# Now I Feel Really, Really Old



## BrotherBart (May 26, 2014)




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## begreen (May 26, 2014)

We are bro. Actually I don't blame them. I also found DOS to be pretty tedious. 

Thanks for sharing, I love their reactions. That was priceless.


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## BrotherBart (May 26, 2014)

At the oil company my department finally got the purchase of an Apple II approved. It got its own office. One day I was walking by the room and an Indian guy on staff was showing somebody how to use it. "First you put the deesk in the drive and then turn on the power and then go and take a sheeet and it will be ready when you get back."


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## bassJAM (May 27, 2014)

That computer predates me by a little (I'm 31), but I still remember using my dad's computer with a 286 processor, and his excitement when he upgraded to a 386 and then 486 PC.  I used to know my way around with DOS commands but those days are long gone.


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## Jags (May 27, 2014)

Just now, Bro?

That stuff ain't old - can't be - I remember programming them....


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## begreen (May 27, 2014)

I'm more of a visual thinker. I remember my reaction to the Apple II was the same as those kids, boring. Finally bought myself an Amiga which immersed me in unix, but at least there was a decent UI.


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## BrotherBart (May 27, 2014)

Ya just ain't lived until you have written a shell sort in assembly language on a TRS-80 Model 1. 

I am with those kids. I like the stuff today. I just want to turn it on and go.


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## Ashful (May 27, 2014)

hilarious!  too bad I got rid of my old apple ii's.  would be fun to see my 4 year react.

still got the atari 2600, though... he likes pac-man.

<-- not as old as Bart, but I've written plenty in assembly.


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## firebroad (May 27, 2014)

My first pc used cassette tapes, not disks...
Took me hours to write a program in DOS to calculate a few tasks--IF A > "1" THEN B + A = SUM...
The Trash 80 was the top of the line!


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## Ashful (May 27, 2014)

We had a TI 99 with cassette tape.  This was where I started to learn basic, around age 7.  That was perhaps one of the earliest in a very long list of my many entirely useless professional skills...


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## fossil (May 27, 2014)

Circa 1962, my Jr. High math teacher taught those of us who were interested one evening /week in our classroom at the school.  We started with Machine Language and worked our way up to FORTRAN.  On Saturday mornings we'd meet in an old frat house on the UC Berkeley campus to operate an IBM 1620.  The computer and card reader were upstairs, the card punch machines down in the basement.  We each had to make a deck of cards that would teach the computer arithmetic every time we wanted to get it to run a simple program to solve Algebra problems.


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## Jags (May 27, 2014)

Back in high school I...errr...ummm got in trouble.  Teach wanted me to write 1000 times "I will not <insert cause>"
I asked if it could be typed and she agreed.
She had no idea that a 4 line loop command could get the job done.


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## BrotherBart (May 27, 2014)

Ah yes. The IBM 1620 through the IBM 360 and 370 DOS/VS (first disk packs) to DEC 10s and the VAX 11/780 and onto closing and moving a Class I IBM 3090 data center and world-wide network. And ending as a CIO.

And it all started in a spare bedroom with that TRS-80 Model one with two three hundred baud tape drives. It is still lovingly packed in boxes in the basement. Dang thing cost me $4,623 before it was fully built out with one 90K floppy drive and 64K of memory. Still have the receipts.



Asked my wife one time if she resented me spending that much on the thing. She said "I did at the time. But now I look at the house, the cars, eating for 37 years. Nah. Not anymore.".


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## Flatbedford (May 28, 2014)

I was around when those were just coming out, but I was out riding my bicycle....and I have been suffering the consequences since.


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## firebroad (May 28, 2014)

Flatbedford said:


> I was around when those were just coming out, but I was out riding my bicycle....and I have been suffering the consequences since.


Hah!  Same thing with my daughter.
First thing we got was this Timex Sinclair (POS), she wasn't interested.  It quickly burned up, then the inlaws bought her a TI 99, she still ignored it.  I on the other hand learned BASIC, did some rudimentary programming.
To this day, she is somewhat computer illiterate, I on the other hand got my first modern pc (used laptop from kid across the road)just a few years ago, and am having a ball.  Just got online at home last year around this time.  I can usually figure out what is wrong with co-workers pc's before IT finally gets here.

Remember when we used the old black and white tv's for monitors, and a mouse was something you did not want in the house?
I still remember the smell of the computer heating up...


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## mass_burner (May 28, 2014)

BrotherBart said:


> Ya just ain't lived until you have written a shell sort in assembly language on a TRS-80 Model 1.
> 
> I am with those kids. I like the stuff today. I just want to turn it on and go.



I struggled with Assembly in college, its one of those things that you get great value from just being exposed to and struggling with. Changes your way of thinking.


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## mass_burner (May 28, 2014)

BrotherBart said:


> IBM 360 and 370 DOS/VS (first disk packs) to DEC 10s and the VAX 11/780 and onto IBM 3090 data center and world-wide network.



worked on all these over the years, and on the IBM mid-ranges, AS/400, been in SAP R3 for the last 20 years.


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## Cynnergy (May 30, 2014)

I programmed in FORTRAN while a uni student in 2002.  Yes, it was in a physics lab.  Plus ca change, plus c'est la meme chose...


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## aeblank (May 30, 2014)

At my last job, they STILL use an AS400.  Mmmmmmmmm, Mapics.


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## Jags (May 30, 2014)

aeblank said:


> At my last job, they STILL use an AS400.  Mmmmmmmmm, Mapics.



What do you mean "still"?  I just bought a brand new one a couple months ago.  These ain't your dad's AS-400's anymore.  They are throughput power houses.  No down time, no viruses and rock solid speed machines. I run 13 stores across 3 states with an average response time of less than .6 seconds.  This is for a company that is aiming at a hundred mill this year (employee owned).  Go IBM.  I also run 3 MS Servers for various applications and you could add all three together and the Power 7+ would eat them for breakfast (and they are no joke servers).


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## BrotherBart (May 30, 2014)

Back in the nineties we had an A/S400 at the offshore insurance subsidiary in Bermuda. Since it meant a trip to Bermuda we made sure it always needed attention for one reason or another.


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## aeblank (May 30, 2014)

I said still because the crazy thing is more than 15 years old.
Apparently they make new ones too.  =)


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## Jags (May 30, 2014)

aeblank said:


> I said still because the crazy thing is more than 15 years old.



They don't break.  IBM just makes sure that as they get older the maintenance agreements make you want to move to a newer machine ($$$). I am on my 4th new one in 18 years.


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## mellow (May 30, 2014)

It was enough for me to support screen scraping off an as/400 for a shipping setup back in the day, man I spent many an hour on getting that setup working right.  Pushing and Pulling that data between windows 98 and the mainframe was driving me nuts between all the driver issues with the serial ports and modem.. .and I couldn't even drink yet... boy were those the days.

I mention IRQ to these kids and they look at me with a blank stare, heaven forbid they have to find a right jumper just to get something working.


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## Retired Guy (May 30, 2014)

BrotherBart said:


> Ya just ain't lived until you have written a shell sort in assembly language on a TRS-80 Model 1.
> 
> I am with those kids. I like the stuff today. I just want to turn it on and go.


With a tape drive that sorta worked! I had an early  4K model and did the 16K upgrade - $400 I believe! Used to teach programming on Vic 20s.


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## BrotherBart (May 30, 2014)

If you had an early one then you needed that tape drive. To load the keyboard debounce program before you used it. To keep keystrokes from duplicating.


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## Ashful (May 30, 2014)

Having done a lot of hardware benchmarking recently, I wonder what the number assigned really means, and assume it must be based on some historical standard.  Can I assume an 8086 would benchmark at 1, and we're comparing everything to that?


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## WiscWoody (May 30, 2014)

My first computers were Commodore 64's in 1984. I got good at altering the drives and daisy chaining them and speeding them up. I and another geek ran a BBS with at first 300 baud modems and then eventually 2400 baud. It seemed so fast back then! lol. We paid a cool $1000 for a 1GB drive for the system towards the end of C=64 boards. It was a steal at the time! Shortly after then HDD's plummeted for IBM clones and capacity was increasing beyond imagination. 10GB HDD's were going for only $300 and we felt Sooo stupid! Those were the days! Now I usually have my iPad 4 in hand it still seems like a miracle for what it does.


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