|
That wasn't a good idea. Those little paper discs were actually quite dangerous.
We're philosophical about power outages here. A.C. come, A.C. go.
|
|
|
|
|
I guess the rice could be said to be dangerous as well.
|
|
|
|
|
I learned my first BASIC using one of those - located in the school's bomb shelter: Huge room with concrete walls, floor and ceiling. Just the right acoustics for a TTY!
Down in my basement, I have still got a few of those paper tapes.
(I also got a small pile of punch cards. As well as a core dump, in the physical sense: A frame with 1152 ferrite rings weaved together. I have no idea about the contents of those 1152 bits.)
|
|
|
|
|
I started that way -- with punched tape, a teletype and remote GE time-share system using some flavor of BASIC.
|
|
|
|
|
Part of my first job - machine code programming a DEC LSI-11 (4K core memory + 16k RAM) to control a tomographic medical scanner and reconstruct the images (using de-convolution and back-projection). Teletype was only for development - working machine just had the core memory.
|
|
|
|
|
Been there, done that 
|
|
|
|
|
Punch tape? You were lucky; we started with punched cards and a manual punch. We progressed to a 12 hole punch with numeric keys, where you could press multiple keys at once, and it automatically moved the card on one column. pic[^] Before that, we'd literally used a jig that held the card securely while you poked a square pokey-thing through the card over a cut-out behind; once you'd done all the holes for that column, you moved the card along by pressing a separate lever that moved it the right amount.
As for ancient enough to understand the autoexec.bat joke, yes... but not to find it funny!
|
|
|
|
|
My first PC had 16K of memory and used a audio-cassette player for storage.
At least it was better than what the Navy had. Discrete component processers where the CPU weighed 60 pounds.
Now those where the good old days when booting a computer meant kicking the side with your foot to settle the cards in place.
|
|
|
|
|
When I started I was hanging out with Lady Lovelace, or was it Linda...
|
|
|
|
|
Are you sure you're not thinking of Mark Felt[^]? 
"These people looked deep within my soul and assigned me a number based on the order in which I joined."
- Homer
|
|
|
|
|
Geee ... Linda, I haven't heard a word from her for more than 25 years. I had almost forgotten her completely.
Or for that sake, that Lovelace girl. She's been quiet for a number of years as well.
|
|
|
|
|
And you walked several miles to work each day, uphill both there and back?
Da Bomb
|
|
|
|
|
Of course. In the driving snow. On our knees. Over broken glass.
|
|
|
|
|
TWICE a day in my case, actually! I went home for lunch... 
Anything that is unrelated to elephants is irrelephant
Anonymous
-
The problem with quotes on the internet is that you can never tell if they're genuine
Winston Churchill, 1944
-
Never argue with a fool. Onlookers may not be able to tell the difference.
Mark Twain
|
|
|
|
|
At least we no longer have to worry about kinky hard drives that insist on a master slave relationships...
|
|
|
|
|
640K ought to be enough for anybody.
modified 20-Oct-19 21:02pm.
|
|
|
|
|
A 360K floppy should be big enough for any app and it's data!
Sent from my Amstrad PC 1640
Never throw anything away, Griff
Bad command or file name. Bad, bad command! Sit! Stay! Staaaay...
AntiTwitter: @DalekDave is now a follower!
|
|
|
|
|
Urban Cricket wrote: 640K ought to be enough for anybody.
FTFY
"The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge". Stephen Hawking, 1942- 2018
|
|
|
|
|
Memmaker ftw.
Used to hate fighting for memory and trying to run my mouse driver same time.
|
|
|
|
|
|
Guilty
I may not be that good looking, or athletic, or funny, or talented, or smart
I forgot where I was going with this but I do know I love bacon!
|
|
|
|
|
Sadly, I chuckled.
|
|
|
|
|
I'm old enough to remember seeing the original "Lee Iacocca is an autoexec" being used in signatures.
(for a timeframe reference, he retired in 1992).
|
|
|
|
|
That's not funny. We used to make a living with those little knowledge. 
|
|
|
|
|
Double fun for me since (1) I'm old enough to get the joke and (2) my house is old, so we get bats inside(*) late every summer.
(*) They sneak in via our screened-in porch. I get to catch them and release them outside, usually at 2:00 a.m. after being woke up by SWMBO.
Software Zen: delete this;
|
|
|
|
General 
News 
Suggestion 
Question 
Bug 
Answer 
Joke 
Praise 
Rant 
Admin 
Submit an article or tip
