My Cup

[Helldiver]

I was just looking at my favorite cup. I estimate that I've had at least 15,000 cups of coffee out of it. It looks like new. I was looking at the MS/DOS commands and surprisingly they never left. It was given out by Microsoft as an inducement to use MS/DOS.
Maybe it's like riding a bike. You never forget. For those that don't remember, it was what they used before Windows. In some ways it was superior. You always got what you wanted.
But my time with computers goes back to the dark ages in 1953. When most of you were riding around in you old man's jock strap. Computers in those days were analog and not digital. Programs were written on IBM cards and read outs were on a Dumont Scope.
My first use of a computer was to look at the distributed stress on a cantilevered beam. It gave me loading for every inch on the beam. It took 2500 punched cards and half a day to run. The same equations can be done on a hand held TI-30 calculator.
So you can see the amazement I feel when look at Windows XP and FSX. However, when I look at Windows Vista I feel like we were back 55 years ago.

[Helldiver]

Wrong picture. That was my Stinson about 45 years ago. This is what I meant to show

[Cloud9Gal]

Wow! Programs written on IBM cards...my gosh! I'm intrigued now! I'll have to look it up on the internet to get a full understanding of the whole process.
The evolution of technology is always fascinating. Thanks for the glimpse back in techonology history Helldiver.

I enjoyed the cup picture as well :jump: It does look brand new!

[JoeW]

There was no memory back then. They put the data on cards with punch outs, about the same thing. Back then programs were small compared to no.
You would need about a million cards to do a todays program.

[Lionheart]

Man we have come a long way...

From cards to cassettes, to floppy discs to disckettes, to CD's and then to DVD's, from HD's to Solid State HD's, from microchips to quad core chips and dual core graphics cards...

I am still trying to figure out how they put 16 GIGS! of memory in this iPod Touch. Its so small, has WiFi connection, has Google Earth, the Bible in about 30 languages and versions, 900 photos, several movies and programs, tons of music, and its only half full......

Thank the Lord for the tools of technology.


Bill

[TARPSBird]

HD, didn't Dumont make TV's back in the 1950's? Our old set was a Philco but I seem to recall that Dumonts were advertised a lot back then. I remember when I was aboard ship in 1971, the A-6 squadron intel guys had an early HP or TI pocket calculator that did trig functions. They used it for offset aimpoint calculations. It cost the squadron $140 to purchase it retail. Seven years later I bought a TI-30 at Walgreens in San Diego for $20. :d

[Overshoe]

Dumont made TVs and also had the first commercial TV network

http://www.tvhistory.tv/1950-59-DUMONT.htm
The RA165 was the first TV in my house.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DuMont_Television_Network
WABI, the first TV station in Bangor carried a mix of what
was available from all 4 networks. I remember Bishop Sheen
and Captain Video.

My last contact with the IBM punch cards was as an ordering clerk
many years ago. I would use a big ledger style book to order and
then put that on a rack that held a deck of cards. I would transfer
the numbers from the book to the cards and mail the completed
deck to the warehouse where they would run them through the
computer to print out tear strips for the order pickers.

Today when 24 cans of Del Monte peas goes through any combination
of cash registers, a case is automatically added to the next delivery.

[Milton Shupe]

I started my college IT career with punched cards on the old IBM electronic accounting machines, programming boards, using sorters, collators, interpreters, and keypunch machines. These all used the IBM Punched card Hollerith 80 column format as shown here. Encoding used was EBCDIC (Extended Binary Coded Decimal Interchange Code). Basic cards were readable for data using standard hexidecimal interpretation, each column represented one byte. The binary card shown is from a compiled Fortran program and represents binary machine code.

In RW, I programmed an IBM 360 model 20 initially, a card based system. Of course they had memory but only 8K. In the mid-60's, a megabyte of memory cost $1 million, basically, $1 per byte. The memory at that time was made of "core", basic on/off switches, and a successor to the earlier vacuum tubes as used in TV's at the time.

Later, we added disk drives, 7.5MB each, and each drive was half the size of an office desk. The disks were made up of a stack of platters, about 9 or so in the stack, each side recordable. This disks were removable so you could use a disk per application like General Ledger, Payroll, Accts Receivable, etc. The Operation System disk stayed "mounted" in its drive.

[Tako_Kichi]

I remember the punch card systems and the 'Winchester' drives too.

Seems like a lifetime away now and yet it was only 30 years or so. How things have changed.

[Helldiver]

The Dumont not only made a TV set but it was the best on the market. The tuner was continous tuning right through the FM band. Not just hitting individual channels. When I was in Ham Radio the tuner was a collector item because the front end was really "hot".
They had a "Hi Fidelity" amplifier with two 6L6s in push-pull and a darn good speaker system. They were expensive but well worth it.
It was out done by "Mad Man Muntz" and his cheapo gutless wonders.
Funny thing about IBM cards. They have an mild abrasive in them and anybody in the "know" would keep one in your car if the points got pitted.

[brad kaste]

Helldiver,....if I'm not mistaken, "Mad Man Muntz" also promoted a car with his name slapped on it. Who actually made it and of what quality,...I don't have a clue.

[mike_cyul]

Have to say, I like the Stinson pic, too. :)


Mike

[lifejogger]

When I was in college in the 60s taking a computer science class we punched our programs on cards and then fed them into to the card reader. If your cards were out of order the program would not run. The biggest fear was accidentally dropping your cards and then having to put them back in order. Some programs had up to 1,000 cards.

[Snuffy]

Oh geeze! Yeah there are some memories ... First job I ever had we used punch cards to compile bills of materials for gas compressor support systems.

We had file cabinet upon file cabinet fulll of cards ... and if a particular part was needed, we had to go to the punch room and punch the cards ourselves. I remember sitting for hours in front of an old IBM punch machine running cards.

Sheeze.

Thanks for the memories HD! :d

[jmig]

I am too young to remember any of that stuff.



Or, is it, I am to old to remember?

:isadizzy:

[PRB]

Life sure was simple back then. One thread. One program at a time. Take turns, give the processor back to the command interpreter when you're done. Simple! I'll have to post a picture of my TRS-80 Model 4, which still works! :d

[Lionheart]

Life sure was simple back then. One thread. One program at a time. Take turns, give the processor back to the command interpreter when you're done. Simple! I'll have to post a picture of my TRS-80 Model 4, which still works! :d


LOLOL.... Still works???? Dang.. Someday it will be worth a fortune..


Bill

PS: I agree with Mike, nice Stinson! Is that a Voyager?

[WuhWuzDat]

Life sure was simple back then. One thread. One program at a time. Take turns, give the processor back to the command interpreter when you're done. Simple! I'll have to post a picture of my TRS-80 Model 4, which still works! :d
My first computer, a TRS-80 model 1 (16K memory, level II basic), is still functional, but I gave it away to a friend who collects antique computers of all shapes and sizes about a decade ago.

His comment after trying the old dinosaur out was "WOW this thing is FAST!!" (as compared to a few others in his collection)

On 2 occasions, I helped him "rescue" a few pieces for his collection, including a 450# disk drive (the size and shape of a large home washing machine), and a 1600# DEC VAX minicomputer. Both of these had to be winched up a flight of steps out of a basement, and the people involved will probably remember this escapade a LONG time.

Jeff

[PRB]

True story:
<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" /><o:p></o:p>
My first computer was a TRS-80 Model III. It had no operating system. Its “OS” was part of the “motherboard” and was basically the BASIC programming language. I learned a bit about BASIC programming with that box before I bought the Model 4. Now the Model 4 came with an actual operating system, TRSDOS, on one 5.25-inch floppy disk. I had no idea what an “operating system” was, or why I needed one, or why this “new” computer wouldn’t boot unless I had this floppy disk inserted into the drive. The old one booted up just fine without a disk in it. What’s so special about this disk anyway?
<o:p></o:p>
Furthermore, after booting, now the computer screen simply displayed the word “Ready>” at the top. So now what do I do? I tried typing, “RUN” and pressing enter. The box replied “Command not found” or some such. “RUN”, after all, was what you typed to get your BASIC programs to “run” on the old Model III box. But this one was “better”, and it didn’t understand, evidently, what “RUN” meant.
<o:p></o:p>
So I called my brother. He was smart. He’d know what to do. He suggested that I type “HELP”. I did, and low and behold, the screen filled with lines of text! Success!! But it was just a long list of seemingly meaningless words. My brother said they were “commands”. Type them in, he said, and they would “do things”. Awesome!
<o:p></o:p>
So I started trying each one, one at a time. None of them seemed to do a darned thing until I got to the one called “FORMAT”. As soon as I entered that one in, the disk drive started running! Wow! I wondered what it was going to do. Breathless I waited. Then the screen went blank. I waited. Nothing more happened. I tried “re-booting”, but the computer remained dead.
<o:p></o:p>
Yes, I formatted the floppy disk with the TRSDOS operating system on it.. Back then, nobody had figured out the “Are you really sure you want to erase your operating system? Press ENTER to continue” warning message concept yet…
<o:p></o:p>
I called the guy at Radio Shack and explained what happened. After he had finished “LOLing” his “AO”, he told me to come on down and he’d fix me up. He gave me a half hour crash course in operating systems and disk drives. He didn’t have to do that, but he did, and I always remembered that!

[MCDesigns]

Wow, this thread brings back some memories. When I was a junior in high School I had been taking art classes all thru school and that was pretty much my and my parents focus, art. i had a falling out with the amazon of an art teacher and had to change electives. tried to get into architecture but it was full so I enrolled in a new program they had called data processing, not having a clue what it was about. All thru my Junior year we did the punch card deal working in Fortran and Cobalt and trying to understand flowcharting and logic, LOL. My senior year we hit the jackpot, the school treated us to brand new Apple IIe's and I got my first taste of basic and floppy discs, LOL (YEAH, no more punch cards!)

[Helldiver]

Yes it was a Voyager 108-2 Flying Station Wagon with a 185 HP Franklin engine that never gave me any problems. It was all metalized and she flew like a dream. I paid $2700 bucks for her and sold it two years later for $4200. I wish I stll owned her. But it was either her or the sailboat and the sailboat didn't cost any money to run...
My first PC was a Commodore 128 and then a TI something. I remember you loaded in the programs with a tape deck. There was another one starting with an "A".. Boy, the stroke raised hell with my memory. I'll think of it four o'clock in the morning.

[Cazzie]

My first experience was a Commodore 64 in the early 80s, I was late getting into the computer frenzy. After that I had a Seagate with MS-DOS in 1989. Learned all the keyboard commands for MS-DOS and they still work on Vista, so I use the keyboard about as much or more than the mouse. I then progressed to a Gateway with Windows 3.1, another Gateway with Windows98, a Velocity Micro with XP, and now have my home-build with Vista 64.

I know this much, I'll never buy another brand-name built computer as long as my mind holds up enough for me to gather the necessities and build another one. They put too much Bloatware on their systems that is not needed. I installed "only" Windows Vista and then the programs "I" want on my HD. No Bloatware 90-Day MCAfee, Norton, or MS Office. And Lord knows the crap H-P puts on their computers, even though in all honesty, the two H-Ps I have for my two boys have never given a moment's problem. Of course on both, the first thing I did was uninstall Norton and other Bloatware not H-P related on both. I use AVG 8.0 on all the computers, best Anti-Virus out there bar none IMHO.

Caz

[deKoven]

Oh, lord !! My first taste of a computer was in the 70's. I went to school and learned to be a keypunch operator. Learned that Hollerith code and all, then went to work for a company. They were using an IBM360 model 30, 64k memory, 4 disk drives and 4 tape drives. Cards for their programs took up one to 2.5 trays of space. They did medical bookkeeping for various companies around town. I learned programming by reading through the IBM manuals (on the night shift) and then went in to systems and borrowed a programmers manual. Wrote a proggie that kept track of the paper inventory and caught holy ell for working on. Seems that time on the computer (at that time) was about $165 an hour :costumes: and I was getting it "for free". "Sorry, guy, you can't do that anymore" but we will move you into systems and let you learn on job.

Oh, and they kept my proggie and used it. Were still using it when I left.

:icon_lol:

[Craig Taylor]

When I hit college they were grading the tests using cards, but you colored in the blocks with a #2 pencil rather than punching them out (too smart for hanging chads back then, I guess :icon_lol:). There were some old stories about folk answering their winter finals in Christmas Tree patterns.

When I was in the Marines, we used the same cards for our maintenance and supply transactions. Then they introduced these new-fangled "green machines," which were self-contained mini-PCs, where the screen cover folded down to become the keyboard, and the screen was only about 6 inches across. Once the data was all entered, a courier would drive over to the mainframe building with a six-inch, single-sided floppy that probably held less than 380k of data, which was then uploaded for processing. He then returned with the previous day's transactions updated on a printout for reconciling, and we did this day after day...

[Snuffy]

Outside of the useing the IBM Punch cards in 74 - 79 .... my first real computer experience came in 84 ... my girlfriend at the time, (who became my wife, who is now my ex ...) had a Ti-994A.

I got so into that "computer". I bought the expansion box, I bought two 360k floppy drives at 5.25 disc size, I had the cassette recorder, the memory expansion cards in the box ... and my color tv for a monitor.

I learned basic and advanced basic and some assembly on that thing.

[Willy]

My first computor was a Commodore 64 and like every comp I've had since, I used it well past it's glory days. My next one was an old used 386 that was well past it's prime, enough so that I turned right around and bought a new machine with a 266 AMD chip and Win 98. That one I kept going thru several updates (up to a 500mhz cpu and 98SE. It was still going strong but dated when I built this one in 02.

I'm probably overdue for a new one, but I kind of got attached to this one and it's still working great for what I use it for.

[srgalahad]

Anyone want to buy a Commodore VIC-20 3.5kb mem plus an graphics and memory expansion card (8Kb) - comes with tape drive (standard audio cassette), TV hookup, several tapes of programs (some BASIC, some in hex). I'll even throw in a few pounds of printed material including lessons on using a hex editor (YOU do the typing!) ... with any luck the original box will still be intact.
Reason for selling: I upgraded.. to a Commodore SuperPet then in 1983 an 8086 (clone) box --WOW a HARD DRIVE!, a 286, a couple of 386 machines, A P1 which got upgraded to PII/400 (still in use), discovered laptops and hit the 21st century with an AMD 3500 (hmmm.. 9 machines in 28 years... I guess it's time for a new one)

and yeah.. I still regret not buying that 8008 kit from Heath/Zenith when I'd have been the first kid in town with a "personal computer".

Oh.. and I have dropped a stack of punch cards :banghead::banghead::banghead:

oh... I'll throw in a copy of MSFS(DOS) if you buy within 10 minutes!

C:\dos
C:\dos run
run DOS run!

Rob

[Helldiver]

I remember now. the first computer I owned was a Commodore 64 and then I went to the Commodore 128. Thence to the TI-994A with all the peripherals. Somewhere in there was a Commodore A**** and I'll be darned if I can remember the name of it.
With the slotted wing, the Voyager would land in 40 feet and get off in 150 foot. I landed it in the overrun at Hanscom Field in Bedford, MA. Darn near STOL capability. Plus it had more room in the cabin than a Piper Cherokee but it was a noisy airplane.

[Willy]

Commodore Amiga? I had a buddy with one of those and they lasted quite a while as there wasn't much that would touch one in graphics for quite a long while.

[Helldiver]

It was the Amiga and I kept it in storage far beyond it's usefulness. Thank You. I'm surprised how many active Commodore 64 and 128 as well as Amiga groups that are still active on Google. But from the looks of them, I would fit right in.

[Penzoil3]

Anybody else ever own a Timex-Sinclair ? My first computer was as TS 2600. I still have it, and it still works. ( last time i got it out...)
LOL
Sue

[GT182]

College in 1969 we had a computer science program and used punch cards at Alfred State. Fast forward to 1980 and that's when I saw the first Tandy computer. I played with one in the mall out front of Radio Shack and couldn't make heads or tails of what to do with it. I could start my name and end up with Garrrrr. Couldn't figure out how to erase it and wasn't about to ask the sales people how either. What would they think. :costumes: I even said I'd never own one. Then we bought the first one, a Compaq Presario in 2000 that started the ball rolling for me. Now I've got two, a bunch of parts, a ton of CDs/DVDs, plus I can't stay away from the dam thing. I guess I'm hooked. :173go1:

So now I have some idea of what they do and what goes where. I've built a couple and fixed a few too. Funny how our priorities and hobbies change isn't it.

[Lionheart]

College in 1969 we had a computer science program and used punch cards at Alfred State. Fast forward to 1980 and that's when I saw the first Tandy computer. I played with one in the mall out front of Radio Shack and couldn't make heads or tails of what to do with it. I could start my name and end up with Garrrrr. Couldn't figure out how to erase it and wasn't about to ask the sales people how either. What would they think. :costumes: I even said I'd never own one. Then we bought the first one, a Compaq Presario in 2000 that started the ball rolling for me. Now I've got two, a bunch of parts, a ton of CDs/DVDs, plus I can't stay away from the dam thing. I guess I'm hooked. :173go1:

So now I have some idea of what they do and what goes where. I've built a couple and fixed a few too. Funny how our priorities and hobbies change isn't it.


Whats cool is if you can find a computer bone yard. We had one here in Phoenix for a while, but it became stricktly a recycler and stopped letting people in.

Was sooo cool to walk through ilses of parts, tons of HD's and things. most of it wasnt worth much, but it was fun to experiment on, making a basic computer, (which for me never worked, lolol... ).

Was a fun little short hobby, similar to RC planes except the computer doesnt accidentally fall out of the sky out of control. You have to heave it through a window. Just make sure its open or you have a glass bill....


Bill

[TARPSBird]

I'm still using the Compaq Presario I bought in 2001. :d It ran CFS2 and FS2002 OK but doesn't cut it with FS9, I'm lucky to get 20 FPS with an older aircraft.