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Get off my LAWN! "Grumpy Old Farts"

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#5,401
I too learned on a DEC PDP-11, failed miserably in that it took me twice as long as the real nerds and while they loved the programming aspect I did not. That dictated me going the analog route.
 
#5,406
Like @Ken Morgan my first PC was a 1989 Epson 8088 XT without math coprocessor! We got it in, and when I turned it on, all I saw was a black screen with a blinking cursor. Luckily we had a roommate living with us at the time and he knew how to install DOS 3.1. He installed it for me and the rest is either infamy or history! LOL.

Anyone remember the "Bob" desktop on Microsoft software? It was designed by then single Melinda Ann French, later to become Melinda Gates. It was a cartoon of a home office with a desk. On the desk was a calendar, phonebook, calculator, etc. All the icons worked too! LOL. But alas the only thing Linda was successful with was landing old Bill as a hubby...
 
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#5,407
My first computer was an Imsai S-100 system along the lines of the Altair but without the front panel switches. I had a couple of Cromemco analog I/O boards and was experimenting real time(sort of) bass effects. It was fun but didn't lead me anywhere musically useful. It did help me get my first good job.l
 
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#5,408
The first computer that I bought for home was an Apple II, 6502 based. I don't recall how much it costed but it was a lot. I do recall that a centronics dot matrix printer that I bought was something like $1200. This was around 78 or 79 as I recall. I started doing consulting and made more working weekends and evenings in a couple of months than I made all year in my day job. It didn't take long to see the light and leave the day job.
 
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#5,409
untitled.png

Suitcase portable Kaypro dual 5 1/4" floppy drive. Read about it in the Wall St. Journal. I got mine in fall of '81. The competition was the Osborne (40 character screen). Came with an office suite called Perfect: Writer, Calc, Filer, Speller. Later on Kaypro came out with a floppy/hard drive unit. 10mb(not 10gb) for $2,600 which I was able to get for $1,300 from a buddy who gave me his employee discount. Still out in the garage.

I switched to pc compatible because that's what my accounting clients were using. I switched full time to business software consulting around '85.
 
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#5,410
Stumbo said:
View attachment 1103513
Suitcase portable Kaypro dual 5 1/4" floppy drive. Read about it in the Wall St. Journal. I got mine in fall of '81. The competition was the Osborne (40 character screen). Came with an office suite called Perfect: Writer, Calc, Filer, Speller. Later on Kaypro came out with a floppy/hard drive unit. 10mb(not 10gb) for $2,600 which I was able to get for $1,300 from a buddy who gave me his employee discount. Still out in the garage.

I switched to pc compatible because that's what my accounting clients were using. I switched full time to business software consulting around '85.
Click to expand...
Was that a CPM OS machine? Z80 based?
 
#5,414
Well, since you guys are reminiscing, I may as well reminisce with you. I was doing programming at the UW in the early 70's when a suit walked in watching me program. I was smooth, and well versed. One of my groups of code had solved an issue he was working on, and he was impressed. He asked me if I wanted to work the summer in the California desert and I said yes. He gave me a card and said call him when my spring quarter was over. I was surprised he called me the day after summer break started-- I was going to break for a couple weeks but he said come down now or the offer expired.

I flew down coach to Palo Alto Xerox and was given a badge with "Intern" on it and introduced around Skunkworks. I was amazed at the technology concepts developing in that brightly lit well equipped lab. I was late to work one day and hadn't washed up so I brought my soap on a rope with me and laid it next to me while I was writing lines of code. I planned on washing up later. My bar of soap was sitting right next to my hand when one of the seniors came by and said, "that gives me an idea." "We could attach a wire and a soap shaped object to the computer and it can be used for navigating on the screen!" I took the bar of soap and carved and shaped it to fit my hand, and the supervisor declared, "My God, that looks like a mouse with a tail!" Little did I realize I had just invented the computer mouse.

Well later I brought a girlfriend to Skunkworks to watch me work and she had been eating ice cream with caramel and chocolate on it. It was melting and getting messy. As I typed, she took her sticky fingers and asked me about certain things I was typing, making sticky squares around certain lines of code on the monitor screen. Then we realized she created a bunch of sticky "windows" all over the screen. Once again, the senior scientist came by and as he looked at the shapes, he said, "That's it! We can make multiple Windows to open on the screen to do multiple tasks!" referring to the sticky ice cream shapes on the screen. My girlfriend said, "Ooooh but it's so gooey!" Once again the analyst's eyes lit up. "Aha!" he said. "We'll call it a GUI (gooey) interface!"

Well, the rest is history. :laugh: :laugh: :laugh:
 
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#5,420
alaskaleftybass said:
Well, since you guys are reminiscing, I may as well reminisce with you. I was doing programming at the UW in the early 70's when a suit walked in watching me program. I was smooth, and well versed. One of my groups of code had solved an issue he was working on, and he was impressed. He asked me if I wanted to work the summer in the California desert and I said yes. He gave me a card and said call him when my spring quarter was over. I was surprised he called me the day after summer break started-- I was going to break for a couple weeks but he said come down now or the offer expired.

I flew down coach to Palo Alto Xerox and was given a badge with "Intern" on it and introduced around Skunkworks. I was amazed at the technology concepts developing in that brightly lit well equipped lab. I was late to work one day and hadn't washed up so I brought my soap on a rope with me and laid it next to me while I was writing lines of code. I planned on washing up later. My bar of soap was sitting right next to my hand when one of the seniors came by and said, "that gives me an idea." "We could attach a wire and a soap shaped object to the computer and it can be used for navigating on the screen!" I took the bar of soap and carved and shaped it to fit my hand, and the supervisor declared, "My God, that looks like a mouse with a tail!" Little did I realize I had just invented the computer mouse.

Well later I brought a girlfriend to Skunkworks to watch me work and she had been eating ice cream with caramel and chocolate on it. It was melting and getting messy. As I typed, she took her sticky fingers and asked me about certain things I was typing, making sticky squares around certain lines of code on the monitor screen. Then we realized she created a bunch of sticky "windows" all over the screen. Once again, the senior scientist came by and as he looked at the shapes, he said, "That's it! We can make multiple Windows to open on the screen to do multiple tasks!" referring to the sticky ice cream shapes on the screen. My girlfriend said, "Ooooh but it's so gooey!" Once again the analyst's eyes lit up. "Aha!" he said. "We'll call it a GUI (gooey) interface!"

Well, the rest is history. :laugh: :laugh: :laugh:
Click to expand...

Thus begins the Forrest Gump sequel . . .
 
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