I clearly remember when there were no such things as PCs or cell phones or video games.
"First World Problems" sure are a weird thing huh?
I don't remember any of the things mentioned in the opening post but I probably wasn't paying attention then. But, I distinctly remember party lines and rotary dial phones. I also used to know Morse Code. No, I don't remember telegraphs.
Nice! I'm not sure if there are still dial-up providers where a 300 baud modem could connect. I have not tried to connect with a dial-up modem for years.
I remember having to type in all the commands. Later, the programs did everything.
I remember going to businesses, watching their data come in, and being able to accurately guess their connect speed.
Remember filling out fortran cards ? ONE LITTLE SMUDGE outside the box and the whole thing was ruined.
My first certification was Novell admin in 98 It worked, but they didn't advertise anywhere. Microsoft beat them to the market then spend the 1 production year fixing bugs. I don't recall Novell releasing any product that had as many issues as MS did.
I remember they were giving the server OS away on a CD with 5 user licenses. Thing was you could collect all of the CDs and add 5 licenses from each of them. LOL I built a duel boot PC with windows 95 and Novell with enough licenses for all of my class mates to login. I published Doom, the only thing I couldn't get working was the mouse.
Originally posted by tshark: Micrisoft changed from the offline activation of Windows 98 to the online activation of Windows XP? They told us that we would always be able to sctivate it. LIARS! The activation system and phone number are no longer in service. WinXP now uses a different "Key" and doesn't require you to activate like retail copies. Most WinXP copies are OEM or VL copies and never activated like retail copies and OEM/VL must support them. In Dell case is easy, just use Dell CD/media on Dell machines. Some others are same but HP and Compaq often need model specific CD and correct XP CD to install. If you have Dell's and other Vista machines... Many can get last BIOS version to install OEM Win7.
Remember further back, when Microsoft said that the subscription, cloud-based services were a thing of the past? Guess what Office 365 and Windows-as-a-service are. MS is late to this game. Adobe and many others did it for software years ago. "Cloud" services are nothing but a return to IBM that "rented out" System/360 Mainframes or like Dec PDP 11/70 used by Broome-Tioga BOCES in NY that had terminals across schools all over 1/2+ of NY Southern Tier most of 70's to early 80's.
Remember when Lotus, Intel, and Microsoft decided that 640Kb of RAM was all the RAM anyone would ever need? Guess whose OS was the first that wouldn't run in 640Kb of RAM. Keep in mind that Desqview, OS/2, Amiga, and many others still ran fine in 640Kb. BS claiming MS problem. Biggest problem for running out of RAM because Novell and 3com networks took a lot of RAM. Worse if you just used default setting using either networks. Later MS had utilities to move some things to higher memory but most Novell clients still ate to much ram.
Remember the 1Gb hard drive limitation? The 2Gb limitation? Now we have a 3Tb limitation. Suggest you read specs on early versions of IBM/MS DOS and others again. Much lower then these support HD at all. https://en.wikipedia.org/wi...OS_operating_systems
Remember when directories could only contain a few files? Most problems was only the root directors. Anything else can and did grow very easy but many programs not just DOS had problems w/ huge directors. While Win7 8.x and X have no real limits to directory size, all can barf w/ too many files on 1 directory, worse when have video/music files and "Explorer" is set to icons or tiles.
Remember getting online with 300 baud modems, using the telephone handset, and having people wanting to talk on the phone while you were online? Imagine life like that, now. MANY people still use a POTs Modems and limits to 56k but often less because Laws and Distance for CO. You only see highest speeds w/in a line mile or 3 of local CO. Line mile does not = physical mile from CO to whatever Premise.
Remember before browsers, before usenets, before MUDs and MOOs, before Prodigy, AOL, and Imagination Network? Was called Compuserve and most had to pay huge long distance phone bill to use it too.
Remember programming your motherboard with DIP switches? Remember full-height drives? Yes and worse like had to enter defect maps and other data just to see a HD.
Remember punch cards? Remember having to turn in your programming dump, then wait for the output? Most Banks and many others still use Batch Processing and only happens at "night."
Remember running your code on the mainframe in spare cycles? Many mainframes would not allow this because of Billing by IBM etc.
Remember monochrome monitors? How about CGA displays? Remember 9-pin dot matrix printers? Yes. And first HP LaserJet and Apple ImageWriter and LaserWriter all based on C-itoh engines.
Remember the clickety-clack keyboards? How about the function key templates? Yes. The IBM KB was made to emulate IBM Selectric Typewriters exactly so Touch Typists have very little learning curve to keep typing speed high. Some has old IBM manufacturing tooling and sells then. But Many new MoBo won't run w/ OE IBM and other old KB even w/ PS/2 or USB. Many old Barcode scanners have same problem because emulates old PC or PS/2 KB control chips.
Remember when Windows 1 came out? How about when MSDOS was being written? Nearly No-one bought Win1 or 2 or IBM OS/2 for PS/2 because of cost. Only some PS/2 w/ a lot of RAM could even run OS/2. Dealer Cost for this was well over $7500 in late 80's and never sold even 1 for most dealers. MSDOS is nothing but IBM DOS stripped of IBM logos etc because MS wrote IBM DOS and IBM did not make an exclusive contract for this. IBM just slapped IBM logo on Intel and other makers parts and why they quickly lost sales to Compaq et al Clones. Worse when IBM didn't use 286 as soon as Intel made then. Compaq and others did and IBM never really recovered. PS/2 Micro Channel only made more problems because of high cost for everything w/ this bus.
[This message has been edited by theogre (edited 05-05-2019).]
I recently restored the original IBM PC, the 5150, the thing is older than I am. Replaced all the electrolytic capacitors and the 3 pin tantalums on the board that have a tendency to POP with age.
Maxed it out with 640k of RAM (thing takes like a minute to go through the memory check), installed an 8087 co-processor, an EGA graphics card to go with the IBM 5154 color monitor, set all the dip switches on the board according to the manual.
Anyone remember replacing the hard drive on an old Compaq (made prior to 1998)? Remember the full-length expansion cards?
I still have an old Compaq 486DX stashed away somewhere. If I remember, there are little rails that screw to the sides of the drives so you could slide them in and out. I have an old Motorola PowerPC that originally ran NT4. Have you ever seen one of those?
[This message has been edited by williegoat (edited 05-05-2019).]
In flight school, I had to learn too use a circular slide rule, I hated that thing (even though I was fairly adept at using it). They would not allow the students to use battery powered calculators because they said, the batteries could fail.
In flight school, I had to learn too use a circular slide rule, I hated that thing (even though I was fairly adept at using it). They would not allow the students to use battery powered calculators because they said, the batteries could fail.
Rams
Same here. Actually, I never DID fly by GPS or anything else electronic. I didnt get my 1st GPS unit until 2010 and left aviation in 2004. It was all E6B, compass, H.I., and a map. Checkpoint-to-checkpoint flying. If you think about it, the instructors were right. Electronics fail, batteries die, and GPS is consistently putting people in the wrong places.Most of the time I was below MRA for the VOR system anyway so those were useless to me too, although every so often I'd pop up to get pointed in the right general direction.
LOL, I think I spent more time reading a CAA road map than I did an Air5000.....get lost, do a fly-by on the nearest towns water tower, its written right there where you are.
Originally posted by tshark: I had OS/2, but it did not cost me anything close to $7,500.
That was Hardware to run first version of OS/2. I think one we had for demo was PS/2 60 w/ 8514 monitor and vid card to drive it and high $ memory card(s). May had Token Ring card too but store didn't support this.
I did not like NT4. It seems every other OS from MS is BS. I mean bad.
It has an MPC604 processor, 166mhz if memory serves me; 64megs of ram and two 1gig scsi drives. The drives were wiped clean before I got it, so I installed Debian. I used it as a web server for a while, about 15 years ago. I named it BlackSheep because it was so odd.
The graphics card was not well supported. The only X display I could get running directly was TWM, so I went in remotely with VNC.
)
