Marty_d Posted August 2, 2014 Share Posted August 2, 2014 You haven't lived until you've punched cards with a manual hole punch.rgmwa What, no one born after 1965 has lived?? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
old man emu Posted August 2, 2014 Share Posted August 2, 2014 Ian, I downloaded These can also be downloaded and installed into Win 8.1:https://www.dropbox.com/sh/9rypo5zxfp5d767/tRhHGG6zys and Chrome said it was malware. Is this a safe download? OME Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rgmwa Posted August 2, 2014 Share Posted August 2, 2014 What, no one born after 1965 has lived?? Yes, but they would have only been about four at the time. rgmwa Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Admin Posted August 2, 2014 Author Share Posted August 2, 2014 Ian,I downloaded and Chrome said it was malware. Is this a safe download? OME I can't remember where i got mine from so wheni was creating the post i just did a search and found that one...do a search and find one that is ok and let me know so i can update the post Others, i can remember getting my first what you could refer to as a PC (portable computer)...it was called a Kaypro 64. The lid of the box came off which was the keyboard, it had for memory a 6" amber screen and twin 5.25" floppies. It was the big banger in the day running cpm and cost just over $2,250 33 years ago Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fly_tornado Posted August 2, 2014 Share Posted August 2, 2014 I remember them and suitcase 286's Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rgmwa Posted August 3, 2014 Share Posted August 3, 2014 Others, i can remember getting my first what you could refer to as a PC (portable computer)...it was called a Kaypro 64. The lid of the box came off which was the keyboard, it had for memory a 6" amber screen and twin 5.25" floppies. It was the big banger in the day running cpm and cost just over $2,250 33 years ago Hey, that was my first computer too. They were early versions of portables, more accurately described as luggables. rgmwa Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gibbo Posted August 26, 2014 Share Posted August 26, 2014 I still have my Microbee - bought in 1983 as a bagful of parts for $299. 2Mhz Z80 and 32K of CMOS Ram. Many hours with a soldering iron later, it worked! Used a doctored 12 inch B&W TV as a monitor and a cassette tape recorder for storage. It grew into 64K Ram and two 5 1/4 inch floppies, with a professional orange screen monitor. For years I have thought about getting it going again - might get around to it one day.P.S. Am I really that old now?? Ha Microbee 512k, twin 5 1/4, 8" SCSI with 2.88mb and 10mb hardrive. Still works - thanks dick. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pmccarthy Posted August 26, 2014 Share Posted August 26, 2014 Graduated from punching cards to a HP desktop in 1978, single line display, audio cassette storage, hP modified BASIC. Then a Morrow C PM machine. then a Commodore Amiga - still amazing sound and graphics, I don't know how they did it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DonRamsay Posted August 26, 2014 Share Posted August 26, 2014 This is sounding like the four Yorkshire men . . . and if you told them . . . they wouldn't believe you. Around 1964 BHP Newcastle purchased an IBM 1401 for around 250,000 Aussie pounds. Guess that would be something more than $5 million now. So, it came with 8k of ferrite core RAM and was optioned up with an additional 8k that filled a box about the size of 3 or 4 three-drawer filing cabinets. It had two 10" multi layer disk drives, four tape drives, punch card and paper tape readers. It could do the name and address update for their then 110,000 shareholders in around 3 hours. It could do the payroll for 11,000 employees in a similar time. Not bad for 16k! Some bright spark wrote a program that printed masses of characters in such an order that it sounded pitch perfect "She'll be comin round the mountain when she comes" and "Anchors Away". Next purchase was a Honeywell 200 that came with 20k of transistor RAM. Somebody tried to tell me that if it had a bit more RAM, it could run several programs at the same time. I was sure they were pulling my leg as how could it possibly do two things at the same time? Operating the H200 meant keying in programs on the console in Octal. This was necessary to clear memory after running each program. Ah, those were the days . . . real computing! In 1983 I bought my first computer an Apple II+ (clone) in bits from Taiwan. It had 48k on the motherboard and I bought an extra 16k on a pcb that plugged into the motherboard. I also had another board with a Z80 chip so I could run dBase II. The damn thing ran so hot I used to have to have the lid off with a 10" desk fan directing cooling air in. Never bought another Apple product until OzRunways forced me into an iPad - which also gets hot and has to be watched to ensure it doesn't power itself down. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cooperplace Posted August 26, 2014 Share Posted August 26, 2014 The first computer I ever used (32 years ago) was an IBM 370/125, running DOS/VSE - I was a trainee operator at the time. This machine filled up a room bigger than my house. The iPhone I carry round now is more powerful! Mal. I worked with a CDC1700 almost 40 years ago. It had 64k of memory. In its favor is that it could have fitted in my living room and it could connect to (if memory is correct) 96 peripherals. Also, it was very reliable. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DonRamsay Posted August 30, 2014 Share Posted August 30, 2014 CDC 1700, I'll see that and raise you 2 x CDC 3300. When I got back from NS at the beginning of 1970 BHP were in the process of phasing in the 3300s. We worked 7 days. Week for months operating two separate installations - the old and the new. Over a 6 week period I remember I averaged $100 per week - I thought I was rolling in it. These were scientific machines bought by engineers to do mainly commercial work. They had to write the operating system so it could run COBOL. We had CDC engineers on site full time. If we wanted to power the machines down, they had to be there. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Russell1 Posted August 30, 2014 Share Posted August 30, 2014 I bought one of the early all in one Mactintosh computers and used it relentlessly for many years, it never got hot at all... finally put it to work in a very high load application for another eleven years where it performed twenty four hours a day every single day of those eleven years at full load and never ever got above room temperature. Not once. I was so impressed with the whole Apple experience that I have owned many more since. That little Mac spent those eleven years propping up one end of a heavily laden bookshelf in the office. The first CASA... Computer Aided Shelving Application Kind regards to all who did real things with their computers. Russell1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DonRamsay Posted August 30, 2014 Share Posted August 30, 2014 Great story. My Apple II+ was, as I said a clone from Taiwan and clearly never went near an Apple quality control process. Very impressive performance from your Macintosh. For work, I bought one of the first IBM PCs. 128k RAM with 2 x 360k 5.25" floppies. Bought a hard disk (tallgrass) for it which had built in tape drive for backup. The PC couldn't run for 12 hours without shutting down. It was rubbish. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Powerin Posted August 31, 2014 Share Posted August 31, 2014 Ah well.....thread drift to desktops..here's mine [ATTACH]47450._xfImport[/ATTACH] Fedora 20 with a KDE desktop Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marty_d Posted August 31, 2014 Share Posted August 31, 2014 And mine - found a pic of someone in a 701 doing things that 701's shouldn't really do... [ATTACH]47451._xfImport[/ATTACH] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
coljones Posted September 1, 2014 Share Posted September 1, 2014 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WayneL Posted September 15, 2014 Share Posted September 15, 2014 My father was a technical instructor at the ABC Toowong studios and I remember the Apple Lisa computer he used was has a high res screen so good that he designed his retirement home on it. Not like the IBM pc's with the horrible green screen flashing curser. He built a few Microbees, one we still had until recently used for visiting kid's to play games. He built a walk behind slasher mower in the early 80's using the HDD hub from a room size computer as the slasher blade drive. No slop in those bearings.......was used for 20 years before being sold on. I repaired computers for a while and there were some good stories about early computer uses going around. I like the one about the woman who kept ringing the tech to say the floppy disk would not work (the big floppy disk, not the 5 1/4") . Each time he came out he put a new floppy in the drive and it worked. Finally he decided to watch her put the floppy in........she first took it out off it's sleeve. ....... then put the BARE dick in the drive! Another had a floppy disk problem and was asked to send in the disk. it arrived in the mail neatly folded in half to fit the envelope! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
aj_richo Posted September 15, 2014 Share Posted September 15, 2014 "put the BARE dick in the drive ???? " Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WayneL Posted September 16, 2014 Share Posted September 16, 2014 then put the BARE dick in the drive! Whoops!!!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
spacesailor Posted September 23, 2014 Share Posted September 23, 2014 Now that was a great laugh spacesailor Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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