Oldsters

[Teunis]

Re: Oldsters

The large factory where I did my apprenticeship as a maintenance/telecoms electrician in 1970 had a computer room, I think it was a VAX.
One day a week it was used for payroll, the rest for solving various technical problems.

No one was allowed in the room except the Very Pretty data typist.
And the maintenance guy changing out light bulbs, fixing the AC etc.

She made me very aware of the potential of computers

[oshunluvr]

Re: Oldsters

My first exposure to personal computers was my mothers Apple IIe. Back in 'those days' I was into the role playing game Dungeons and Dragons,

Anyone remember Zork?

[pwabrahams]

Re: Oldsters

Anyone remember Zork?

I think I do. That was the text-only puzzle game that started in a little white house and included a lot of twisty little passages, all alike, right? Also the Gnome of Zurich and his bank.

Or am I mixing it up with something else?

I don't think I ever got all the way through it, but I don't remember for sure.

I wonder if it's still possible to run it in its original form. I vaguely remember it was on a 5 1/4" diskette.

At this age I vaguely remember a lot of things.

[oshunluvr]

Re: Oldsters

Text only game for Apple (and others I suppose). You would type stuff like "What do I see" or "Take paper" and try and solve the puzzle. I loved it - I had ZORK I, II, and III.

[pwabrahams]

Zork

Apparently you can download Zork from http://www.infocom-if.org/downloads/downloads.html. Perhaps there's an add-on called "Return of the Codgers"

[woodsmoke]

Re: Oldsters

Yep, Zork! C-64

woodsmoke

[bsniadajewski]

Re: Oldsters

Gees, you make me feel younger. My first exposure to PC's was on a Tandy 1000SL, with an Intel 8086 CPU (made by AMD!), 640k (don't know if it was enough though), and Tandy Deskmate on MS-DOS 3.3, back in the late 1980's. from there I had a PB (i486DX2-66), 2 Dells (P2-450, P4-1.8Ghz), and now a Micro Express Rig i've had for 4 years snd still running liker new.

[pwabrahams]

Zork again

See thread 3116921.0 for more discussion of Zork in today's environment.

[KerrMD]

Re: Oldsters

I am on the young side of old but here goes.

I'm 38 and my earliest memory with computers (Atari 2800 not included) is an old Texas Instruments TI-99/4a. Dang but that floppy drive on that sucker was nearly as big as my tower is now.

[oshunluvr]

Re: Oldsters

Floppy drive? F A N C Y !

My first computer (that I owned) used a cassette tape to load the OS (took about 20 minutes) and had a whopping 4k. Timex Sinclair!

Those were the days...

[GreyGeek]

Re: Oldsters

cassette tape?

Pure luxury!

I remember when ....

[woodsmoke]

Re: Oldsters

Yeppers on the tape.
The kids and I started out on a Timex Sinclair 100, made a zork type game on the tape.. I ....almost....bought the 1000 and not the C-64.

A curious trivia about the 100 was since it had a waterproof membrane board and, apparently, and adapter to run on a car ciggy plugin, for many years over the road truckers recorded how they got to places on it and could play it while driving to get there without a map. They also kept their informal records on it to be put on paper later! lol

woodsmoke

[Qqmike]

Re: Oldsters

There might be a way to shorten the posts under this (and similar) topics.

Suggested template:

I am X years old.
My first computer use was on a [mainframe/home system].
[Optional: mention tape, punched cards, cassette, etc.]


I think there might only be a couple-three mainframes "back then," like the CDC6600. And a few home systems (as you guys have listed). Knowing the age, one can fill in the blanks.

Of course, Spock, the posts would not be the least bit interesting made that way!

Here, I'll go first.

I'm 62.
First experience was on a mainframe in college.
Punched cards.

(Yep, you guessed it, CDC6600. And yeah, you'd be right in thinking, "Yeah, then that guy probably went to Entre Computers [only show in town] and bought the first IBM PC they tried to sell him, circa 1981. That would also tell you (with high probability) the OS I used on the IBM.)

See how easy the posts would be?
(Caution: Crazy is as crazy does)

[GreyGeek]

Re: Oldsters

Now 70
In 1968 I was 27,
in Grad school, taking a Numerical Analysis class
Using the 10CPS KSR-133 keyboard with paper tape punch to write a Fortran IV programs which were then submitted to a CDC6600 for batch processing. We'd get a greenbar printout either listing the correct answer to the quadratic equation we were attempting to solve, or a list of errors, and we'd repeat the whole process.

I was told, but have no proof, that the "6600" part of the the CDC name was because it cost $6.6 million. The school I was attending rented 1Kb of core for $1,500 per month. The CDC was in a city over 100 miles away and the rolls of punch tape had to be transported to the CDC and the greenbar transported back. The school admin asked the Prof to find a closer, hence cheaper service. We ended up using a local bank's Burroughs B5500 (IIRC) that cost only $600 per second of CPU time plus a base administrative charge. IIRC, it cost less than a buck to run a single program and looping was killed at 1,000 cycles in case a program had an infinite loop in it. Back in 1968 $1 was like $20 today.

[lcorken]

Re: Oldsters

I'm 64.

Worked at Heathkit as audio tech. They decide I should also be the computer tech when Heathkit introduced it's computer line. Heathkit H8 (8080A 8bit CPU, 4K RAM) with audio take deck for storage.

They also had a kit version of PDP11 (Heath H11). It used H10 paper tape reader/punch. That animal gave me nightmares for years. Paper tape! GACK! Mechanical calibration was a severe PITA. Fortunately they soon introduced a dual 8 inch floppy system. That was a hernia maker but worked well.

I remember playing Star trek in Basic. That was fun. I changed the power level in a line of Basic code so I could finally beat the Romulans.

Old time Ken.