid) writes:
>
> >Charles Richmond <rich...@ev1.net> wrote:
>
> >>You remember when audio recordings had *grooves* instead of
> >>pits to be read by a laser...
>
> > ...and they were just hill-'n'-dale rather than variations in
> >two orthogonal directions. Extra points if you remember cactus spines
> >or bamboo meedles.
>
> Or if you remember playing with the old crank Victrola in the attic
> of your house, complete with the swivel-arm pickup and the little
> tray where you kept extra needles...and it wasn't considered to be
> a Valuable Antique That You Must Not Touch.
>
> >>Your first TV set had the horizontal and vertical hold adjustments
> >>in an easily-accessable place...
>
> > ...and was black-and-white!
>
> ...and went off the air each night to the tune of the National Anthem
> (at least in the US). This results in numerous jokes, cartoons, and
> movie scenes of a TV screen changing from a picture of a flag to pure
> noise, a concept that probably is totally lost on the Young Whippersnappers
> who have come to expect 7x24 broadcasting.
The CBC in Canada still does it (at least in rural locations) . The
local non CBC station used to do it not
too many years ago.
> Joe Morris (who for a while routinely shut down a TV station each
> weekday night at 10:00 PM)
Sol Taibi
Young whippersnapper!
It may have evolved into that, but at one time
the only people who had hootenannies were either
geniunely from this hills or else Communists.
Michael Roach
In article <3B6B500C...@ev1.net>,
Charles Richmond <rich...@ev1.net> wrote:
>Sol Taibi wrote:
>>
>> YKYGOW you know what the "carriage" as
>> in "carriage return" looked like.
>>
>And you knew what "pad characters" were for at the end of line
>of text...to give the carriage on the physical terminal time
>to do the carriage return...
You found that the low order 8 bits of an instruction were 15(8) so you
used that as a carriage return to save space.
--
Every little picofarad has a nanohenry all its own.
-- Don Vonada
Steve O'Hara-Smith
Charles Richmond <rich...@ev1.net> wrote:
CR> There were *twelve* transistor models that had three or four transistors
CR> *not* connected at all... But the transisors were *there*, by gum, so
CR> they could count them...
You may now attempt to count the transistors in a modern PLL tuner,
a scanning electron microscope may prove helpful.
--
Directable Mirrors - A Better Way To Focus The Sun
freddy1X
>
> Charles Richmond <rich...@ev1.net> wrote:
> >Sol Taibi wrote:
> >>
> >> YKYGOW you know what the "carriage" as
> >> in "carriage return" looked like.
> >>
> >And you knew what "pad characters" were for at the end of line
> >of text...to give the carriage on the physical terminal time
> >to do the carriage return...
>
> You found that the low order 8 bits of an instruction were 15(8) so you
> used that as a carriage return to save space.
> --
Yery ugly practice. I've seen the "insides" of the Tandy( translation:
Microsloth ) ROM.
... you've had printers hooked up to computers that couldn't keep up
with the print rate.
... interfacing a printer meant adding your own integrated circuits on
to the logic board and/or changing the connector.
... you've used a monochrome screen display with burn-in.
... extra points if you could read that burn-in with the power off.
... double bonus if the burnt image has migrated across the screen
because of drift in the deflection circuits.
... if you have ever tried to operate a processor while it's integral
display is conked-out.
... you knew the log-in sequence well enough to make the previous
possible.
... you've operated a terminal with a postage stamp sized display
because something blew in the deflection circuit.
--
if rash occurs, discontinue use
/\>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>\/
/\ I may be demented \/
/\ but I'm not crazy! \/
/\<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<\/
* SPAyM trap: there is no X in my address *
|| attatch FLAME here ||
\/ \/
X
Tony Lima
<rich...@ev1.net> wrote:
>>
>> In article <9kh8c1$4grfp$1...@ID-99522.news.dfncis.de>,
>> Roland Hutchinson <rolands....@usa.net> wrote:
>>
>> > Early Edison disks were hill-and-dale. The Betamax of the 78-rpm era
>> > (for sufficiently scattered values of 78).
>>
>> Which explains why you can't play 'em on a Victrola. I've seen it tried.
>>
>Another reason may be that the Edison record players moved the arm
>using a screw mechanism...the arm did *not* use the grooves in the
>record to move down... (IIRC)
Speaking of which, I'm reading "The Rocky Mountain Moving
Picture Association" by Loren Estleman. The novel is about
the beginnings of the movie industry in L.A. It alleges
that Edison tried to monopolize the industry in its
fledgling days. Anyone know offhand if this is true?
Thanks. - Tony
Howard S Shubs
Tony Lima <Tony...@att.net> wrote:
> Speaking of which, I'm reading "The Rocky Mountain Moving
> Picture Association" by Loren Estleman. The novel is about
> the beginnings of the movie industry in L.A. It alleges
> that Edison tried to monopolize the industry in its
> fledgling days. Anyone know offhand if this is true?
It would be consistant. The man was a jerk.
--
Howard S Shubs
"Run in circles, scream and shout!" "I hope you have good backups!"
Mike Swaim
> ... if you have ever tried to operate a processor while it's integral
> display is conked-out.
> ... you knew the log-in sequence well enough to make the previous
> possible.
A former roomate of mine had a Mac portable and an external monitor. He
configured it so the external monitor's display would be logically above
the built in display.
Then he took it on a trip.
He was able to open the apple menu, go to the control panel, and reset
it to only use the built in display, while the monitor the computer
thought it was displaying all this on was sitting in our living room.
--
Mike Swaim, Avatar of Chaos: Disclaimer: I sometimes lie
Home: swaim at nol * net
Quote: "Boingie"^4 Y, W & D
John Carlyle-Clarke
>Not that you used it, just that you REMEMBER it. The day (and
>admittedly, this was well into the personal computer era when it
>started) that every computer shipped with some version of BASIC is
>pretty much gone. I think GWBasic or QBasic or something is still
>hidden on the Windows 98 CD somewhere if you know where to look for
>it, but I have no idea about later versions. Even MS application
>macro-languages have dumped their basic-like features.
>
>On Sun, 05 Aug 2001 17:54:07 GMT, jchausler <jcha...@earthlink.net>
>wrote:
>
>>> One word: BASIC
>>
>>Nah, that was for wimps and gamers, real hobby computer users
>>programmed in hand assembled machine code (for a couple of
>>years my machine did not have enough memory to run the
>>assembler.)
>
I'm not so sure about that. MS application macro languages are all Visual
Basic in disguise. And you can fire up VB, create on .BAS module and run
the following:
sub main()
10 debug.print "Hello";
20 goto 10
end sub
(By the way I don't suggest it. It locks up VB and you have to terminate
it.)
jmfb...@aol.com
Howard S Shubs <how...@shubs.net> wrote:
>In article <io9umtofotdjhfd0v...@4ax.com>,
> Tony Lima <Tony...@att.net> wrote:
>
>> Speaking of which, I'm reading "The Rocky Mountain Moving
>> Picture Association" by Loren Estleman. The novel is about
>> the beginnings of the movie industry in L.A. It alleges
>> that Edison tried to monopolize the industry in its
>> fledgling days. Anyone know offhand if this is true?
>
>It would be consistant. The man was a jerk.
But he was a productive jerk.
Joe Morris
management that the organization needed a computer -- a necessary
evil since the cost of almost any computer was large enough to make
a visible presence on the annual budget. It didn't matter if you were
a Large Multinational Corporation or a small school.
...you recall when the mainframe system you were once hired full-time
to support got its first disk drives...and each of the removable
media packs held **SEVEN MEGABYTES**!!! WOW!!!
...you recall when third-party memory sales reps handed out vials of
ferrite cores as part of their sales pitches.
...you still have two or three UARCO form rulers, and recall discovering
how useful they could be to open locked file cabinets.
...you used a burster.
...you've still got ink on your hands from changing printer ribbons
because someone had swiped the plastic gloves that came packed with
new ribbons.
Joe Morris
Joe Morris
>>You remember the public tube tester at the hardware store.
>>
>You remember building a Heathkit tube tester.
...you remember waxing nostalgic at reading the obituary for Heathkits
that was published by the IEEE when the kits-making part of the company
was finally closed.
...or you recall when Heath was in its original business model -- selling
WWII surplus.
Joe Morris
Joe Morris
> Gave backward computability
>so you could play mono records on a stereo and stereo
>records on a mono system.
...but you could do this without damaging the record only if the
cartridge was designed to allow the needle freedom to move in
the vertical plane; without this ability the needle would erode
the groove walls when the L and R signals caused the walls to
move closer together. When stereo records started to become common
stereo cartridges appeared in many mono systems (with L+R outputs
strapped together) to allow stereo records to be used safely.
Joe Morris
Joe Morris
>As I've stated in this NG before, I have quite a stash of blank punch
>cards from the mid 60's a few of which I use as note cards. When
>I first started doing this all the time, maybe 15 years ago or so, people
>would instantly recognize them as such and comment on them.
>YKY truly GOW people see them in your pocket and don't notice
>or even more commonly don't recognize what they are...................
I have somewhat the same situation -- except that it's the license
plate on my motorcycle: VM-HPO. It's fun sometimes to find someone
who understands the reference.
Joe Morris
jmfb...@aol.com
jcmo...@mitre.org (Joe Morris) wrote:
<snip>
>....you used a burster.
I remember using one of those. It went away when the printer
was on-line. PRINT/COPY:5
I was patting myself on the back that I was a youngster among
these old farts.
Howard S Shubs
> But he was a productive jerk.
Was he? Or was he just very good at taking credit for what other people did?
Christian Brunschen
>
>> But he was a productive jerk.
>
>Was he? Or was he just very good at taking credit for what other people did?
He was mainly very good at taking credit for other peoples' work, I
beleive. Many of 'his' inventions were not actually invented by him, but
rather by people i his employ - yet he owned the patents and his name was
the one credited with the invention.
Let's also not forget that he used the lack of copyright legislation in
the US at the time to import the Georges Méliès' 'Le Voyage dans la Lune'
and show it in the US - without any authorization, by way of an illegal
copy if the reel (the copy was made by an agent of Edison's in Europe by
borrowing a copy from an unscrupulous cinema owner), and completely
robbing Méliès of any profits that he might have had from showing the
movie in the US himself (as he had planned to do) ... (IIRC, from memory
of seeing a documentary about Méliès)
>--
>Howard S Shubs
>"Run in circles, scream and shout!" "I hope you have good backups!"
// Christian Brunschen
Brian Huntley
> Speaking of which, I'm reading "The Rocky Mountain Moving
> Picture Association" by Loren Estleman. The novel is about
> the beginnings of the movie industry in L.A. It alleges
> that Edison tried to monopolize the industry in its
> fledgling days. Anyone know offhand if this is true?
> Thanks. - Tony
He took several steps to monoplize the technology, if not the
industry.
IIRC, his patent licenses required that one use both an Edison camera
and Edison projector. His cameras used electric motors (he had a thing
for electricity) and that made them bulky and unrelable compared to
the hand-cranked ones, so they were well hated. This made guerrilla
filming (without permits) difficult, and newsreels stagey.
Besides, with a cranked camera, you could use a chain to syncronize a
back projector for special effects. Or run backwards, or a host of
other tricks.
Michael Roach
In article <3B6F24...@indyx.net>, freddy1X <freddy1X> wrote:
>Michael Roach wrote:
>>
>> You found that the low order 8 bits of an instruction were 15(8) so you
>> used that as a carriage return to save space.
>> --
>
>Yery ugly practice. I've seen the "insides" of the Tandy( translation:
>Microsloth ) ROM.
Sometimes you did what you had to do because you ran out of core. In
this case I wrote a routine that was exactly 129 12-bit words long once
I optimized it as best I could. The sweet spot on the pdp-8 was 128
words, or one page. I found the bit pattern I needed in an instruction
and used it to make the routine exactly one page long. Not only that
but it was relocatable as well, not easy on a pdp-8. It also worked
stand-alone, in OS-8, and in TSS-8.
>
>... you've had printers hooked up to computers that couldn't keep up
>with the print rate.
>
>... interfacing a printer meant adding your own integrated circuits on
>to the logic board and/or changing the connector.
On my first Imsai I hacked the Northstar OS to print to the printer
instead of displaying on the screen when switch 8 was a 1.
>... you've used a monochrome screen display with burn-in.
>
>... extra points if you could read that burn-in with the power off.
>
>... double bonus if the burnt image has migrated across the screen
>because of drift in the deflection circuits.
All of the above on an ATM machine around the corner from my parent's
house. I've seen it others bsod as well. No ATM's with the bsod burned
in yet 8^)
>... if you have ever tried to operate a processor while it's integral
>display is conked-out.
Or even if it hasn't ...
>... you knew the log-in sequence well enough to make the previous
>possible.
... many here have at one time or another memorized keying in the boot
loader for their machines. (Magic locations or rom addresses don't
count.)
>... you've operated a terminal with a postage stamp sized display
>because something blew in the deflection circuit.
You didn't have to wait for blown deflection circuits with an Osborne 1!
--
Horse sense is the thing a horse has which keeps it from betting on
people.
-- W. C. Fields
Sergej Roytman
>...you used a burster.
Whassa burster?
--
Sergej Roytman
Joe Pfeiffer
> In article <9kojn7$fql$4...@bob.news.rcn.net>, jmfb...@aol.com wrote:
>
> > But he was a productive jerk.
>
> Was he? Or was he just very good at taking credit for what other people did?
He was very, very good at providing an environment in which other
people were productive, though he did take more credite for their
results than he should have.
--
Joseph J. Pfeiffer, Jr., Ph.D. Phone -- (505) 646-1605
Department of Computer Science FAX -- (505) 646-1002
New Mexico State University http://www.cs.nmsu.edu/~pfeiffer
SWNMRSEF: http://www.nmsu.edu/~scifair
CBFalconer
You remember the Williamson amplifier, and winding the output
transformer.
--
Chuck F (cbfal...@yahoo.com) (cbfal...@XXXXworldnet.att.net)
(Remove "XXXX" from reply address. yahoo works unmodified)
mailto:u...@ftc.gov (for spambots to harvest)
Alexandre Pechtchanski
[ snip ]
>...you've still got ink on your hands from changing printer ribbons
>because someone had swiped the plastic gloves that came packed with
>new ribbons.
Plastic gloves! You had it soft! I first discovered plastic gloves packed with
printer ribbon (and printer ribbons with non-inked leaders) on LP-11. Before
that I just accepted inked hands as a price for changing printer ribbon.
--
[ When replying, remove *'s from address ]
Alexandre Pechtchanski, Systems Manager, RUH, NY
John Francis
Joe Pfeiffer <pfei...@cs.nmsu.edu> wrote:
>Howard S Shubs <how...@shubs.net> writes:
>
>> In article <9kojn7$fql$4...@bob.news.rcn.net>, jmfb...@aol.com wrote:
>>
>> > But he was a productive jerk.
>>
>> Was he? Or was he just very good at taking credit for what other people did?
>
>He was very, very good at providing an environment in which other
>people were productive, though he did take more credite for their
>results than he should have.
I thought the Dave Cutler references were in a different thread?
Marco S Hyman
> >....you used a burster.
>
> I remember using one of those. It went away when the printer
> was on-line. PRINT/COPY:5
You're thinking of that thing that pulled the carbons out of multipart
paper. The burster was the machine that turned continuous feed paper
into individual sheets. Adjust it wrong and you'd find out exactly
how strong the perforations were -- the paper would tear everyplace
else.
// marc
Frank McConnell
> In article <9kondb$q4s$1...@top.mitre.org>, Joe Morris
> <jcmo...@mitre.org> wrote:
> >...you used a burster.
Thanks Joe, now I feel old because I haven't worked at a place with
a burster or a decollator in over a decade.
> Whassa burster?
A device for post-processing printed output on fanfold paper.
You know how fanfold paper is perforated at the folds? The burster
takes a stack of fanfold and tears it apart at the perforations,
yielding a stack of loose sheets.
Well, that is what it does if all goes well, anyway.
It often also has trimmers that can be set to trim the margins as the
sheets go through, in order to remove the strip with the feed holes.
Thus does a fanfold print job become suitable for stuffing into
envelopes and mailing.
The decollator is a device for pulling apart multi-part forms. Feed it
multi-part fanfold, and it will yield stacks of fanfold, and even
spool up the carbon paper for easy if somewhat messy disposal. (Grab a
set of gloves from a ribbon box.)
Again, that is what it does if all goes well, which it sometimes didn't.
I think I put the fear of catastrophe in some folks once by walking away
from the decollator while it was churning through three-part small at
full speed.
...
Somewhere else in the quoted article, Joe wrote:
> >...you recall when the mainframe system you were once hired full-time
> >to support got its first disk drives...and each of the removable
> >media packs held **SEVEN MEGABYTES**!!! WOW!!!
In, hmm, 1982, I was a teenage second-shift operator. The place where
I was working at the time had taken delivery of an HP 7933 disc drive,
a 404 MB kinda-sorta-fixed-pack drive. It wasn't yet installed, but I
looked at it and, considering that it was about the same physical size
as the 7920 and 7925 disc drives (removable-pack 50 MB and 120? MB,
respectively), I was thinking something along the lines of "Wow, it's
so big!"
In mid-1995, I was showing a not-quite-fresh-off-the-boat
twentysomething hire around a computer room at The Wollongong Group.
I showed him the HP3000 series 58, and its 7935 disc drive -- same
idea as the 7933 but actually supported the notion of removing the
pack. When I explained that it was a 404MB disc drive, he exclaimed
"Wow, it's so big!"
Right about then, I knew I was getting old.
-Frank McConnell
Don Chiasson
"freddy1X" <fred...@indyx.net> wrote in message
news:3B6F24...@indyx.net...
>
> ... interfacing a printer meant adding your own integrated
> circuits on to the logic board and/or changing the connector.
>
interface but a digital to analogue converter, I wrote a program
with a tight timing loop to drive the D/A output +/- 5 volts and
emulate a serial line for a printer. Of course, I had to make a cable
with a BNC (coax) connector on one end and 25 pin connector
on the other.
Can't remember the brand of printer: 132 column with one
dot hammer per print position. The row of hammers oscillated
back and forth to get the horizontal dots and the paper moved
incrementally for the vertical. Thus, it was a line printer, one
entire line at a time.
Don
e-mail: it;s not not, it's hot.
Charles Richmond
>
> Howard S Shubs <how...@shubs.net> writes:
>
> > In article <9kojn7$fql$4...@bob.news.rcn.net>, jmfb...@aol.com wrote:
> >
> > > But he was a productive jerk.
> >
> > Was he? Or was he just very good at taking credit for what other people did?
>
> He was very, very good at providing an environment in which other
> people were productive, though he did take more credite for their
> results than he should have.
>
He was *not* above doing underhanded things to get his way in business.
But there were *some* inventions that were undeniably *his*...like the
phonograph. IMHO he did *more* than most here who are critical of him...
--
+-------------------------------------------------------------+
| Charles and Francis Richmond <rich...@plano.net> |
+-------------------------------------------------------------+
Charles Richmond
>
> > ....and went off the air each night to the tune of the National Anthem
>
Some broadcast channels in the U.S. *still* sign off with the National
Anthem. The Air Force distributes this nice film with the A.F. choir
singing the National Anthem while you see an F-16 flying along the
coast and up some impressive valleys and rock formations... Beautiful!!!
Al Kossow
Chiasson" <don_ch...@notmail.com> wrote:
> Can't remember the brand of printer: 132 column with one
> dot hammer per print position. The row of hammers oscillated
> back and forth to get the horizontal dots and the paper moved
> incrementally for the vertical.
Printronix "P" series (150, 300, 600, from memory)
They are incredible static charge generators, with many field
falures in the midwest during mid-winter (when the humidity
gets VERY low) until they added a carbon static discharge
brush in the output paper path.
Brian {Hamilton Kelly}
ft...@engin.umich.edu "Sergej Roytman" writes:
> In article <9kondb$q4s$1...@top.mitre.org>, Joe Morris <jcmo...@mitre.org> wrote:
> >...you used a burster.
>
> Whassa burster?
A wonderful piece of forms handling machinery. It would take a stack of
fan-folded line-printer paper which would be fed into it in a continuous
length and, through the expedient of having rollers in the feed-path
which ran at differing speeds, cause the inter-sheet perforations to be
subjected to sufficient force that the sheets would tear apart --- if one
was lucky, this would happen along those perforations :-)
The resultant stack of paper was therefore no longer fan-folded and could
be filed in binders, or sent out to non-computer-folk for them to read.
(Presumably it was thought that PHBs were beyond the task of flipping
through fan-fold.)
There were also decollators, which separated the sheets of a multi-part
form; the ones that worked with separate carbon interleave (rather than
NCR paper) even wound up the separated carbon paper onto a roll for
convenient disposal.
Trimmers would remove the feed perforations from each side of the
printout (this in the days before paper was made with "microperforations"
to facilitate the removal of those side strips, by hand if necessary.
--
Brian {Hamilton Kelly} b...@dsl.co.uk
"We have gone from a world of concentrated knowledge and wisdom to one of
distributed ignorance. And we know and understand less while being incr-
easingly capable." Prof. Peter Cochrane, formerly of BT Labs
JM Carmack
considered to be adept at creating original works either, just relabling
stuff from companies they bought. They are also a marketing powerhouse
that shove their rules for use down the public's throat a la what Edison
did with his cameras & projectors. Like Edison, Gates is credited with
writing much of what MS makes in the public eye.
c...@df.lth.se (Christian Brunschen) wrote in <9korl7$hm8$1...@news.lth.se>:
Jim Shaffer, Jr.
>>It would be consistant. The man was a jerk.
>
>But he was a productive jerk.
"By importing 'The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion' and beginning the
mass production of automobiles, he managed to pollute both the mind and the body
of the United States. But he meant well, or at least he meant something."
-Robert Anton Wilson
J. Steven York
a silvery paper that was coated with aluminum. Extra points if it was
a rotary model in which the paper emerged from a curved slot on the
front.
Radio Shack sold one of these as their first-ever (pretty sure anyway)
printer. It was designed to directly read video memory and print
whatever was on the screen. I bought one on deep clearance ($15-20 I
think, the original price being $499 as I recall), and I think it may
have been my first-ever printer too. No direct print function at all
(though I though it could be triggered through a port, as well as the
front-panel "print" switch). The paper was about the width of toilet
paper, and as I recall, it printed sideways.
The print head was on a drum inside, and it rotated as the paper moved
across it and out the slot. It made quite a loud and distinctive
noise, somewhere between an electric drill and a paper shredder. One
amusing characteristic of the RS model was that if it was turned on
when a computer was NOT connected, it would simply grind away, spewing
a continuous stream of roll paper out the front. For that, it
ultimately proved to be better as an amusing film prop than as a
printer. <g>
I think other versions were sold for home computer use, and I was
amused when years later I walked into the company where my wife was
working, and spotted the same mechanism mounted on a huge, check
sorting machine.
J. Steven York - www.sff.net/people/j-steven-york - Writer
Generation X Novels: Crossroads, Genogoths
Bolo, Old Guard (Now in stores, from Baen Books)
John Homes
"Brian {Hamilton Kelly}" <b...@dsl.co.uk> wrote in message
news:997205...@dsl.co.uk...
> In article <hzTb7.1625$96....@srvr1.engin.umich.edu>
> ft...@engin.umich.edu "Sergej Roytman" writes:
> >
>
<snip>
> The resultant stack of paper was therefore no longer fan-folded and could
> be filed in binders, or sent out to non-computer-folk for them to read.
> (Presumably it was thought that PHBs were beyond the task of flipping
> through fan-fold.)
>
Or stuffed into envelopes and mailed out, which is why bursters are *not*
old technology in some parts. These days, cut-sheet feed laser printers are
getting fast enough to do the job instead of using fanfold, but that is
fairly new (at least at a reasonable cost).
John Homes
freddy1X
> ...you've still got ink on your hands from changing printer ribbons
> because someone had swiped the plastic gloves that came packed with
> new ribbons.
... You've changed a printer ribbon that was more than 12 inches wide.
--
keep away from small children
/\>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>\/
/\ I may be demented \/
/\ but I'm not crazy! \/
/\<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<\/
* SPAyM trap: there is no X in my address *
|| attatch FLAME here ||
\/ \/
X
Don Stokes
Er, I think this refers to Henry Ford, not Thomas Edison...
-- don
Jay Maynard
>bbrey...@aol.comskipthis (Bruce B. Reynolds) writes:
>>You remember building a Heathkit tube tester.
...you remember building a Heathkit.
>...or you recall when Heath was in its original business model -- selling
>WWII surplus.
That was its *second* business model. The first was a kitplane, the Heath
Parasol.
Edward Rice
Hmmm. A side of Edison I never knew about. You make him sound a lot like
Henry Ford, in fact,