Old farts reminiscing about computers

[physicsfita]

I used to lust over the H8's in the Heathkit catalog, along with the ham gear and other cool stuff. My uncle built a Heathkit TV and stereo.

Me too! We couldn't afford anything like that, so my dad and I built some clocks. Later, in undergrad, I took an Electronic Data Acquisition class. We had H8's to interface with the circuits we made. That semester, the professor decided we should teach ourselves assembler (in previous offerings, the students had to teach themselves C), so we had to write all of our control code in assembly. I could slug through it, but I was fortunate that my lab partner had a knack for it. (All those PUSH and POP commands drove me nuts!) Later, in grad school, I wrote the drivers for our custom boards for our 286-based data collection system. I taught myself C then -- *much* better!

 

[SW2Fiddler]

There isn't a story behind this photo; just enjoy your Guru Meditation moment.

 

[omarsultan]

There's a long story that goes with the photos, but I don't have time to type it at the moment. I started in '71 (simultaneously) with APL on an IBM 360/50, and a programmable (via little punch cards) calculator with nixie tube 10-digit display; I think it was made by Canon but not sure.

View attachment 97739View attachment 97740

That is AWESOME! DEC should have made this a standard feature - I remember many a VMS upgrade that drove me to drink.

 

[AudubonB]

I remember, ggr, when you showed the innovative use of the DEC a year or two ago. I am assuming it is such an old computer that the inside photo is showing vacuum tubes, right. Yes, that is what they must be.....

 

[ggr]

I remember, ggr, when you showed the innovative use of the DEC a year or two ago. I am assuming it is such an old computer that the inside photo is showing vacuum tubes, right. Yes, that is what they must be.....

Vacuums, yes, that would explain the popping noise...

 

[TEG]

Love the robot typewriter!

I don't want to brag, but I am published

Who has the default high score on Commodore C64 Roboton? Might be a clue as to who wrote it !

 

[HankLloydRight]

I was just sitting here reminiscing the good ol' days when Model S had a brilliant and functional user interface.

Then the "Great Firmware Update of 2015" hit. Or what I like to call the "FU" era. It was all downhill from there.

 

[mspohr]

I was just sitting here reminiscing the good ol' days when Model S had a brilliant and functional user interface.

Then the "Great Firmware Update of 2015" hit. Or what I like to call the "FU" era. It was all downhill from there.

I guess a true old fart doesn't like change.

 

[dirkhh]

I guess a true old fart doesn't like change.

Me! That's me! Yep!

 

[bmah]

Wow what an awesome thread.

I'm in my mid 40s, which sounds like it's in the lower-middle part of the age distribution for posters here. My first computer was an Apple ][ Plus in 1981 (with a whopping 48KB of RAM). I know a bunch of you folks had 'em too. Before that I had time on my dad's IBM 1130 at work (with Model 029 card punch) and a local university's PDP 11/45. I was mostly a self-taught programmer, spent many a day typing in games, etc. from program listings in computer magazines (Softside, Creative Computing, and COMPUTE! come to mind...I think my dad subscribed to pretty much every computer magazine that existed in the 1980s). Most of my initial programs were in BASIC (well duh) and later 6502 assembler.

I really miss the old 6502 processor, and the days when you could actually understand everything that was going on in the computer. I stuck with the Apple II way longer than I should have (anyone remember the Apple IIgs?), but then went through the 68000-based Macs, and various PCs. Nowadays I mostly run on Intel-based Macs and various FreeBSD and Linux-running Intel hardware.

My first computer communication device was a direct-connect 300 baud modem (yay no acoustic coupler!). It was this oddball modem called a Novation Apple-Cat...it had the weird property that you could directly program its oscillators to do touch tones and play music. That modem tied up my parents' phone line dialing into lots of bulletin board systems in the mid 80s. And yeah I wanted to be that kid in "War Games".

Someone posted the picture of the Radio Shack 150-in-1 electronics kit...I had one too. Way better than the Snap Circuits the kids have nowadays (including my son).

Oh yeah I still keep a few decks of punch cards around...it was great fun to baffle undergrads with these things when I was a TA in graduate school (UC Berkeley, go Bears!).

Thanks for the excuse to go down memory lane.

 

[reddy]

When talking about first computers, does analog count or we speaking digital only?

If analog counts, I was flying in B-52 flight simulators in 1966, at age 9. A 5000 sqft room filled with rows of relays, tubes, solenoids, and a real looking cockpit.

If we are saying digital, a Burroughs B6700 in 1972, then a PDP-11 running UCSD p-system in 1975 at, of course, UCSD.

Then ran SAIL, Fortran, Algol, and an inferior Pascal on Decsystem-10.

Was able to hack DecWar.

First computer I could keep at home , an IMSAI with a Z80 , 32k, CP/M and Microsoft Basic.

Had brief respite from programming after being expelled from medical school for cracking University of Texas Southwestern at Dallas administrative passwords and hacking DecWar a bit more. Returned after negotiating a deal to tell them how it was done.

Now, board certified in Clinical Informatics ..... And off giving a talk in Nashville tomorrow at electronic healthcare conference... So I'm not home to try out the new firmware......

 

[mspohr]

When talking about first computers, does analog count or we speaking digital only?

If analog counts, I was flying in B-52 flight simulators in 1966, at age 9. A 5000 sqft room filled with rows of relays, tubes, solenoids, and a real looking cockpit.

If we are saying digital, a Burroughs B6700 in 1972, then a PDP-11 running UCSD p-system in 1975 at, of course, UCSD.

Then ran SAIL, Fortran, Algol, and an inferior Pascal on Decsystem-10.

Was able to hack DecWar.

First computer I could keep at home , an IMSAI with a Z80 , 32k, CP/M and Microsoft Basic.

Had brief respite from programming after being expelled from medical school for cracking University of Texas Southwestern at Dallas administrative passwords and hacking DecWar a bit more. Returned after negotiating a deal to tell them how it was done.

Now, board certified in Clinical Informatics ..... And off giving a talk in Nashville tomorrow at electronic healthcare conference... So I'm not home to try out the new firmware......

Thank lab I worked at had a Systron-Donner analog computer. We used it to model heart function. Great fun!

 

[AudubonB]

When talking about first computers, does analog count or we speaking digital only?

If analog counts, I was flying in B-52 flight simulators in 1966, at age 9. A 5000 sqft room filled with rows of relays, tubes, solenoids, and a real looking cockpit.

If we are saying digital, a Burroughs B6700 in 1972, then a PDP-11 running UCSD p-system in 1975 at, of course, UCSD.

Then ran SAIL, Fortran, Algol, and an inferior Pascal on Decsystem-10.

Was able to hack DecWar.

First computer I could keep at home , an IMSAI with a Z80 , 32k, CP/M and Microsoft Basic.

Had brief respite from programming after being expelled from medical school for cracking University of Texas Southwestern at Dallas administrative passwords and hacking DecWar a bit more. Returned after negotiating a deal to tell them how it was done.

Now, board certified in Clinical Informatics ..... And off giving a talk in Nashville tomorrow at electronic healthcare conference... So I'm not home to try out the new firmware......

Say hello to Bob Traeger for us if he's there (he'll likely be by far the eldest there....)

 

[aesculus]

My first exposure to computers was a teenager at the RAND corporation where my sister worked. I remember she let me play games on the computer (it was in a giant a/c room and you sat surrounded by the computer - all relays). Probably what got me interested in computers.

My first programming experience was on Univac 1100 learning FORTRAN IV in 1974. Fullerton JC was pretty progressive to get this machine at the time that they shared with another campus. In fact later in 1976 I went to UC Davis where the engineering school was still on a Burroughs with punch cards. That forced me to abandon engineering and go to physics where I had all sorts of DEC PDP-11's and a PDP-15 at my disposal. Programmed data access and analysis systems using DEC assembler and FORTRAN IV. FORTRAN 77 was just appearing.

The PDP 15 was paper tape bootstrapped and it was everyone's job to make sure they never booted it without a spare strip handy because about every 10th time the reader ate the paper. Once we were down for 4 months because somebody forgot the rule and ate the last one. Somebody came back from sabbatical and found a copy in their desk. Back on-line again.

Later moved on to IBM 360's and then 370's running VM/CMS. That was actually pretty cool. It was like a giant PC since everybody had their own VM's. Also did time with IBM Series 1 and 8100's running various scientific and shop systems. Also spent time with the IBM early RISC based machines such as the RT PC and later RS/6000. There were literally no manuals with the RT PC so we just kind of winged it.

And of course spent lots of times with various iterations of IBM PC's. When the PC first came out all there was for SW was a BASIC Interpreter, and assembler and an ASYNC program. I had to write a complete database program in assembler for a client that also used the async to replicate the data to/from a mainframe. Distributed PC (client/server) circa 1982. :smile:

 

[muleferg]

Originally Posted by mspohr
I guess a true old fart doesn't like change.

I do!

 

[DonL]

Old farts?

You're a relative whippersnapper. I'm 76 years old and began programming in 1958 on an IBM650 vacuum-tube computer with 2,000 words of rotating drum memory. The PDP-8 is a modern computer compared to that.

Computers I've programmed include the IBM650, 1620, 1401, 709, 7090, 7094 and 360. Univac 1108, Burroughs B5500, 6500, 6700. Also a bunch of old, niche junk like the Royal McBee LGP30 and a Daystrom process control computer.

I didn't include anything after Intel got into the business.

 

[muleferg]

Back in 1964-64 Lowes used the IBM 402 to write an invoice. All items had a card with item # for ea product. You punched out the quantity. This was the first real computer I worked with.

I remember when I was the manager at Lowes in Clarksville, TN. This guy came in and bought something. I notice him walk around the 402. The IBM plate had been removed. So he ask. Is that a IBM 402. I said yes. He said. I use to work on them in the army in world war II. I said. Yes thats the one you worked. We had a big laugh.

 

[woof]

How has this thread not devolved into a "One True Text Editor" flame war?

 

[bollar]

How has this thread not devolved into a "One True Text Editor" flame war?

Depending on the contributor's age, that will be either sed or vi, right?

 

[HankLloydRight]

How has this thread not devolved into a "One True Text Editor" flame war?

I thought that religion talk wasn't allowed on TMC???