Get off my LAWN! "Grumpy Old Farts"

[Deleted member 268085]

I started in 1972 with a Digital PDP-8. School computer. Any who completed their homework on the computer received an automatic A.

The PDP-8e (the last one with a wirewrapped motherboard) was the first computer I programmed professionally. We used them at Fermilab for beam control. My development system was 32K x 12 of core memory, 1 MB 14" hard drive, a TTY terminal, the TED editor and a 3-pass paper tape assembler. Had to load the boot loader manually through the switches on the front of the main chassis. Jeez, but I hated octal. Especially 12-bit octal.

 

[SoulReflection]

I have at times run command line but I haven't seen DOS since Windows 2000, maybe XP. I started on an Epson XT PC with (if I remember correctly) 512 K of RAM, and a 20 MB drive. It came without DOS installed. I had to install it from 5 1/4" floppies. Epson had customized the DOS to include elements from Norton which were fun to play with. Then I installed PFS Works which was an early version of Micrsoft Works. My Epson dot matrix was so loud I had to put the printer in the walk in closet! I got really excited when I bought WordStar from DAK. Shoot, seems like another lifetime ago. That was 1990...

I went for an IBM PC-XT with a whopping 10M hard drive. Dot-matrix printers sounded like Telex machines...had them too. Now, I love my win 10 laptops with SSD drives and laser printers and ink-jets (if you like to spend a lot on ink).

 

[GwenOnBass]

The PDP-8e (the last one with a wirewrapped motherboard) was the first computer I programmed professionally. We used them at Fermilab for beam control. My development system was 32K x 12 of core memory, 1 MB 14" hard drive, a TTY terminal, the TED editor and a 3-pass paper tape assembler. Had to load the boot loader manually through the switches on the front of the main chassis. Jeez, but I hated octal. Especially 12-bit octal.

Octal was the only way to address a more than a few raster image processors Raster image processor - Wikipedia long before the dawn of the age of evil postscript. Font ranges for each font family in octal is the stuff of living on the edge.

Entirely uncertain if i still have my pre-postscript steel pica pole. What I traveled with, worked with, was a newspaper broadsheet-width clear plastic line gauge that was a freebie from Linotype. It was a magic "everything gauge" that succumbed from hard use, unlike its owner

 

[SoulReflection]

Octal was the only way to address a more than a few raster image processors Raster image processor - Wikipedia long before the dawn of the age of evil postscript. Font ranges for each font family in octal is the stuff of living on the edge.

Entirely uncertain if i still have my pre-postscript steel pica pole. What I traveled with, worked with, was a newspaper broadsheet-width clear plastic line gauge that was a freebie from Linotype. It was a magic "everything gauge" that succumbed from hard use, unlike its owner

"Evil postscript"? Back in the '80's, people scrambled for Apple Postscipt Printers. Maybe they were just for corporate newsletters?

 

[GwenOnBass]

"Evil postscript"? Back in the '80's, people scrambled for Apple Postscipt Printers. Maybe they were just for corporate newsletters?

Postscript created more dang headaches for me, it threw everything off.
:: smh ::
IMO postscript is to typography what the integer 3.0 is to pi.

 

[SoulReflection]

Postscript created more dang headaches for me, it threw everything off.
:: smh ::
IMO postscript is to typography what the integer 3.0 is to pi.

?

 

[GwenOnBass]

Suppose I oughtn't complain too loud, I made a fair living off of typographical adventure. Not every adventure is necessarily to my taste, but "you knew the job was dangerous when you took it". It did lead to much more adventure than anticipated.

 

[beans-on-toast]

"Evil postscript"? Back in the '80's, people scrambled for Apple Postscipt Printers. Maybe they were just for corporate newsletters?

The apple printers were way less expensive and reliable. I hate to admit it, but I still do things in postscript if I want accuracy such as for a template rather than run some app to draw.

 

[ahc]

My IT career started on IBM mainframes (360/65 at first IIRC) programming Assembler, Fortran and Grace Hopper's finest: COBOL, via Hollerith punch cards of which you DO NOT DROP THE DECK under ANY CIRCUMSTANCES!!! (Not) soon enough I moved on to IBM VM/CMS and FOCUS 4GL on ever larger and faster mainframes via dumb CRT terminals. It was always a big deal when the network baud rate would be increased. Started at 1200 Baud and ended up at 4800. Eventually PC's arrived on the scene which opened up a whole new world of trials and tribulations. Ended up my career doing web applications with HTML, javascript and MySQL. Since retiring, I don't miss the grind for a second. I do miss SOME, but absolutely not all of the people I worked with and for.

 

[GwenOnBass]

Had to grit my teeth there for a moment, just a little bit, as I read

I do miss SOME, but absolutely not all of the people I worked with and for.

uh yeah some.

The most important thing I held was my return air ticket. There was nothing I would do in the course of the week to endanger that.

 

[beans-on-toast]

I remember those mainframe days. When your cards got mangled by a reader, you had to know how to disassemble it and clear the pathway. The 360 had large consoles.

The first microcomputers that I used in the 70's ran CP/M. Some of the hardware was on S100 cards plugged into a bus. Floppies were 8". The ones that I used were rack based. Altair and IMSAI were two popular products. You could key in an address and data from the front panel to get the computer to boot, like the DEC PDP computers. In the 80's I designed computers, Basic Input Output Systems (BIOS) that were loaded onto EPROMS to access the hardware, disk drivers cards, and video displays. We focused on video and imaging research. This was all before Microsoft and the IBM PC. For many years those machines were considered toys, not able to do anything useful other than to play with. Computer games started, there was pong and chess.

It was an exciting time. New hardware revolutionized the industry. Big companies would take years of incremental research advancements and shrink it onto a single board or chip. Before there was autofocus cameras that we take for granted, people worked for years coming up with algorithms, trying all sorts of approaches. At one point, I worked on constructing 3D images from narrow focus 2D slices. Not as easy as you'd think. Very common in medical imaging today. It took a lot of work to get there. For the most part, advancements in hardware and processing speed drove the advancements. It made things that worked only in the lab practical for others to use. Now things like that can run on a laptop instead of a multi-million dollar machine.

 

[ahc]

The most important thing I held was my return air ticket. There was nothing I would do in the course of the week to endanger that.

Fortunately, in most cases, my car was parked nearby.

 

[GwenOnBass]

To my (biased) mind, no greater combo than OpenVMS and a herd of VAX.

 

[ahc]

And I should add that there was a time or two where I did just bail and beat feet outta there.

 

[beans-on-toast]

a herd of VAX

VAXen

 

[ahc]

Donner, Blitzen, Vaxen and Rudolph?

 

[spiritbass]

I remember those mainframe days. When your cards got mangled by a reader, you had to know how to disassemble it and clear the pathway. The 360 had large consoles.

The first microcomputers that I used in the 70's ran CP/M. Some of the hardware was on S100 cards plugged into a bus. Floppies were 8". The ones that I used were rack based. Altair and IMSAI were two popular products. You could key in an address and data from the front panel to get the computer to boot, like the DEC PDP computers. In the 80's I designed computers, Basic Input Output Systems (BIOS) that were loaded onto EPROMS to access the hardware, disk drivers cards, and video displays. We focused on video and imaging research. This was all before Microsoft and the IBM PC. For many years those machines were considered toys, not able to do anything useful other than to play with. Computer games started, there was pong and chess.

It was an exciting time. New hardware revolutionized the industry. Big companies would take years of incremental research advancements and shrink it onto a single board or chip. Before there was autofocus cameras that we take for granted, people worked for years coming up with algorithms, trying all sorts of approaches. At one point, I worked on constructing 3D images from narrow focus 2D slices. Not as easy as you'd think. Very common in medical imaging today. It took a lot of work to get there. For the most part, advancements in hardware and processing speed drove the advancements. It made things that worked only in the lab practical for others to use. Now things like that can run on a laptop instead of a multi-million dollar machine.



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We are technological dinosaurs up in here. Technology has advanced at an amazing pace in our lifetimes. The work it took to arrive at the auto-focusing digital camera is mind boggling. It was interesting to see mention of PDP computers. The Coast Guard radio station where I served was (partly) run by a single PDP-11.

 

[GwenOnBass]

VAXen

entirely true, and bypassed the proper plural not to confuse

 

[alaskaleftybass]

Man, the equipment you all are referring to I remember but it makes me feel so dang old!
I regret that my old friend advised me in 1985 and even as late as 1995 to invest in Apple and Microsoft. I had some modest surplus money I could have invested, who knows-- I could have been a millionaire by now. I'm not asking but I wouldn't be surprised if some of you GOF's are actually millionaires from investments when you were younger. You all are obviously much smarter than me.

In my final years working in IT, I'm a pc tech and webmaster. Thankfully, most of my work has become very automated. All our Dell computers are 'tool less maintenance' and most of my installations involve entering licensing information in programs already installed on the PC's. I gave at my own low level 30 years of support and I'm glad it's so easy today compared to 30 years ago. I don't miss having to program a network card's IRQ so it doesn't knock out the sound card. I'm so fortunate that everything JUST WORKS out of the box. I have about two years to go and I'd like it to be pretty smooth sailing.

 

[GwenOnBass]

We are technological dinosaurs up in here. Technology has advanced at an amazing pace in our lifetimes. The work it took to arrive at the auto-focusing digital camera is mind boggling. It was interesting to see mention of PDP computers. The Coast Guard radio station where I served was (partly) run by a single PDP-11.

The PDP-11 was a total workhorse.

I'm so fortunate that everything JUST WORKS out of the box.

This is as far from DEC culture as can be defined "Did you install it strictly according to the manual?" Yes. "There's your problem." Some random (billable to our project) DEC network guy shows up, makes secret incantations and probably sacrifices something, and the machine runs.