What happens when you are older than some colleagues...

[Detonate]

Re: What happens when you are older than some colleagues...

Fifty-four people were at the reunion. There were 121 people in my graduation class. Twenty-five are deceased.

My heaviest use of a slide rule was when I as being trained as a nuclear weapons employment specialist in 1969. A skill which thankfully I never had to use. Basically a slide rule is just a graphical way of adding and subtracting logarithms.

[askrieger]

Re: What happens when you are older than some colleagues...

using the KSR-133 and paper tape

Ah, HAH! I couldn't remember whether the KSR 133 was the Teletype with or without the tape punch!

Bomar Brain

I think that was actually the Bowmar Brain. I used to know a guy who was an engineer on that project. After Bowmar went belly-up, he opened a tropical fish store.

SLIDE RULE: "Deitzgen Maniphase Multiplex Decitrig"(tm) (with "Micromatic Adjustment"(tm) ): It's still in the top right drawer of my desk, but this is the first time I've had it out in years. It's lost some accuracy since the glass on the cursor cracked. I should have kept the black leather case! I'm just keeping it to show my grandchildren when they're old enough to learn about logarithms.

I too was a member of the high school class of '58, but I skipped my reunion. Most of my friends were on the list of alums without known addresses. We were not among the most school spirited, even though I don't think the word 'geek' was in popular parlance at that time.

[Ole Juul]

Re: What happens when you are older than some colleagues...

Is everyone around here a seasoned computer professional? It certainly looks like it! Back in those days, I was way too busy practicing my scales and working clubs and theaters to keep up with computers - although I was very interested. Being a musician, most of my "techie" time went to audio electronics, although I did take the train from Vancouver (BC) down to San Francisco to attend the First West Coast Computer Fair in 1977.

Unfortunately, it wasn't until almost 10 years later that I started using them. When I got my own, it was an XT with two 360 floppy drives. Someone gave it to me because it didn't work. lol I've since "repaired" a lot of computers and the idea of a computer that "doesn't work" is almost a thing of the past. I'm still OK with floppies only. In fact, a single 360 is still fairly comfortable for me because I never stopped using DOS. (I just can't quit!) Linux is slowly taking over though, and I'm getting a vague idea of more mainstream computer usage.

Getting closer to the topic here: I hang out on the Vintage Computer Forum, and there are some "older" folks there too. Yes, there are people around who still build boards from scratch and load programs from cassette - even paper tape. The 8" floppy is far from dead and you can still buy them. The Altair lives. The VAX lives. And most of all the Commodore and DECs, IBM junior, and that general pre-286 generation lives. There are a lot of younger people who have been able to catch up on a bit of history and get a broader computer education than a modern store bought Windows system will give you. Frankly, I think they just learnt to read! I can excuse someone who is into computers for not being familiar with a tape recorder interface, but there is no excuse for not know about it.

The vintage crowd, in fact, ranges all the way down to about 12! To me, that means that to understand and know about earlier computers has nothing to do with age. IMHO, it has everything to do with education. /2¢

PS: I didn't mean this to be a send up of the Vintage Computer Forum, but I might as well post the link: http://www.vintage-computer.com/vcforum/index.php

[Qqmike]

Re: What happens when you are older than some colleagues...

@Ole Juul: seasoned computer professional? Not me! Starting college, 1967, my interest was in _pure_mathematics (that would be pure-pure-pure), and I always resisted computing, calculators, etc., feeling they were too "dirty" (they had no "definition--theorem--proof" game going on for my brain). However, I did do all the engineering, science, and math courses and so got my fill of computing/calculating and did do a heck of a lot of higher-level programming all through grad school, 1977 (Fortran, Lisp, Pascal, Simscrit, and many others I'm forgetting). Bought my first PC in 1980, an IBM, from Entre Computer store (I thought that was the thing to do! never questioned my other options, paid a small fortune for it). The need to do word processing (writer/business consultant) got me into using these PCs; now, of course, I use the PC for everything (but banking). And, nowadays, I've learned to build my own PCs (i.e., to assemble them--connect-and-plug--from components bought at Newegg and local stores). But, no, not a computer professional by any stretch of the term! A mathematician turned professor turned woodworker turned consultant turned lapidary. The Vintage Computer Forum and your interests sound interesting. In the spirit, recently I started studying crystal radios; and although I know (pure) physics well, I never did understand practical electronics, so it's been challenging to learn the basics (diodes, capacitors, radio, etc.), but, time permitting, I hope to be experimenting building some crystal radio versions someday soon (of course, anyone can build one in a few minutes; but I'm trying to understand it, all the why's). I had one as a kid and listened to the famous DJ Dick Biondi, WLS Chicago in the 50's (the Bobby Vinton days). This IS the Social/Casual Talk Forum, isn't it! What was the question? ...

[dibl]

Re: What happens when you are older than some colleagues...

In the spirit, recently I started studying crystal radios

Heh. I got a crystal radio kit one time, for a birthday present, I think -- I was maybe 11 or 12. I don't remember precisely, but I believe the "kit" consisted of a crystal embedded in a lead slug, a short piece of piano wire that was to be bent into a "cat whisker", a small roll of copper wire, a headphone, and instructions on how to roll the copper wire around an empty toilet paper tube and create an antenna, how to mount the crystal and the cat's whisker on a piece of wood, and how to connect the headphone and a flashlight battery such that the signal could be heard. That was primitive.

Hey Mike, you'll have a hell of time hearing digital audio with that thing!

[arochester]

Re: What happens when you are older than some colleagues...

LOL! Makes me think of Monty Python's Flying Circus - "Four Yorkshiremen" (Transcript at http://www.phespirit.info/montypytho...rkshiremen.htm)

FIRST YORKSHIREMAN:
You were lucky. We lived for three months in a paper bag in a septic tank. We used to have to get up at six in the morning, clean the paper bag, eat a crust of stale bread, go to work down t' mill, fourteen hours a day, week-in week-out, for sixpence a week, and when we got home our Dad would thrash us to sleep wi' his belt.
SECOND YORKSHIREMAN:
Luxury. We used to have to get out of the lake at six o'clock in the morning, clean the lake, eat a handful of 'ot gravel, work twenty hour day at mill for tuppence a month, come home, and Dad would thrash us to sleep with a broken bottle, if we were lucky!
THIRD YORKSHIREMAN:
Well, of course, we had it tough. We used to 'ave to get up out of shoebox at twelve o'clock at night and lick road clean wit' tongue. We had two bits of cold gravel, worked twenty-four hours a day at mill for sixpence every four years, and when we got home our Dad would slice us in two wit' bread knife.
FOURTH YORKSHIREMAN:
Right. I had to get up in the morning at ten o'clock at night half an hour before I went to bed, drink a cup of sulphuric acid, work twenty-nine hours a day down mill, and pay mill owner for permission to come to work, and when we got home, our Dad and our mother would kill us and dance about on our graves singing Hallelujah.
FIRST YORKSHIREMAN:
And you try and tell the young people of today that ..... they won't believe you.
ALL:
They won't!

[josefko]

Re: What happens when you are older than some colleagues...

Not to stay behind I would like to say that my first adding machine was that:
[img width=400 height=112]http://www.volny.cz/jkotarba/addfeet.jpg[/img]
and my first computer for stress analysis programs (using finite elements method) was HP 9100A

[Ole Juul]

Re: What happens when you are older than some colleagues...

Chrystal radio? ... I was 10, new to Canada, and still struggling with English, when I came home from school, grabbed my wallet and took the bus down town to buy my first "Rocket Radio". The bus was 5cents (includes return transfer) and the radio was 95cents. I got back before my parents got home and by then had already figured out that the telephone was the best place to attach the antenna. Those were COOL (133t). A few years later and a bit more understanding of the situation, I hit upon the idea of just using the crystal earphone to do it's own rectification. I attached it to the wire clothes line and VOILA ... no other parts were necessary! The main station in the area being so strong that it was hard to tune it out with a coil anyway. Brilliant! (I thought) All those kids with their cardboard tube and copper windings were all just going through a ritual. lol That's analogue for you. Digital doesn't seem to have the same magic when it comes to bailing wire, it's more of a brute force approach. In fact, it generally requires a lot of help from a lot of people to get anything off the ground - unless you just want to wind a bunch of relays - and I've seen that done too! See: http://web.cecs.pdx.edu/~harry/Relay/index.html Actually, that leads to the Homebuilt CPUs WebRing ... and there goes your Saturday. (sigh)

@Qqmike: Hope I didn't put you off, regarding building a crystal radio. Actually, have you thought about using a "cats whisker". That is, a sharp piece of wire on a piece of galena? That's what dibl was talking about - he must be really old. /ducks

[Qqmike]

Re: What happens when you are older than some colleagues...

@ Ole Juul, not put off at all (it'll take much more than that! lol).
I have read about the cat's whisker, not tried it. Also heard about using the wire clothes line as you did. I have assembled a kit or two, winding the coil really takes some patience. It's not just the end result I'm after, but it's kind of fun messing around (that would be: learning some new things). I have tons of bookmarks for crystal radio references, just need to find the time to stay on it long enough.

@ josefko, I got one of them Addfeet's (or some-such like it), too.

[GreyGeek]

Re: What happens when you are older than some colleagues...

My first crystal radio was made using a toilet paper roll and I forget how many turns of #22 enameled Copper wire, and a handmade capacitor using Tinfoil gum wrappers sandwiched together. I forget how many of those I used, too. A flat piece of metal the size of a Popsicle stick was used to tune it by varying the inductance, and a safety pin touching an active spot on a Galena crystal detected the signal. A 2K Ohm headphones completed the rig. I strung a 50' Copper wire outside my bedroom window and attached the end of it to the junction of the inductor and capacitor. The other side was connected to a 6' metal rod pounded into the ground outside my bedroom window. I didn't have to put the headphones on. I took the headphones apart and put each one on the side of my pillow, with my head in between, because the signal was so loud. It was loud because the station antenna, broadcasting on 550 KHz at 50,000 watts, was only a mile away. I went to sleep every night listening to the "Cool Bill Show" --- Jazz.

[Snowhog]

Re: What happens when you are older than some colleagues...

For all you crystal radio nostalgists, this is an interesting site: Dave's Homemade Radio's

Wow!

[Ole Juul]

Re: What happens when you are older than some colleagues...

Thats a great link snowdog.

I just wanted to report on the link to Harry Porter's Relay Computer that I posted earlier. His home page is now offline, but here is a link to the YouTube video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n3wPBcmSb2U
The Homebuilt CPUs WebRing is surely also of great interest to some folks here, so I'll post another entry point: http://www.homebrewcpu.com/ There's some pretty high functioning TTL there!