Re: Geek Reminiscing

["Ronald O. Cunningham Jr." <rocapl@mail.gac.peachnet.edu>]

>Everywhere you turn today people are shouting about the Internet
>and computers and how cool they are and how you have to have one.
>While in the timeline of the Internet I'm just a newbie
>(I got my first shell account in 1990) it's scary to think that
>compared to the general populace of today's Internet I'm an oldtimer.
>So, even though I missed net.events like the Great Renaming on
>Usenet or the conversion from NCP to TCP, I've been thinking
>recently about the good old (recent) days of my memory..
>
>I miss..

Using an acoustic coupler modem to connect a dumb terminal and a printer
terminal (ie. teletype machine) w/optional, tiny hole-punched, paper tape
recording, to connect to Duke University's mainframe to learn BASIC and to
play Star Trek...


           0
           9
           8   *                   There are no Klingons in your sector.
           7
           6                                8  1  2
           5       *                         \ | /
           4           <*>                 7 -   - 3
           3                                 / | \
           2                                6  5  4
           1
            1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0

I also remember writing my first program using punch cards and having to
wait in line with other people (in another bulding... ya see the CPU was
kinda bulky...) for my turn in the cue to run it and print it out to see if
there were any mistakes in it and if I would have to go back and punch more
cards and do it again... It taught programmers to be careful and
efficient... something seriously lacking in todays world (Example: Any
Microsoft program).

I really miss when you could have an entire operating system AND an
application or two along with a few files all on one 400k 3.5" Floppy (I'll
leave the reminiscing about 5.25" / 7" / and spools of tape to others).

Helping the computer teacher solder connections on his NEW Apple computer
KIT then later thinking how lucky we were to now have Apple II's with
cassette tape storage and 24k of memory (later we got disk drives and
thermal paper printers and then upgraded to IIe's; one even had a... COLOR
monitor, no more green screen).

Ron

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