Visit our Popular Forums

gadgetat · 02-03-2006, 07:13 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by myoung

Old memories... I wrote my first computer program in college in 1963. Never took a course, however, because computers were too new then. As a freshman, I lived in Sperry Hall; the computer center was in Rand Hall. Can you guess the brand of the computer? How about the alma mater of Messrs Sperry and Rand?

Mike,

Guess some of us are young.

My first computer was a Texas Instruments 99A. Hooked it up to a black and white television. I had a tape drive for storage. Sold it to pay for a skate board in Junior High!

Silvertwinkie · 02-03-2006, 08:12 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by gadgetat

Mike,

Guess some of us are young.

My first computer was a Texas Instruments 99A. Hooked it up to a black and white television. I had a tape drive for storage. Sold it to pay for a skate board in Junior High!

I had one of those, or I should say it was a family Christmas present from Santa for all of us....can't say I like it much, but it was interesting, esp the tape storage.

Bought my Apple IIc about 6 months later.

**jcanavera** · 02-03-2006, 08:45 AM

Remember when Intellivision came out? They promised all kinds of add on accessories which included a tape drive. This was going to be your gaming device and your home computer. I still have mine along with a pot full of games. Still works!

Jack

Silvertwinkie · 02-03-2006, 08:53 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jcanavera

Remember when Intellivision came out? They promised all kinds of add on accessories which included a tape drive. This was going to be your gaming device and your home computer. I still have mine along with a pot full of games. Still works!

Jack

Do NOT even get me started Jack. I had been all over eBay getting more carts for my Atari 2600 and picked up an Intellivision with the speech box and a cartfull of games.....I love Utopia and Loco-Motion...of course I never really cared or the controllers, but when the guys come over, for grins we break out the Apple IIs, the 2600 and the Intellivision....

**jcanavera** · 02-03-2006, 09:03 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Silvertwinkie

Do NOT even get me started Jack. I had been all over eBay getting more carts for my Atari 2600 and picked up an Intellivision with the speech box and a cartfull of games.....I love Utopia and Loco-Motion...of course I never really cared or the controllers, but when the guys come over, for grins we break out the Apple IIs, the 2600 and the Intellivision....

But do you have Burger Time! Oh I now know what I need to bring to Moraine View! We can have contests projected by an LCD on the side of an Airstream!!!

Jack

Silvertwinkie · 02-03-2006, 09:12 AM

Oh heck yes!

We'll have to do a cartridge inventory and what you don't have, I'll bring or the other way around.

What fun, though I can see my wife's look already........we boys and our toys.

I also have been on a Milton Bradley rampage on eBay, getting my Electronic Battleship, Star Birds (plural) and Big Trak and other odds and ends from my childhood back, that my dad was gracious enough in some cases to throw away. Do you know a Millinuem Faclon costs $50 or more today....and I had a mint one.....but I dirgress......

Should I plan on bringing a projector again this year?

Zeppelinium · 02-03-2006, 10:25 AM

Ran CPM on a Z-80 with 18K of RAM. Now have two PC servers, one with a terabyte (chock full of maps and photos) and several laptops. The F-250 tow vehicle has a dedicated laptop for moving map/GPS, plus a spare.

PCs are like the partner you know (with a few blue screen moments) versus the MAC, which is the partner who looks great but you don't know. But the new Intel MACs are looking pretty good....

.... particularly if you do Photoshop, like me.

myoung · 02-03-2006, 11:06 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jcanavera

But do you have Burger Time! Oh I now know what I need to bring to Moraine View! We can have contests projected by an LCD on the side of an Airstream!!!

Jack

Hey, guys. Get together and enjoy your passion at an "affinity group" rally of the kind I proposed at http://www.airforums.com/forum...sal-19789.html

myoung · 02-03-2006, 11:10 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by 3isnotenough

PCs are like the partner you know (with a few blue screen moments) versus the MAC, which is the partner who looks great but you don't know. But the new Intel MACs are looking pretty good....

.... particularly if you do Photoshop, like me.

Sad but true. Photoshop runs much better on Macs with G5 processors. Adobe has no intention of moving to Universal Binary until they release another major update. Some have suggested that Apple simply buy Adobe, if for no other reason than to get those folks off their expansive butts.

Westfalia · 02-03-2006, 11:14 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by 3isnotenough

Ran CPM on a Z-80 with 18K of RAM. Now have two PC servers, one with a terabyte (chock full of maps and photos) and several laptops. The F-250 tow vehicle has a dedicated laptop for moving map/GPS, plus a spare.

Something to consider, Garmin has announced that they are porting all of their GPS software to OS X. I will finally be able to hookup my Streetpilot to my Powerbook!

Davydd · 02-03-2006, 11:56 AM

Thomas Knoll had Photoshop in dithered black and white running on Mac Pluses back in the 80s. It was sort of freeware beta back then before Adobe took it over. It's come a long way.

myoung · 02-03-2006, 12:21 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Davydd

Thomas Knoll had Photoshop in dithered black and white running on Mac Pluses back in the 80s. It was sort of freeware beta back then before Adobe took it over. It's come a long way.

Just looked at the history of Photoshop at http://www.storyphoto.com/multimedia...photoshop.html. It's amazing how interconnected Photoshop, ILM (Industrial Light and Magic), Lucas, Pixar, Jobs, etc. are. We have the pleasure of being right in the midst of all this brainpower and creativity. In fact, George Lucas' Skywalker Ranch and the 6,000 acres added to it adjoin our subdivision. Skywalker Ranch and the Marinwood Fire Department along Lucas Valley Road (no relation, by the way) both provide our fire protection. The difference being that the Skywalker fire trucks float throught the air and travel at light speed!!

sovereignrwe · 02-03-2006, 12:48 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by myoung

Wow, you guys are really very young. 5.25-inch floppies are modern. The first computer I ever purchased, a Wang in 1975, had an 8-inch floppy with a massive storage capacity of 156,000 bytes, if this old brain's memory serves.

A few years later, I bought a 10 megabyte hard drive that had 5 megabytes fixed and 5 megabytes on a platter that measured about 20 inches across. The drive itself weighted about 150 pounds and cost $30,000!!! That's $3,000 per megabyte circa 1979 versus about $250 for 160 gigabytes today or $0.0016 per megabyte!!

Worked in the VA hospital system and had a wonderful Wang word processing system. This was before PCs were added to the network. I was young and system was old.

sovereignrwe · 02-03-2006, 12:51 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by markdoane

1970. Anybody here run a DEC PDP-11?

Back when I was young (see previous post), I was involved in transitioning the VA Hospital from PDP-11s to VAX machines. We added a single fibre-optic backbone and switches to the network to allow some PCs to be added to the dumbterminals on the network. We even added 9600 baud modems.

Silvertwinkie · 05-05-2006, 12:33 PM

Anyone else seen these new ads....they are hilarious!

http://www.apple.com/getamac/ads/

Blu_Hwy_Lady · 05-05-2006, 04:47 PM

Those were great silvertwinkie....and, oh so true. What a creative way to represent computers using people....but then that's Apple for you.

RoadKingMoe · 05-05-2006, 04:57 PM

It's been about 10 years since I owned a Mac (for 10 years) and 3 since I spent a summer with a borrowed iBook. Got a new one for work Tuesday.

- 1.66 GHz Core Duo Macintosh Mini
- 2 GB Memory, 120 GB Hard Drive
- Apple 23" 1920 x 1200 Cinema HD Display
- Apple Wireless Keyboard & Mouse
- Apple iSight Camera
- Apple USB Modem (for faxing)
- Bose Companion 2 Speakers
- Prints to a networked HP Postscript Printer
- Remote Desktop to a XP Pro 3.6GHz P4 HT

It's good to be back on a Mac again, but make no mistake about it... my job is and continues to be 99.99% Windows support. Sixteen 2003 servers and a good part of thousands of PCs.

I used the excuse that it can boot XP to buy it, and I'll probably try that, but stick with a real PC under the desk. I'm running a 16.5" diagonal 1280 x 1024 RD client window on the Mac (PPC/Rosetta) and it works pretty well despite that. The picture was taken with an Intel webcam on the PC.

From everything I've read, the Intel Core Duo Mini is just enough to view 1080i HDTV without dropping frames. I'll get some samples and see. For everything else it's fine... about the equivalent of a 2.7 or so GHz P4 or 1.8 Pentium M. And the integrated video isn't ideal for the hardcore gamers (not me). I hear Adobe users might have to live with Rosetta for awhile, and I'd guess the Mini isn't enough for that, and even the 2.0 Core-Duo iMac with dedicated video may be painful.

audiobox · 05-05-2006, 05:49 PM

I started with Mac in '84 as well. Now using a dual 1.8 G5 in the edit/mix room, a dual 1 GB G4 in the office and an old TiBook 500 for mobile work.

The Tiger OS is as stable, productive and low maintenence as some of the brief, golden OS 7 and 9 releases.

Craig

Davydd · 05-05-2006, 06:18 PM

I saw the ads. The kid is the kid that was in the TV series Ed a couple of years ago.

Been Mac since the first 100 days in 1984. Still have my signed shell original Mac. First got online with a Basic program I had to hand enter to get on Compuserve in 1984. Was online the first day Mac was available for Applelink Personal Edition, the precursor of AOL in 1988. Have owned several since and currently use a 15" Powerbook but am starting to lust for a new 17" MacBook Pro. Guess I am a true believer.

thecatsandi · 05-05-2006, 06:53 PM

I have both. Primary system Mac Powerbook. Need MS box for a few non Mac programs. I can now purchase a new Intel Mac and run both OSs on the same box!!! Wooo Hooo.