Anyone ever use a 300/1200 baud modem using 5 1/4" floppies

[ultrarunner]

Still have my Apple // with two drives and IEEE card and my Apple LQP daisy wheel with original boxes and literature... plus Visicalc.

Have to say my Apple never crashed... next to it is my Windows 98 that I still use once and awhile.

In the shop is an old teletype with tape reader/puncher I use to program my Bridgeport tape mill...

My parents were never early adopters... except when Dad came home with a color TV... all the neighbors came over to view and were in awe... most programs were still black and white... Mighty Mouse as all color and the neighbors came back on Saturday morning to watch again.

Within a few months, I think everyone had a color set.

Dad would be 86 now... owned three TV's in his life... one black and white, that color Zenith and us kids bought him a new Zenith in 1978... it is still the one Mom uses daily... the quality goes in before the name goes on!

 

[ultrarunner]

Don't know about the rest of you guys, but sure would be nice to have the $$$ back I spent those first 25 years.
I read an article last year that if instead of buying a Mac desktop in 1990, I think it was, if you had spent the same dollars for Apple stock how much it would be worth now - staggering

David Sent from my iPad using TractorByNet

I bought apple stock in 1981... sold it and cleared $500... only stock I ever made money on.

 

[dmccarty]

Same year that I bought my first - an Osborne with Okidata dot matrix printer. $2,400. I later added DBII for $600. That was a lot of money back then.

A few years ago, our lab was being cleaned up and there was a cabinet that was pad locked. That cabinet had been there for years and nobody knew what was inside. I had a big set of bolt cutters in the truck so I was elected to cut the lock. :laughing::laughing::laughing:

This cabinet was about 6 feet tall and at least 3-4 feet wide. Inside it was stuffed with copies of Lotus 123 and some other software. The software was so old it had was for DOS and DONGLES for copy protection which meant those packages had been locked up for 10-20 years! :shocked: Someone spent a BUNCH of money, locked it away and forgot about it. There was tens of thousands of dollars in that cabinet. Most likely the person was layed off or fired many years ago...

Later,
Dan

 

[dmccarty]

Anyone else remember having to use a generic cassette tape recorder to save their programs written in basic? You would have to press the play and record buttons at the same time and then tell the computer to save or read the program. You couldn't hear it so you would just guess when to stop recording. You could use a microphone and record yourself saying what the program was so you could put more than one on a tape a few seconds before each program.

Yes, yes I do. Funny thing is that the tape always recorded. I don't remember loosing any of my programs but it sure was SLOW.

Later,
Dan

 

[crazyal]

A few years ago, our lab was being cleaned up and there was a cabinet that was pad locked. That cabinet had been there for years and nobody knew what was inside. I had a big set of bolt cutters in the truck so I was elected to cut the lock. :laughing::laughing::laughing:

This cabinet was about 6 feet tall and at least 3-4 feet wide. Inside it was stuffed with copies of Lotus 123 and some other software. The software was so old it had was for DOS and DONGLES for copy protection which meant those packages had been locked up for 10-20 years! :shocked: Someone spent a BUNCH of money, locked it away and forgot about it. There was tens of thousands of dollars in that cabinet. Most likely the person was layed off or fired many years ago...

Later,
Dan

I got news for you. I work on semiconductor processing equipment that still uses DOS, :laughing:. Chips in all of today's high end electronic equipment was made on tools running an operating system from almost 20 years ago.

 

[doxford jim]

Just found this thread LOL and it sure brings back somememories.
I went to university in 1972 and there we worked on a PDP mainframe - don't remember the model (8?). We used to combine lab work and the computer by writing programs in Basic using the blue tape. Once the tape was finished it was then fed into the PDP and our calculations were done for us (from the original lab experiments).
I never owned a computer until 1993 when I bought a locally made 386 (I think). I upgraded it so 3Meg of ram so I could go onto the interenet and boy was it slow. Not sure, but think I had a 14,400 modem. The windows program was pretty basic and the office program I had was Wordperfect - not sure of the version. Anyway, I have three or four computers since then and now spend lots of time on different sites for different reasons. I'm 68 so I guess I might just qualify as an "old fart" and remember when the first colour TV's came out.
Thx
Jim

 

[buckeyefarmer]

I still have a lot of sw on floppies, and some old computers with modems.

 

[SPIKER]

I got a new job 5 years ago that the place I left had a couple PLCs (Industrial Computers basically) one of them I tore out & upgraded in early 2008 used a cassette tape to program it. The tape player and tapes contained different programs which were played (Audio) out into the PLC and then a test function to see if it took. Test run again to make sure it worked (can't remember the brand now) but was actually rather reliable other than a couple output card failures. (Those probably failed due to they operated some larger gas solenoids and they never installed any LC circuits to protect the outputs that fired on/off about every 3 seconds. One other electrician and I pulled in all new Wiring, Conduit and the like & I gutted the control cabinet & installed a PLC5 3 rack system. I was looking forward to doing the program but they had outside company do it as they had me start 11 oven/drier all new burner, heating & gas control systems. Fun times...

Mark

 

[Tulkas]

Modem terminal with analog tv monitor connecting to a Xerox sigma-9.

 

[Cat_Driver]

I remember the first hard drive I bought and teh sales guy said Don't get a 1Gig hard drive You'll NEVER fill it up. first IBM PC cost 5K first dot matrix printer cost 3K. first laser printer 5K