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Yeah, yeah; you're all old

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by jjfitz 1 view

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by deadly ernest

mentioning the abacus I used to use to check the working of the old IBM 360 system with 1403 chain printers (damn those things were fast) and the truck loads of peripherals they needed.

by av .

Damn! I had an AT&T 6300. A color monitor - which was top of the line back then. I don't remember the Lite Brite, but I was way ahead of everyone else at the time. I got rid of that computer somewhere along the way, but it probably still would have booted up today.

by hal 9000

It was then the Brand New VIC 20 with Expansion Pack.

Other than Space Invaders Cartridge failing everything that came with it new still worked the last time I turned it on.

Now I really wish I had the first computer I ever worked on but somehow [b]SWMBO[/b] would spit the dummy [b]Big Time[/b] if I was to attempt to bring home something that big. The VIC was positively a Play Toy in comparison to that offering from Big Blue, I still, l dread Hydraulic Operated HDD when they develop a leak. :D

Col

by jjfitz

(my attempt at a joke)
you can find it here
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lite-Brite
I had got one when I was 6 and pretended it was a computer.
Hey, it was a binary computer if you considered the pegs that lit up as 1 and 0 if they were off.
Or they could be decimal if you took into account the colors of the pegs.

Anyway, it was part of my Star Trek set - along with my shortwave radio, Sucrets box "communicator", squirt gun "phaser" and the lava lamp. :)

by charliespencer

My second was a 'Candle Brite', which replaced my 'Ember Brite'. Grampa had a 'Firefly Brite', but those were discontinued when Josh Whedon sued.

by oh smeg

I had a abacus to work out the Family's Budget.

I got so good on that that I could do the calculations faster than a IBM 360. :p

Actually i was pretty good with that till I discovered the potential of Electromagnets. I figured if a battery made a decent field just how much stronger I could make it with Mains Power. I then learned all about Inductance from that first experiment which sent my father through the roof. :^0

He took the 3 Pin Plug and lead off me and I wasn't allowed to play with it again. Unknown to him I had more which he never discovered though I did start using Insulation Tape to make it part way safe and I did go through a lot of Enameled Copper Wire. :D

Col

by deadly ernest

I must have been about ten when I broke the lounge in the middle. I had the television turned around and was looking at it's guts when I reached in to move something for a better look. My arm touched something and I flew across the room to slam into the lounge. A big old thing from the late 1950s, and I hit hard enough to break it in the middle. I was damn lucky not to break my back - Dad thought I must have hit head first to do so much damage. Next time I looked at the back of a TV I turned it off and unplugged it first.

The IBM 1403 printers were so damn good the company I worked for in the 1980s were still providing third party maintenance on the damn things for Qantas and a few other companies.

I did spend a few years in the late 1970s working a punch card machine and taking a trolley full of boxes of punch cards over to the CDC computer centre in North Sydney to run through their computer for us.

edit to add - I nearly forgot, it's been so long since I used an abacus, I'm not sure I could even hold it now, let alone hold it the right way up. Due to Oldtimers I'd probably want to hold it sideways and wonder why it don't work.

by hal 9000

They are what I can no longer remember how to use. Sure the simple Multiplication and Division are easy but the rest of the Functions on the one I used to use when I was doing Mech Engineering and then when I was at Kadatcha I couldn???t live without that Slide Rule.

I still have it around in a drawer with it???s Destruction Manual but today it???s about as useful as Teats on a Bull.

Col

by jjfitz

Old TV's had a very large and very powerful capacitor in them. Unplugging the TV did not cause the capacitor to drain. You needed to carefully ground that baby before working on it or it would shoot your --- across a room. - as you can attest to. You are not alone. :)

by deadly ernest

it was my father's before me, and I ain't seen it in over 15 years, mind you, I also got boxes of gear I packed up over twenty years ago and haven't opened since I packed them - moved house way too often while married and been to busy since.

by deadly ernest

they all still work if you're interested in buying one. The reception they get on the Am band is so much better than a modern radio. I must get out and clean up the old mid 1950s valve Kreisler TV I still got and see if it still gets them good old shows I sued to watch.

by deadly ernest

as they kicked me out for causing a disturbance the last two times I was there. They REALLY hate having a disturbance in the Zone.

by jjfitz

We had a 6 foot wall mounted slide rule in my high school chemistry class. I wonder what they did with that thing? I wish I had it. I would give it wall space at my house.
edit:
Would you believe that there is a slide rule museum?
http://sliderulemuseum.com/DemoSR.htm
The wall mounted slide rule was an instructional tool. The teacher used it to show the class how to use a slide rule.
I believe we had a Pickett model which came free with the purchase of 24 regular sized slide rules. :)

by hal 9000

If you took a Slide Rule into an Exam you where considered a cheat. No there was no Wall Mounted Slide Rule in any of my School Classrooms or at Uni when I was at school. Maybe they came latter or maybe they where too expensive for the Poor School that I attended.

At one of the Private Schools they charged like a Wounded Bull to go there and had very little in the way of Student Help.

At the Public School they where much better and had a lot more stuff that was useful but no Big Slide Rule. :(

I do think that I saw one when the son went to school in one of the classrooms but by then I was using a Pocket Calculator and had more or less stopped using the Slide Rule.

And DE the only reason I know where my Old British Thornton Engineers Slide Rule is, is because I stuffed it into a drawer in the Computer Room at home years ago and can not bear to take it out.

Must be because I'm tight and remember just how much I paid for that thing when i bought it originally. :D

Col

by av .

When I was 6, I had no idea what a computer was. I was making mud pies in the backyard and riding my bike.

AV

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