Cable modem suggestions?

[DoYouKubuntu]

Thanks for the info about FORTH, GG. From its description, I can see why it would be so attractive.

My fingers are crossed for the upcoming doctor day.

[DoYouKubuntu]

Brought to you by...Microsoft



Wikipedia tells the history.

You know, I actually don't recall m$ having anything to do with the "Tandy Xenix" I started on. However, I wasn't involved in THAT aspect of it--I was just an end user. I was in college at the time, and working at a furniture store chain doing data entry. Our "real" equipment consisted of Decision Data 9610 keypunch machines and IBM System/3 mainframes. The Tandy machine was basically a toy the owner's son had been tinkering with, and wasn't actually being used for data entry [or anything]. When I decided to take some time off, due to EXTREME burnout!, before medical school, the owners and I discussed creating a new position--I'd teach myself programming and system administration, and we'd upgrade to a cutting-edge *nix system, transitioning off the mainframes. I grabbed the opportunity! When I think of the balls I had back then, it boggles my mind. But I was performing at the absolute highest possible level, and really thought nothing was outside my ability. Today...I would NEVER agree to something like that. Anyway, I got to spend the company's money--some $25,000 of it--on a beautiful, new system: an ALR server running SCO Xenix; the server came standard with 1MB--that's ONE megabyte--of memory; we upgraded that to a whopping 3MB. It had a 230MB hard drive, and IIRC a dual 3.5" and 5.25" floppy drive. I added two 9600 baud modems, a Stallion multiplexor, a bunch of Wyse 60 and 150 terminals, several printers, some short-haul modems, and did all the programming and system administration. It took about a year to completely transition everything--payables, inventory, general ledger, shipping, all of it. For the first time, all of the company's stores were hooked up directly to the server, and could do things themselves, like check inventory or print various reports, that they used to have to rely on nightly reports printed at the main location. I had a dedicated modem line at home, along with a Wyse terminal, so I could access the server 24/7. I absolutely loved that job--and decided not to go on to med school.

[GreyGeek]

PS- Here is a description of gforth, which is in the repository:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Q6FflPMHZP4

[GreyGeek]

...
But FORTH, on the other hand, nope, no recollection of that at all...not even hearing about it. But over 30+ years, who knows?

FORTH was popular at the time because being compact it and even a complex app could fit in the limited RAM available at the time. Words were compiled the instant a definition was closed. Here is the form-
: word other words separated by spaces ;
A word definition rarely was longer than a few lines, or 1024 bytes.

FORTH was written by Charles Moore, who wrote it to control telescopes. Because of its power, compactness and speed it is still often used as a PCL and burned into PROMS and EPROMS. C was available at the time but it's memory management and other cumbersome commands put me off. So did the additional need for a linker and editor. Debugging was a PITA for C. It was 20 years before I learned C++ for Qt.

I'm glad to hear June is doing well right now. It sounds like she's making really good progress. And your snoring adventures made me chuckle.

Things have progressed from a dismal 12 - 18 months left to 6 - 8 years, but understanding that sudden death is a common outcome for her condition. Six weeks ago her PH Function Class was IV (end stage), now the activity she is capable of puts her barely into FC III which, I understand, is very rare progress. She has an all-day doctor appt on June 9th to take an ECG, the six minute walk test, x-Rays and various other pulmonary function tests. We'll know more after that.

[SteveRiley]

Guess what my VERY first taste of *nix was on? A Tandy 6000! I knew its OS as "Tandy Xenix" but I suppose its real name was TRS Xenix, eh?

Brought to you by...Microsoft



Wikipedia tells the history.

[DoYouKubuntu]

Oh my goodness, it didn't even dawn on me that it might've been a typo! Guess what my VERY first taste of *nix was on? A Tandy 6000! I knew its OS as "Tandy Xenix" but I suppose its real name was TRS Xenix, eh?

But FORTH, on the other hand, nope, no recollection of that at all...not even hearing about it. But over 30+ years, who knows?

I'm glad to hear June is doing well right now. It sounds like she's making really good progress. And your snoring adventures made me chuckle.

[GreyGeek]

I forgot the "T" in TRS ~ Tandy Radio Shack computer running Microsoft's Xenix multi-user OS:
http://www.radioshackcatalogs.com/ht...enix/h002.html
FORTH is a bottom up stacked language with an RPN input and calculation paradigm. First you define basic words. Inputs are parameters. Using those basic words you define more complex word,and so, eventually building up your dictionary. Your final word is like "main.c". It is very compact, powerful AND FAST. It makes C programs seem slow.

June healing wonderfully. She is still classified as having Severe Pulmonary Hypertension and Left Ventricular Hypertrophy. She can now walk about 1,300 feet in six minutes without too much fatigue, but she does it on O2 at 2L/min. Her HR rises to about 110 and her systO2 drops to between 87 and 92%. But, at times, her systO2 stays above 94%.

I'm doing fine. Taking care of her hasn't significantly added to what I'd have to do if I were living alone, and it's a lot more fun having her around.

Because sleep apnea is sometimes associated with Pulmonary Hypertension her Pulmonologist recommended a sleep study. The next morning I asked the nurse doing the monitoring how much she snored and her longest duration of non-breathing. The nurse said she didn't snore, which is my experience knowing her for 52 years. I've never heard her snore and only one time did she gasp as if she were short of air, a phenomenon called Central Sleep APnea. The doctor's office later called with the "results", saying she had Obstructive Sleep Apnea and stopped breathing 16 times a minute, just one over the AHI standard for OSA. They also said they had made arrangements for us to pick up a CPAP machine with a particular vendor and set an appointment for another sleep over to calibrate the breathing pressure of the CPAP. I KNOW she does NOT have OSA because she doesn't snore and breathing O2 is one treatment for Central Sleep Apnea. I wanted to hear the OSA for myself so I downlaoded the SnoreLab app for the iPhone and have run it for the last eight days. The first night the app reported "Epic Snoring" ... from me! I had no clue that I snored. My wife said "sure, but it's usually when your arm is over your head and I just move it to your side". The next night I slept out on the couch so I could hear her snore. Nothing. And, she can't remember when she last was awakened by being out of breath. I've found my own snore score varies between 14 and 58, with SnoreLab reporting a user average of 30. Severe snoring is 100 or higher. The app allows notations for remedies and factors. I've found that when I sleep on my side I snore the least. Cool app. But, I imagine that doctors who make a nice pile of cash running sleeps laps wouldn't like it unless it actually showed the patient snoreing at levels of 100 or above. A lot of people swear by CPAP and a lot swear at it, my son being in the latter group.

[DoYouKubuntu]

I used an RS Xenix and FORTH to write a parts inventory program for a car-parts store in Hastings, NE. That was my first use of both FORTH and Unix. Xenix didn't last long and FORTH wasn't widely adopted.

Neither RS Xenix nor FORTH rings a bell for me.

The SCO Xenix system I administered used filePro as its RDBMS, and I loved programming in it. It was extremely powerful and versatile, and I did some very sophisticated things with it, considering its time period.

My first PC was an Apple ][+ purchased in August of 1978.

Do you still have it? I can only imagine what it's worth as a collector's item!

My last will probably be that Acer I gave to my grandson, swapping out an older Acer I had previously given him.

You never know.

I haven't programmed since I retired seven years ago

I hear you. My 'programming' these days consists of the occasional shell script to automate some task, like renaming or resizing a ton of photos. Nothing much more complex...or interesting...than that.

and since my wife's illness began late last fall I've hardly used the Acer. My last "computer" will probably be this iPhone 6+ I'm using now. Looking back, we can now identify the start, the rise, the peak and the fall of the PC. It has been a glorious era. About 40 years. The Geeks among us will motor on, converting commercial computers to personal use with Linux as the OS until the last hardware dies. The rest will be human terminals powered by biological heat and part of a global network run by a world-wide government.

There are certain things I intend to cling to--at least as of THIS MOMENT--one being real computers and another being real, hardwired landline phones. Don't get me wrong, I LOVE using my tablet (it's a Kindle Fire HD 8.9" that I rooted) and use it daily--to play games. I love my smartphone, currently a Moto X 2nd Generation. But when I want to do REAL stuff, I want to do it on a full-sized real keyboard and look at a nice big screen. I don't want to swipe; I don't want to type on a virtual keyboard; I don't want to strain my eyes looking at a small screen.

PS How's your wife doing, GG? And you?

[GreyGeek]

...
That was on SCO Xenix.

I used an RS Xenix and FORTH to write a parts inventory program for a car-parts store in Hastings, NE. That was my first use of both FORTH and Unix. Xenix didn't last long and FORTH wasn't widely adopted.

My first PC was an Apple ][+ purchased in August of 1978. My last will probably be that Acer I gave to my grandson, swapping out an older Acer I had previously given him. I haven't programmed since I retired seven years ago and since my wife's illness began late last fall I've hardly used the Acer. My last "computer" will probably be this iPhone 6+ I'm using now. Looking back, we can now identify the start, the rise, the peak and the fall of the PC. It has been a glorious era. About 40 years. The Geeks among us will motor on, converting commercial computers to personal use with Linux as the OS until the last hardware dies. The rest will be human terminals powered by biological heat and part of a global network run by a world-wide government.

[DoYouKubuntu]

The saga of my fiber installation: http://www.dslreports.com/forum/r297...iber-next-week

I'll take a look...

Yup. I spent $400 on a 2400 baud modem in 1988. I was driving home from Micro Center in Co(w)lumbus, Ohio, beaming with pride. The road had a small dip that was shrouded in fog, which in turn completely concealed the large dog lurking within. I struck it hard -- it lumbered to the side of the road. I immediately got out of the car to try to find it, but it disappeared. I resumed the drive home, threw the modem on the couch, and cried for an hour.

Oh no...

It was in 1988 that I bought my first 9600 baud modems. It was for work, so money was no object. I bought two, then added a Stallion multiplexer, and some short-haul modems, and ended up with a very workable, very cutting edge multi-location, multi-user environment. That was on SCO Xenix. I LOVED that job.

Micro Center--I used to practically live there. Their selection of cables and adapters was amazing. The Dallas store was only a few miles from my house. But since moving back home to SoCal, I've only been to Micro Center once, because its nearest location is ~50 miles away. I miss it.

[SteveRiley]

Holy...crap!

The saga of my fiber installation: http://www.dslreports.com/forum/r297...iber-next-week

Hey, Steve, remember the "good old days" of 2400 baud modems?

Yup. I spent $400 on a 2400 baud modem in 1988. I was driving home from Micro Center in Co(w)lumbus, Ohio, beaming with pride. The road had a small dip that was shrouded in fog, which in turn completely concealed the large dog lurking within. I struck it hard -- it lumbered to the side of the road. I immediately got out of the car to try to find it, but it disappeared. I resumed the drive home, threw the modem on the couch, and cried for an hour.

[GreyGeek]

Holy...crap!

Hey, Steve, remember the "good old days" of 2400 baud modems?

For sure! The .V92 protocol brought a mind-boggling 52Kb/s download rate.

[GreyGeek]

Steve trots out his wheelbarrow... 😀
I'm jealous of both of you! 😭

[DoYouKubuntu]

Sorry. I just can't resist.

Holy...crap!

Hey, Steve, remember the "good old days" of 2400 baud modems?

[SteveRiley]

Sorry. I just can't resist.