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The history of the water cooler

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by maxwell edison 1 view

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I admit, I'm a nostalgic kind of guy. I recall the days of going to TR through a 56k modem. I recall the REAL flame wars, not the silly skirmishes of today. I was actually the one who coined the name [i]"water cooler"[/i]. It was in response to someone who questioned why we were discussing non-IT issues. I'm glad the name stuck.

How far it has come; or how far it has fallen. It's a matter of perspective, I suppose. I also miss the golden days of baseball.

Oh well. Cooperstown, Ohio in one regard, Louisville, Kentucky on the other. Unfortunately, while Cooperstown has remained in place, Louisville has moved to Cleveland.

I wonder who might get it?

72 replies

by hal 9000

I find a Air Duster and a couple of hundred pound of Air Pressure works better than a dustpan.

Nothing to pickup. :p

Col

by hal 9000

That TR was once upon a Time a Good Thing?

Yea I know you and I and I completely agree. What we have now is a shadow of it's former self and a very poor shadow at that. ;)

For the other thing I would hazard a guess that you would have to be a Yank to understand the rest. :p

Col

by maxwell edison

Re: [i].....you would have to be a Yank to understand the rest.[/i]

Yep, they're [i]Yank[/i] things. And so far, no one has connected the dots.

by santeewelding

Along with soap and water, and I was able to clean out the speaking tube of my Plantronics headset. Doesn't work good -- doesn't work at all -- when you bring a spoonful of Haagen-Dazs Vanilla Bean to your mouth and submerge that delicate little, screened head into the ice cream.

by ansugisalas

as you get older everything will seem to have been better before, so just hang back and see your life envaluate before your eyes - in 20/20 hindsight no less :D

by jamesrl

I was on the internet very early, first time 1992. (Yes there are those here on earlier). Back then it was a setup from text only bulletin boards, but just a step). I watched the web go from grey pages with courier fonts to what we have today. It was interesting to watch the development, but I wouldn't want to go back to that primitve style.

I used to be heavily involved in usenet groups, now they are pretty much dead.

But who knows, maybe thirty years from now, you'll be saying that these were the glory days for you.

by av .

There are new glory days ahead and you can be part of it. The best of the old and new together.

Together, we can make a new tomorrow. Back in the olden days, I never imagined the internet would become so prominent in our lives. I never thought I would one day be working in the Cloud. There was no Cloud back then.

When I started out in my IT career in the '80s, it was the beginning of the PC era. Fast forward to 2011 and I am so amazed at how far technology has come.

The same applies to you because you're at the beginning of your IT career. Fast forward 25 years and can you imagine how far technology will advance during that time. I think it will be more amazing than you can even imagine right now. It was for me, in my time.

AV

by jck

That'd be me B-)

I was on the internet before there was a world wide web, and you had dialup connections into MilNet.

I do remember when my buddy (whose dad was the IT director at an EPA lab) got on Lynx and browsed text-only "pages" over an active network connection over a dialup link.

Of course, I remember BBSes too from 1982. 300 baud...zoomin fast!!! :^0

Just wait...one day, you'll be telling your kids "I remember when you had to have a keyboard and mouse!" lol :^0

by jamesrl

At one point Compuserve was a gateway to the Internet, but then there were less expensive options.

by ansugisalas

when the internet was optional, and couldn't tell you what to do or not to do. And that ain't no question.

by hal 9000

Before Computers where you didn't need a VDU and a Life Program just to get out of bed in the mourning.

Things change but not always for the better. I still like the way that people look at you as if you are insane because you can tell them how much change is required before the machine that they are using does. ;)

Col

by Wizard57M-TR

A 56 k modem! I thought I was flying when I got my 14.4...then the old 33.6,
yep, that was speed! The internet did seem a bit livlier, and we didn't have
to filter so much junk and spam. I still fire up my old Pentium 166, runs
DOS 6.22, Win3X and Win95, every now and again...I need to see if I can
still post to TR using Arachne.

by hal 9000

What new hardware?

God back in those days we used 286's and if we where very lucky someone had a 386 with 1 MEG of RAM.

A 166 Pentium is blazingly fast in comparison and way too new. I remember when a Pentium 90 cost more than most people made in a year and they where the fastest things possible.

Though I still remember the Floating Point Error that came with the First of the Pentiums where a program written on one of those and run on a 486 caused all sorts of problems. In one case a Engine Management system written on a 90 Pentium caused 3 Motors to self destruct. The guy running the Motors went looking for the mechanical failure when it was all Electronic. I'll not make any mention of just how much those Ilmore motors cost or what had to be done to rebuild them. :D

I on the other hand was lucky I got to run one to destruction just to see what would break and what needed improving. ;)

Col

by Wizard57M-TR

the P166 is just the oldest I keep "in service" at the moment...I still have
my old AMSTRAD 8088 dual 5 &1/4 in floppy system (workiing order too)
as well as an IBM PS2 Model 5500SX, 386 based, 16 mHz, had 1 meg RAM,
but it also had a 29 meg HD, with an internal 2400 baud modem...after
getting that one, I retired my 300 baud modem (also in the attic) and set
out browsing the web in text mode via dialup. Also used to dial into BBSes
and use Lynx if available with the PS2. Then I got my hands on a 386DX,
4 meg RAM, which ended up with 8 megs and a 40 meg HD. After a couple
of years I ran across a 486DX 4 Overdrive board and CPU, put that in a
spare case, added more RAM up to 24 meg, ran that until I was handed
down the P166. I probably had more "fun" on that 486DX4 than most of
the systems I have...still have the parts, maybe I should resurrect it...that
motherboard used both 30 and 72 pin SIMMs, had 8 x 1 meg 30 pins and
4 x 4 meg 72 pin SIMMs, DOS 6.22 and Win3.11 were happy on that one.
My earliest online ventures were on an old Intel "dumb terminal", B&W,
connected to a mainframe via 120 baud network interface on phone line...
Yep, things have changed...time was it took like 1 or 2 minutes to download
and view a PCX graphic image over that 300 baud...nowadays we grab
a 1 or 2 meg JPEG or PNG in like, 1 or 2 minutes! Hmmm...same amount
of time, maybe better image quality, but the basic information is the same...
ain't progress grand! <{;-)

by av .

My first exposure to TR was some kind of controversial thread between you, Oz and JD about outsourcing. You all were really going at it and I thought it was pretty heady stuff. It took me a little while, back in '02, before I put my toe in the water and posted something. When I finally did, after a probation period (LOL), I was accepted into the community. That was almost 10 years ago (I can't believe it).

I know nothing about baseball, but I have my own ideas about what your last sentence might mean.

I am nostalgic for TR times past too, but the future is ours to create. Maybe we can take the best from the past and pay it forward a bit. Its a ground floor opportunity to recreate the TR Water Cooler. We lost our mojo for awhile and a lot of people left because of all the changes, but there is no reason we can't begin anew.

The thing I remember most about you back then, Max, is how you had the most thoughtful, inspired, and well-informed posts. How did you do that, anyway? Everyone didn't like what you said, but everyone had an opinion about what you said. Like this thread:

https://www.techrepublic.com/forum/discussions/8-178840

The olden days.

I refuse to accept that its gone forever, I think TR has been in a transition period thats almost at an end. I'm so glad they didn't "deep six" this community during their changeover. All things considered, I like the fixes they put in place. I think we still need work on the mojo part. Its a work in progress.

AV

by maxwell edison

I stand by every word today. I wouldn't change a thing.

P.S. You're awesome, AV.

P.P.S. As much as Oz and I engaged in those flame wars, we actually have a pretty good understanding - AND each other's cell phone numbers. No other TR member has my cell phone number, and I doubt another has his. Go figure!

by jamesrl

And Jaqui's number, from my trips to Vancouver. Never connected with Jaqui, met Oz once.

Never made it to Colorado though

by av .

Forget about finding anything with the TR search engine. It doesn't work at all.

I miss Oz.. I wonder what happened to JD too.

AV

by jamesrl

I've driven through Cleveland, never stopped.

Heard a nice rant about the great acts that aren't in the Hall of Fame, versus some of those who are. One example, Donna Summer is in, Chicago is not.

by maxwell edison

While the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown has maintained a semblance of legitimacy in recognizing those baseball greats, the R&R HoF in Cleveland has become a joke.

by maxwell edison

Compuserve was my first on-line account. I had reason to visit other BBSs before Compuserve, but it was limited.

And later came TR.

by maxwell edison

..... listened to the Moody Blues via my 8-Track tape player in my '62 Chevrolet Impala SS while I was in High School in the late 60s. I last saw them perform live at Red Rocks just last summer. They always were, and still are, awesome.

At that concert last summer, Graeme Edge, the MB Drummer, was celebrating his 70th birthday, and he reminded us that he lived through the 60s TWICE - and then went on to an awesome performance.

From the best MB Red Rocks concert (a dozen, or more, years ago):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HuywcMYMKfQ

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9YHIRGYlLlU

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rJ6h84ZsuW4

40 years ago:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GJETHtCN-zk

by hal 9000

1 or 2 minutes to download a couple of hundred meg video file.

I've just run Crap Cleaner and cleared 560 MEG of Temp Internet Files which is something we could only dream of downloading back then. Now that's the Junk that we don't want or need. ;)

Col

by jck

That was the first thing my first 300 baud modem ever dialed. C-64 with a Commodore 1660 300 baud auto-dial/auto-answer (if you flipped a switch) modem running Higgyterm.

I still have the C-64 and 1660...would still work if I had software that would load. :^0

by maxwell edison

Back when the [i]dot-dot-dash-dot-dash[/i] was amazing technology. Okay, I'm not REALLY that old, but in the overall scheme of things, it wasn't that long ago.

by av .

How about a nice glass of Merlot and some good music?

I don't have a preference, you pick.

AV

by jamesrl

As a high schooler I attended Ontario Youth Music Camp (OYMC) and this song was played a great deal. Some reworded it to OYMC, others chose the LCBO, which is the "Liquor Control Board of Ontario:m where they sell wine and spirits...

by ansugisalas

Are they trying to steal US citizens? ... Why?
Or is it that the passport is for getting out of there with out the Booting?

by nicknielsen

It's the getting back in that actually causes problems. It's almost as difficult for US citizens to get back into their own country as it is for non-citizens to get in in the first place. My experience indicates that the only difference between the processes is we don't have the visa stamp.

by ansugisalas

"The US of A not good enough for ya, huh?"

Reminds me of the soviets... they also liked to victimize people with passports, and they also liked to strip people of all rights at certain crossover points. It's beginning to sound like Nietzsche was plain wrong : What doesn't kill you, makes you all flucked up.
Same thing when Israel was contemplating use of biological weapons to end the "arab problem" once and for all...

by boxfiddler

I stumbled across was one started by Maecuff. It had been going on before, seemingly long in the past as she thought we were overdue for one at the time. :)

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