Discussion on:

10 IT relics I really miss

This brought me back to nerd memory lane too. The days where just knowing how to program in BASIC was already considered "expertise". Back in 1984, nobody had a computer at home. Many did not even know what a computer was for, Back then, we were considered "the smart ones" ( even though I only had the US equivalent of a C average ). Now, we're just like everyone else... almost.

LANtastic!!!!!!!!!

while I was working with the computer

I too love the mechanical feel of the older keyboards. Years ago I bought an Ortek MKC-142 keyboard with nice feel, function keys on the side (like keyboards of old) AND across the top and 24 programmable keys. I moved that keyboard from computer to computer for years. I was asked to give it up at my current location though--the noise was bothering the people around me.

I too spent hours typing programs in from magazine listings. Great fun and I learned a lot. Some good some bad. I started out on the TRS-80 and I still have a stack of "Softside" magazines. Some of the games they published were quite good and I keep thinking that as a retirement project I'll update some of them for modern equipment. I also have a few years worth of "Compute" magazines, mostly for nostalgia purposes.

One relic I DON'T miss is attempting to save and load my programs from cassette tape. 20 or 30 minutes listening to a program load only to hear a screech followed by a "Load error" message.

So many great communities lost !

The bygone days...

Remembering that my first laptop had no screen, it was Silent 700 thermal paper printing terminal with a blindingly fast 300 baud acoustic coupled modem. Let's not forget the Hayes command set ATDT or the calls from the phone company telling you that their automated testing had found some strange signals on your phone line and would like to send someone out to check the line.

Yes I'm still using a PS2 keyboard from the early 90s. Solid as a rock and about as heavy..:) . I also remember writing assembler and PL/M for the old blue cube Intel systems in the 70s, which had twin 10" floppies (or was it 7"), 64 K (yes K) of RAM if you were lucky, and cost about the same as luxury car in those days...

"80 Micro" Magazine 1st issue on the 1st Jan 1980 focusing on the TRS80
"Hot CoCo"
And the "One Liners" where a whole app had to be fitted into a 256 character of basic and the tricks to stuff the line!
Books Like "Basic Faster and Basic" with the Magician on the cover - I must have all those somewhere on my shelves - I gave away all my Mod 1, 3, 4, 4p's recently to a "collector"

So, did you trade up your Trash 80 to an Apple ][ or an Amiga?

I remember setting up BBSs for Linotronic bureaus.
Seeing the amazement in the owners' eyes when they understood that their clients didn't have to courier their jobs to the bureau
The clients were STOKED!
Then I could explain "Appletalk networks" to them, so the client's data on the BBS could be transferred to the "print" computer WITHOUT having to transfer it via floppy disk.

I have to thank my older brother for getting me into computing after he wrote a simple for..to loop saying "my brother is a w@$ker". After that I just had to learn how to get my own back. It was so much fun that I forgot why I even wanted to learn. When I was 12 I learnt so much debugging the crap that was printed in those magazines. This kind of stuff should be available to today for children. At that time you would would buy the mags for the games because there weren't any ready games available in the shops. Those mags also taught you about machine code too. I learnt 6502 and Z80 machine code on the PET and the ZXSpectrum from those mags. We had to wait a couple of years for assemblers to come out. The machine code came in useful many times afterwards when I was working as an electronic engineer.

IBM weren't the only manufacturers of solid heavy keyboards. 8 years ago, despairing of smallish hard-to-read black keyboards, I found a couple of old second-hand Dell keyboards which are so useful to me that I've given several new black KBs away. One of my Dells recently died on me, the other is still going strong (with a pre-PS2 socket) and it will be my prime keyboard as long as it lasts - hopefully another ten years.
Russ

Yes, some of the old keyboards with mechanical switches were hard to wear out. When it comes to feel, key action and tacile feedback, there was one keyboard the stood way above all others, namely the one that came with Epson QX10. I miss that thing.

Don't forget the time when there was no hard disk. You had to load the whole system and applications at startup...

Miss the sound of the data as you loaded from cassette tapes on my 'ol Timex Sinclair 1000! Still have it all.....16K RAM pack and lots of tapes....wonder if they still work.......see ya!

Do you all remember the Compaq "Portable"??? The size of a small suitcase, and it was about 28 lbs.!!!

#2. I would have to agree when it comes to purchasing hardware like moboards. I remember some of those brick and mortar chains that would try to sell used monitors for about $20 less than new. They didn't even clean them.

#3. I don't know where that came from. There are plenty of mid tower and mini atx cases. Most tower cases are butt ugly these days. I would say compared to the above full size tower cases are the minority.

#6 . You're kidding right? I think a majority of high end gamers call what you refer to a laptop is a PS3 or Xbox. Only a minority of high end PC gamers would use a laptop. You can't modify a laptop to get anything near top end performance of a custom built desktop. Most high end gamers build their own systems. I think you are out of touch on this.

Yes, I was a 'BBS-Head' way back before the Internet was the Internet. I was also an Astronomer back then and the BBS Astro-threads were really invaluable to me. Some Prof. at a Canadian University monitored one of them. -- ' Gill' or something close? If you ever get wind of this, Thanks.

I thought I was in the big leagues when I purchased my 3 KB memory expansion card for my Commodore VIC 20 and upgraded from the default 5 KB of RAM to a whopping 8 KB! I skipped the Commodore 64 and went with the Commodore 128 and upgraded from my "fast" tape drive to my first 5.25" floppy drive.

Speaking of magazines with source codes -- Compute! was THE magazine of choice. I typed in my first word processor from Compute! WOW! How time flies!

The "world" we're talking about is coming back. Get copies of Make magazine and learn about what the teens and oldster are doing with stuff. All sorts of electronics/computer projects with discrete components as well as the latest bits like Arduinos. People are building scanning electron microscopes, DNA testing, remote control copters and other neat stuff using simple programming stuff as well. If you're into programming go to "codeacademy.com" and see what and how they're teaching the stuff now so kids will know what is actually happening inside their tech toys. Might even learn something to like yourself. Old programmers never die, they just learn new codes.

Can't say anymore, I'm depressed now.

Anybody remember the Commodore Vic 20? About 1981 I wanted to check out the new PC craze without spending much money in case I didn't relate. So I bought the Vic with 2K RAM!
Of course you could plug in cassettes with additional memory and programs. I learned DOS and a little machine code on that thing, and even created an Executive Decision Maker program that worked pretty well. In 85 I upgraded to the SX1000, and it's been onward and upward every since! Oh - and I once told my son I thought a 40K hard drive would be plenty. He's never let me forget that one.

I miss the fact I didn't have to reboot a dumb terminal. My programs worked the same on all of them (IBM 5250). And yes, the great IBM keyboards, one reason the were so good was they used to make typewriters.

I started out with an AppleII+, typing in Basic code from several Apple II magazines and saving to the cassette deck I'd high-jacked from my son. Then I'd spend hours trouble-shooting both my and the magazines mistakes.

Was a charter member of AOL which started out as an Apple only BBS on a 300 baud modem. It was long distance so I'd give myself a closely monitored 2 hours a month.

Great article Brien. I had a total moment of nostalgia reading it. My first computer was a TI994a, then the Tandy Coco 2. Couldn't count the hours I spent typing in code from magazines, then modifying it to make it to my liking.

BBSes were awesome. I had the chance to CoSysOp on a few, oh the power. Haha.

Speaking of portability... We used to use the original 8 bit SoundBlaster hooked up to a stereo to record music into .VOC format and store on disks to take to friends places. We didn't have MP3, or even WAV yet.

Immersive gaming is a thing of the past. Although I didn't have the huge TV, I had a 19" CRT and a 400 watt stereo. X-Com used to scare the crap out of me when the aliens would pop out of the darkness and take shots at my team. And those Quest games by Sierra where you had to learn to spell everything properly or your actions would fail. Thanks to Ken and Roberta Williams for teaching me to spell.

Who remembers getting your system put all back together, only to drop that one, stupid screw down inside the case? Reaching down in the case only meant you would shread your fingers on the sharp contacts and solder on the riser boards, unless you were willing to unplug half-a-dozen ribbons, remove the harddrive, take out the power supply, and unscrew 2 to 3 of the add-on cards. SHOOT--It rolled between the case and the motherboard.

Of course, if I could just remember to buy insulated needle-nose pliers the next time I go to the computer store, I could avoid this hassle.

Remember when Ward Christenson's "handshake" code was first published? I spent a couple of months coding it in and then another month compiling and debugging it so that I could connect with another computer. First "modem" was a converted TTY machine that had rubber cups that you put the telephone handset in.....gee, does anyone even remember telephone handsets? It ran at about 105 baud. You could actually see the little green letters forming on the screen. My first hard drive was about as big as a washing machine and held 10MB. I thought at the time that I would NEVER fill that up! Remember CP\M and bank switching when you only had 64MB of memory and the actual program was sectioned so that it was loaded in chunks that would fit in your memory? It was helpful if you were married and already accustomed to waiting. Sorry if that sounds sexist but I'm 80 years old.....I'm allowed. I remember fondly when I brought my first "real computer, not something I cobbled together my self. It was a TRASH 80. Remember those? I remember when I first went on-line as a hub.......and waited (not so) patently for my first call after getting listed in a computer magazine. I waited for two weeks!

Dude, argh! It's like those chain letters from baby-boomers waxing nostalgic about some those things they actually hated... and lots we didn't even know existed. What's a source code magazine? I would like to replace the author's #10 with:

10. Computer Magazines on paper - Remember those times when magazines were printed on paper and because the process of printing was relatively costly only the best articles made their way to us? Remember those days of informative articles, do ya?

So I was thinking if someone had a security system installed with remote access it would be open for anyone else to hack into it, perhaps disable it or view through its cameras. Then I thought of routing a secondary network through the house but not connected to the Internet or the home's regular network as an alternative. This secondary net would be tied to a modem and could be accessed using an app to dial into it to access it similar to RDP. Is there still a way to remote computer via dial-up?

Has anyone tried this? How could this be made to work?

I first learned how to do everything on an 8088 and knew the DOS commands by heart. When the first Windows came around I hated it so I would just bring up a DOS prompt and go to town. You can still do some DOS commands like that today but they are very limited.

My first computer was built from an article in a magazine based on the RCA Cosmac 1802 microprocessor. Code was input using switches it input hex code. First code execution was to flash a red LED.

Although I'm sure you've heard of this I had to reply: IBM Model M keyboards are still available through private sellers such as on EBay. I use them all the time as I simply prefer the feel/sound of using them. I even found one in a furniture store being used as a display "prop"; I traded a used "flimsy" keyboard for it.

Actually, desktop cases are making a comeback. Guess they realize it's easier to plug in a flashdrive or headphones in at desk level instead of bending down to get at an under-desk tower. I, for one, never understood the attraction of towers: I didn't have room for one under my desk, and I had to pile a bunch of books under my monitor to get it to a proper height (come to think of it, even with the desktop case, it's a little low, but I don't need as many books.)

During my college days I remember having a Tandy TRS computer sitting across the room. I would turn the room lights off and enjoy the computer's soft glimmer casting shadows on the wall. Of course, it also reminded me I had a paper due.

I had a Commodore 64. There was a computer store that would rent games for 3 days at a time (and if we rented on a Thursday night, we had an extra day to bring it back!) We would rent a game that had some type of code wheel or code book. For the youngin's here, in order to play the game, at some point in the loading process, you needed to type a code found only by matching up symbols or finding the right passage in a book before you could continue, otherwise the game didn't load (Look to "Pool of Radiance" or "Bards Tale" or "Zak McCracken").
The best part of renting the game was copying the program and then spending the rest of the weekend trying to copy the wheel (only time we ever really used paper plates) or finding a way to copy a huge sheet of black text on dark brown paper to get the codes.

The classic LAN party. My high school had a lab of brand new 166mhz DIGITAL (brand name) computers. We played Starcraft almost everyday after school for a year or two.
Download the bnet updates on the school's T1. copy them to a ZIP disk. take home & install. Why wait hours for 100mb when the sneaker net was in full force.

My first computer, a 286 with 4mb ram, had an 86mb double-5.25 HDD. I hooked up a paralled ZIP drive, and it was tons faster, and more space.

Walnut Creek.. ordering bootable! CD's of slackware, redhat, and freeBSD.

I can safely say that I was the first kid on my street to "rip mp3's". My friends were like.. "what, you copy the cd to the computer, and it plays from a file? Then you keep files on a ZIP disk, and it holds HOW MANY CD's?!" When WinAMP really did whip the llama's ass.

Then the Win98 script kiddy toys. WinNUKE anyone?? Ahhh memories, back when new hardware was fun because it was a huge noticable improvement! 33.6 to 56k upgrade. Win 98 upgrade on Win95 OSR2. USB Support!! PC Cards/PCMCIA for CF, Modems, x-jack, k-flex, v.90, etc. When ISDN was something to want. CD-R drives were parallel, and took like an hour to write a disc. And when NES/SNES ROM's were awesome because I had a game pad hooked to the 15-pin game port on the soundcard.
And an 8 port 10baseT hub was something to have.. because while it was expensive, it did the job. And PC Anywhere for your poor friend without a dialup account

In Dallas, we've got Fry's, Microcenter, the original CompUSA (I believe is still here), and a mom and pop place or 2.

Ommni Magazine, first to go on line, and first to die on line...
Pordigy, and the 28.8 modem... oh yeah!
Getting my Launch Magazine CD-ROM in the mail!!!!

Oh yeah back in the day in LA!!!