- Joined
- Feb 11, 2009
- Messages
- 23,176
- Reaction score
- 18,904
- Location
- NJ (The nice part)
- Guild Total
- 112
They're actually used a fair bit in jewelry!
Old Computing Equipment
- Thread starter GAD
- Start date
Midnight Toker
Senior Member
- Joined
- Nov 7, 2021
- Messages
- 1,856
- Reaction score
- 3,309
- Guild Total
- 2
I was in high school in the early 80's... during a major transition in computing. I first took a "data processing" class. They had these things twice the size of a typical refrigerator laying on it's side. They had a teal looking color typical of a lot of industrial machinery of the 60's. I can barely remember even dealing with them, but I do remember punch hole cards that were like 4x12 heavy stock. Slightly rounded corners, and punched small rectangular holes. Then the data processing classes were changed to "computing" and my high school of close to 5 thousand students got FOUR TRS-80's, and a teacher who apparently took a summer class himself...with zero experience... attempted to teach Basic. All I remember was kids passing around a simple command w/ some "if's" and "ands" and "goto" and whatever else it was. The result was you could make any word or phrase take over the whole screen, repeating itself over and over. That was ALL I got out of school and computers. In college, I unfortunately took classes in practically everything under the sun, except computers. Who knew. (besides everyone but me it seems) Lol
Edit: btw, those TRS-80's were connected to a cassette recorder which was connected to a telephone. So was that the dawn of the Internet? I remember the tapes and phone both making screeching digital tones.
Somewhat related..while touring in the early 90's, (I was the tour mgr)our soundman had a gizmo he called his "chinger". You could hold it to the receiver of any pay phone and when you press the button on said chinger, it would make a digital noise that would "tell" the phone that you just dropped a quarter in it. You could repeat as much as you needed. Being on tour, pre cell phones and still having very expensive long distance charges, that little device saved us all a boatload. And honestly, I never thought once about Ma Bell's kids having to skip a meal. Still don't.
Edit: btw, those TRS-80's were connected to a cassette recorder which was connected to a telephone. So was that the dawn of the Internet? I remember the tapes and phone both making screeching digital tones.
Somewhat related..while touring in the early 90's, (I was the tour mgr)our soundman had a gizmo he called his "chinger". You could hold it to the receiver of any pay phone and when you press the button on said chinger, it would make a digital noise that would "tell" the phone that you just dropped a quarter in it. You could repeat as much as you needed. Being on tour, pre cell phones and still having very expensive long distance charges, that little device saved us all a boatload. And honestly, I never thought once about Ma Bell's kids having to skip a meal. Still don't.
Last edited:
- Joined
- Feb 11, 2009
- Messages
- 23,176
- Reaction score
- 18,904
- Location
- NJ (The nice part)
- Guild Total
- 112
Phone freaking was the original hacking.
John Draper - Wikipedia
fronobulax
Bassist, GAD and the Hot Mess Mods
- Joined
- May 3, 2007
- Messages
- 24,773
- Reaction score
- 8,901
- Location
- Central Virginia, USA
- Guild Total
- 5
About 10 cards per second which fits my memories and what was not what I expected when I started the calculation
According to the below it looks like the Apollo Guidance Software, when printed, is between 0.8 and 1.0 Margaret Hamiltons.
Canard
Senior Member
- Joined
- Sep 30, 2020
- Messages
- 2,015
- Reaction score
- 2,743
- Guild Total
- 4
My brother once shelled out a vast fortune for a 10 Mb hard drive.
Everyone asked, "What are you going to do with all that data space?"
A friend once did his music masters degree in electronic music back in the era of 486s and P1s. His thesis was a composition.
University regulations required that a copy of his thesis be submitted to Special Collections in the library. He gave them a CD with the code for his composition.
They refused to accept it.
They insisted on a hard copy paper print out, single sided on acid free paper. He calculated how many pages a print out would be and how many feet of shelf space it would take up.
When given this information, they took the CD and said, "Thank you."
Everyone asked, "What are you going to do with all that data space?"
A friend once did his music masters degree in electronic music back in the era of 486s and P1s. His thesis was a composition.
University regulations required that a copy of his thesis be submitted to Special Collections in the library. He gave them a CD with the code for his composition.
They refused to accept it.
They insisted on a hard copy paper print out, single sided on acid free paper. He calculated how many pages a print out would be and how many feet of shelf space it would take up.
When given this information, they took the CD and said, "Thank you."