Discussion on:

10 IT relics I really miss

Surely you don't want to go back to mice with balls!

And keyboards, well, I can remember when new ones were about $100 and you had to replace them about as often as the current $20 ones.

I'm typing this message on a 7-year old Dell keyboard and a Logitech Optical mouse that indicates a manufacturing date of April 2001.

It's funny reading this article today, because some of us at work were talking about this subject last week. I was one of those who started learning Basic by punching code out of Rainbow magazine every month for my CoCo 2, and saving it on my cassette tapes. But the thing I miss the most are BBS's. There is no need for them today, but I miss the excitement I felt when my 300 baud dumb modem would connect to one of the many I would connect to. Just about every university had one and most of them would freely give out the information. Plus tech BBS's and gaming BBS's, it was so much fun.

It was the excitement of those days that led me into the IT field that I am in today. Thanks for the trip down memory lane

The Interenet did not spell the end of the BBS. Many are still up and running, with web interfaces and telnet access. One of the nice things about them is that you still have the feeling of being a part of a community where you know each other, which is something that is often lacking in forums and on NNTP feeds.

and BASIC. i learned so much plugging that little board into my tv and using the Radio Shack manual that had corny little cartoons in it that showed you how to type pages of code that just made the screen change colors

Although some items on the list are nice to remember. I don' t agree with your personal view. It almost seems disconnected with many things that go on nowadays.

For example, your personal idea of the gaming setup. In stead of bulky visible setups, a lot of gaming setups immerse you even deeper into the game than ever possible. (Think of those racing cars chairs that actually tilt backwards to simulate the acceleration feeling.)

Perhaps nice to look at a thread on neogaf forum called, " Show me your gaming setup" for ideas.

I do fully agree with your first point on the list but have to state that these magazines have been replaced by blogs. For example, apple apps programming by Ray Wenderlich is a really good example.

One thing I miss the most by far..... A physical reset button! Where did that thing go...

The other nice thing about the old IBM keyboards is that they were heavy and solid enough that, if anyone broke in to your home or office, you could use the keyboard in self-defense. Knock someone over the head with one of those and they would really feel it. They were also loud enough that everyone else in the bldg knew when you were typing.

Does anyone remember the original Shugart floppy disk drive??????

I never used one but I handled it at the local computer club meeting those are to remember also, miss those. That is where Steve Woz started.
Anyway, it was REALLY a floppy disc. A piece of 8" dia. coated mylar that you inserted into a cube box about 9"x9"x9". The magnetic head then went in and out radially to access the tracks and the HEAD spun.
It didn't come into wide spread use till old Shugart figured out he needed to contain the Mylar and spin it and not the HEAD.

I was going to mention them if nobody else did, so good on ya.

My first "real" computer, after a VIC-20, was a Tandy 1000TX. It had one 3.5" floppy drive, no hard drive. The store salesman talked me into a second 3.5" floppy drive....one for booting/running Deskmate, other for apps and saving. I thought I was "it" with this machine.
Sometime later I added a hard drive, a "huge" 49 MB. Amazing. I didn't do much solid productive work with it, but I learned what made a computer tick.

In every magazine or mailed to everyone at least weekly. Apparently CD's make good mobiles to hang in trees to scare away the birds from the garden.

I miss those annoying AOL CDs and disks about as much as I miss migraines!

The only major one that is still around is Microcenter, as long as you are lucky enough to live near one (mine is 20 minutes away What i miss about those is you never knew what you'd find once you got there

Yeah! 5MB and as big as 4 stacked netbooks. They very quickly went to 10MB, then to 20MB, then 40MB, then 80MB, I still have an 80MB. From there the technology changed.

I modified the heck out of that DOS. It was so much fun changing it to make it do what I wanted it to do.

My Commodore 64 never got a virus, or malware, or pop-up ads and had a boot time that would be the envy of most modern machines.

A nice article that brings back the memories of the fun times. I started playing home computer games on an Atari 2600 and even had the BASIC cartridge. My first computer was a 128 and a 300 baud modem using a service called Q-Link (which eventually become AOL). I ran a CNET (Commodore Net) BBS. Remember some BBSs used FidoNet to get around long distance charges. I learned so much by playing around, writing programs, messing with hardware and such. I wrote a few shareware programs and had lots of fun.

Do not miss having to use IRQ cards for my multiline BBS..... Fossil drivers/frondoor

How many of us remember coding in hex or octal? And prior to 5.25 disks were the 8" disks. I used a Tektronix with a monsterous disk enclosure for 8 inch single sided single density with no on-disk file system. You had to write down where on disc (tracks and sectors) you had files. This was connected with the 'Computer' with a wonderful 50-wire cable. The system had all of 8 K memory, so we segmented the first 2 K for system, and overlaid the last 6K layer by layer. Nice part was you could print your code on a 2" paper tape (remember the thermal printing, anyone???).

Later, using the 360 with punch cards, we drew a diagonal line (with markers) on the top of your card deck in case you ever dropped the box you could resort your cards.

How about the IBM Manuals? You either had the mind-set to read 'em, or they were completely incomprehensible. (Remember the IBM Memo (supposedly) about replacing a 'bad' mice ball?)

Our first IBM PC at work I ordered in with 640 K of memory, and two full sized floppies--all for the low price of $4,000 or thereabouts. I went to ,my first IBM PC User Group meeting and asked how many had as much memory--I was alone with 640 K, most had 440 K or less. I used a Hercules card to actually get graphics on my green/black screen.

IBM DOS and Lotus 1-2-3 in boxed linen binders (I still have 'em boxed up out in the garage). dBase II, then dBase III, Quickcode, Foxpro, WordPerfect, and we're all brain deformed from remembering the keyboard shortcuts for MS Word (which also worked in MS code editors). Control-s still saves in most MS products.

Thanks for the stroll down memory lane (what we older folks actually remember).

I have a CPM version of dBase on 8" floppies in storage somewhere. Bought tor a Cromeco box if I remember right.

At college we hand assembled 6502 for the EMMA programming board, the only input option was a hex keypad and seven seg display array.

I also remember software coming in linen binders with (shock horror) detailed manuals!

If you are having trouble finding large full range speakers, you are shopping in the wrong store. Any decent hifi store will have speakers that can provide plenty of sound.

Add me to the long list of folks who miss software that didn't need to be installed.

Punch Cards
300 baud modems

Great article. Some of the detractors here just don't get it. It is about memories we have about the past.
I remember my first Apple II Plus that had a raised logo saying it had "48K" of Ram. Wow. that was a lot back then. It was only a keyboard basically and came with a single sided 144K 5.25 floppy. I had to purchase a RF adapter to hook up a TV. it cost me $1,700.
We used to cut a second notch in the floppy to use the other side. My first Amiga was the 1000 and I thought that was the best thing on the planet.
My first IBM clone had a 10M drive and 2 5.25 floppies. I then went to the 20M drive then on to the RLL 30M. Upgraded to the 1.2M floppy drives. Backup took about 30 floppies.

I remember trying to play Links golf game on an IBM 286 and it wouldn't play because there was no co-processor. When I plugged one in, you would burn yourself if you touched it. Everything back then was TTL and sucked up the power. I also remember plugging 14pin ram chips to the empty sockets of the motherboard to increase the ram.

I also remember the BBS's and connected to them daily. We even had IBM, Commodore 64 and Amiga users goups that would meet every month at a local college. We would share information tips on how to do things. They even had monthly floppies with tons of software to purchase for just the cost of the disk. I still have an Amiga 500 that my kids use to play on.

I also remember needing a 1meg file from my nephew and using a1400 modem to get from him. Took almost all night and even then someone picked up the phone and I had to start all over.

I used to purchase every magazine I could find especially if they included a disk. I still do find these in drug stores at times.

I learned a lot back then but much more today with the internet.
I would never give up my 75M down and 50M up internet. Really spoiled.

It is fun to look back but I would never want to go back.

I used to love going to the computer shows. All the hardware and software and media you could possibly want, in a small, congested venue. Of course there was nothing show-like about it aside from the people-watching aspect.
I stopped going when the internets made comparison shopping easy and cheap, and I think everyone else did also because they don't seem to exist anymore; and if they did, I don't know that I would bother to pay the $6 admission, unless I was in the mood to brush up on my haggling skills

1. Floppy Disk
2. Serial mouse
3. My first computer Intel Pentium 75Mhz assembled in heavy AT Casing (I still have that processor) and heavy 14" monitor by Acer.

to have 14" monitor you had some money back then. i remember my first 15" and how it just looked huge

Why, o why did you start this thread, Mr Posey? The responses almost had some of us crying - IBM keyboards (the best I ever used - the precise response, the certainty that the key pressed gave the right letter), floppy disks, tightly written software that did everything and then some (does anyone remember a British software Superwriter?), the lot. Down a lovely memory lane it has been, and I thank you for starting it. You seem to have brought out people from the woods, and the responses have been fantastic. I am saving it all.

Regards

Where do you live??? Another planet???
I'm in Toronto and we have:
1.) Magazines with source code; mainly for Linux
2.) Computer stores close by
3.) HP makes desktop workstations - refurbished ones available from the above computer stores.
4.) Durable mice and keyboards - just browse around the computer store and the HP ones that come with the workstations are durable.
5.) Our IT will make in-person-visits for complex matters. Just had one recently.
6.) Lots of my friends have their tower gaming machines ( yours must just play Angry Birds and the like) connected to their media centre and large monitors.
7.) At work we have a technical "BBS" for colleagues from other institutions to share ideas and troubleshooting within our field.
8.) A number of British computer magazines come with DVD's with an enormous amount of software. Let some one else do the web searching for you!
9.) Portability never left!
10.) Easily modifiable code? Try "Autohotkeys".

So your article kind of puzzles me.

If you don't get it, you don't get it. This was not about what exists and what does not, but all about what existed, and why 'progress' has its disadvantages; not about right or wrong. You should judge how much response the article generated. It is about us oldies, that the point.

I truly miss having magazines like PC Magazine in a paper format. I could carry these to lunch and share them with other IT staff. Plus the articles were able to go on for more than 2 pages. I think since they went to digital they decided that their readers don't have as long of an attention span.

My IT teething was done via network news. Remember all those something-dot-something-dot-something news groups? Like the BBS's of way back when and the blogs (like this one) of today, they were a great resource for asking "Help! What do I do now?" types of questions. The community of users was great. I would now describe many network news groups as the living dead. Yes, they are still there but, too often, the content seems to be entirely made up of SPAM. Some are in fact alive and very well indeed (comp.unix.programmer). There must be a critical mass that, after a given point of SPAM load, people abandon the news group to the spammers. I frequent a hobby news group (rec.aviation.soaring) that is going great guns. Another (alt.sport.racquetball) is dead, dead, dead. Sad.

I've always hated towers because they take up more room. Sure the footprint of the case is smaller, but who didn't stack their monitor on top of the desktop unit? Ergnomically, you want the monitor at eyeball height anyway. Unless you're not adult-sized, you need something to raise the monitor.

The funniest things I've see are people with towers and they have monitor risers to raise the monitor by about the same height as a standard case.

These days, with 20+ inch monitors, the monitor takes more space than the CPU anyway. Put a tower beside the monitor and it's even worse.

My first purchase was a Leading Edge PC. It had a clock speed of 8 MHz or nearly double that of the IBM PC. Games did not correct for the faster CPU so I had to kick a$$. I put Robotron 2084 in its place. By the way, that was the greatest game ever in terms of testing your hand-eye coordination and quickness. A single mistake on the keyboard and you were dead!

For a lot of years I ran a couple of incarnations of a User Group that met every 3rd saturday of the month. We had various sponsers that would give away lots of SWAG. If was big fun.

11. Integrated compilers and text editors with error highlighting. (e.g., Turbo Pascal) Number crunch coding without the ping pong!

Those IBM style clunky keyboards of the 1980s are still being made.
A little expensive at 99USD a piece, but you do get quality that lasts.
Great for data entry.

Personally I think that 9600 baud modems took all the romance out of BBSing - anything over 2400 baud is insufficiently retro for me!

A computer store was where you could go not only for hardware and software, but for advice. More often than not, the salesperson was also an enthusiast, other customers were working on interesting projects of their own (and be glad to share the details), and both could be trusted to give their honest opinions and assistance.