New Computer

[riptides]

That reminded me of the first day I worked at the Newspaper back in 1987. They took me into the computer room to show me around, then yelled at me for walking too hard!

WHAT?

You're walking too hard. You have to walk gently on the raised floor near the DEC drives or your footsteps will crash the drives.

And never pull the chair out from the DECWriter LA120 printer console too fast, or slam it back in, because you'll crash the hard drives.

And never let the door to the computer room slam, because you'll crash the hard drives.



Jeeze, it was like walking in a mine field.

I was a DECcie.
Introduced to them via NASA. Then went and did my time with them as they were absorbed by others during the heyday of IT consolidations.

 

[riptides]

I would think it would make a huge difference. The higher the resolution, the higher the pixel count. People who have 4K TVs talk about how much sharper the pictures are.
As you spread the picture out on a 12 ft screen, I have to think you get a much better picture. I don’t have a 4K to know, so hope someone that has a 4K projector can chime in. The projectors sure cost more.

Get real close to where you can see the pixels. Best to compare side by side and it will not be resolution that gets the average person from a distance between 1080 4k and 8k.

 

[buckeyefarmer]

This is current 1080p projector using PowerPoint. It’s much clearer in person than the photo shows.
And a further back view from camera at the back.

 

[cqaigy2]

I can read that all the way from here.

 

[buckeyefarmer]

I can read that all the way from here.

Guess we’ll keep what we got if you can read it on the west coast.

 

[masscity]

I bought my first computer in 1989, a Zenith laptop with msdos and I added a mouse.

First desktop in 1997, Dell 286, ram?, 40 mb hard drive. I don't know how many computers since then and I still don't know what I'm doing.

I like this one, Dell 8940, i9, 32 gb ram and a 27" flat screen. I don't game or anything, just surf the web and read etc.

My biggest problem is that I open and keep open many windows at one time (30-40), which used to slow down my other computers, but not this one.

 

[2manyrocks]

It wasn't mine, but the people I worked for owned a Compaq portable computer in the early 1980s that was built in a suitcase design. I don't remember the specs very well or even if it had a hard drive. They had bought Lotus 123 with it. Few understood how to actually use it or even wanted to so I took it home and learned how to do spreadsheets. Seems like the software was expensive for the day at $495. I've never liked the MS spreadsheet by comparison to this day.

 

[kenmbz]

When I worked doing game software I had a lot of computers:
Atari, Commodore , Apple, Unix, SWTPC.
One of my favorites was a Commodore SX-64. A c64 in a box with a tiny crt and it even had a disk drive. Plug it into a wall and all was good. We also had a shared Kaypro.
My friends had colecos and sinclairs. Amazing to think back to how many companies vying for the magic. When the IBM PC jr came out, it had the worst keyboard, but IBM became the standard anyway due to funding.
We used a DEC rainbow as the controller for our Vax, crappy compatibility with DOS, Double sided floppy by using two floppy drives, one upside down. Loved the MicorVax though, we had them networked in a cluster before most companies even knew that was possible.

 

[buckeyefarmer]

When I worked doing game software I had a lot of computers:
Atari, Commodore , Apple, Unix, SWTPC.
One of my favorites was a Commodore SX-64. A c64 in a box with a tiny crt and it even had a disk drive. Plug it into a wall and all was good. We also had a shared Kaypro.
My friends had colecos and sinclairs. Amazing to think back to how many companies vying for the magic. When the IBM PC jr came out, it had the worst keyboard, but IBM became the standard anyway due to funding.
We used a DEC rainbow as the controller for our Vax, crappy compatibility with DOS, Double sided floppy by using two floppy drives, one upside down. Loved the MicorVax though, we had them networked in a cluster before most companies even knew that was possible.

I’d Forgotten about kaypro.
I still have my Gateway computer.

 

[scootr]

1995 I pulled up to a stop light in a small town. I was on the phone with the boss. The kid in the car next to me was jumping up and down hitting his mom pointing at me and yelling 'He's on the phone. He's got a phone" lol
Those were the first mobile phones. They had a household type receiver and a coiled household type cord that connected to a small backpack of hardware. We called them bag phones. 5 yrs later everybody had a flip phone.

 

[MossRoad]

My first computer was a VIC-20 around 1980. I still have it in the original box. I used the heck out of that thing. Then I got on my dad's Apple IIe and kinda forgot about the VIC except for some games.

 

[MossRoad]

1995 I pulled up to a stop light in a small town. I was on the phone with the boss. The kid in the car next to me was jumping up and down hitting his mom pointing at me and yelling 'He's on the phone. He's got a phone" lol
Those were the first mobile phones. They had a household type receiver and a coiled household type cord that connected to a small backpack of hardware. We called them bag phones. 5 yrs later everybody had a flip phone.

Around 1976-7 I bought a Teaberry Tele "T" 23 channel CB radio like this. Had it on a slide-out mount that I could swap it between my parents' Nova, VW van, or my bedroom. It would get you some looks like that. I still have it.

 

[azbinder]

Around 1976-7 I bought a Teaberry Tele "T" 23 channel CB radio like this. Had it on a slide-out mount that I could swap it between my parents' Nova, VW van, or my bedroom. It would get you some looks like that. I still have it.

View attachment 780139

My folks bought a used 1960 Ford station wagon in 1962 that had a phone mounted on the center of the dash. My dad took it out. Then in 1968 the manager at the farm equipment store had a Motorola radio-phone in his '66 Chevy Impala, mounted on the transmission hump.

 

[buckeyefarmer]

1995 I pulled up to a stop light in a small town. I was on the phone with the boss. The kid in the car next to me was jumping up and down hitting his mom pointing at me and yelling 'He's on the phone. He's got a phone" lol
Those were the first mobile phones. They had a household type receiver and a coiled household type cord that connected to a small backpack of hardware. We called them bag phones. 5 yrs later everybody had a flip phone.

Never seen one before.

 

[deserteagle71]

1995 I pulled up to a stop light in a small town. I was on the phone with the boss. The kid in the car next to me was jumping up and down hitting his mom pointing at me and yelling 'He's on the phone. He's got a phone" lol
Those were the first mobile phones. They had a household type receiver and a coiled household type cord that connected to a small backpack of hardware. We called them bag phones. 5 yrs later everybody had a flip phone.

I had one of those! Big Motorola, and that thing put out over 3 watts, compared to the 5/8 of a watt the new digital phones put out. Using the magnetic mount antenna that came with it, mounted on the roof of the car, that thing could hit a cell tower many miles away. Hated it when everything went digital and I couldn't use it anymore. Much better range than any digital phone; living out in the middle of nowhere range was important to me.

 

[buckeyefarmer]

Optoma UHD60. At least this is the one I've looked at that seems the best.

Think I’m going with optima UHZ50. Laser instead of bulb.

 

[Jaygyver]

Just a few weeks ago i was cleaning out my shop and found an old box. My two bag phones and other misc stuff. One had the actual looking transformer brick as part of it and the other had a battery about 4" wide and 6 inches long.
I lived out in the boonies so lousy signal but if I got on our roof I could make a free long distance call.

 

[buckeyefarmer]

I found my receipt for my bag phone.

 

[WinterDeere]

It wasn't mine, but the people I worked for owned a Compaq portable computer in the early 1980s that was built in a suitcase design. I don't remember the specs very well or even if it had a hard drive. They had bought Lotus 123 with it. Few understood how to actually use it or even wanted to so I took it home and learned how to do spreadsheets. Seems like the software was expensive for the day at $495. I've never liked the MS spreadsheet by comparison to this day.

I repaired one of those, by then an antique, in the early 1990's. If it's the model I recall, it had a 6" or 8" screen on the left, and a 5.25" floppy on the right, with room for an additional 3.5" floppy or hard disk. The optional hard discs at the time were 20 or 40 MB, and I think they could take up to 4 MB RAM. DOS only, I don't think they ever ran any version of Windows, the screen was monochrome only. The keyboard latched over the face of the suitcase to form a screen and disk drive cover.

1995 I pulled up to a stop light in a small town. I was on the phone with the boss. The kid in the car next to me was jumping up and down hitting his mom pointing at me and yelling 'He's on the phone. He's got a phone" lol
Those were the first mobile phones. They had a household type receiver and a coiled household type cord that connected to a small backpack of hardware. We called them bag phones. 5 yrs later everybody had a flip phone.

I think you must be misremembering the year, there. Bag phones came out in the 1980's, and were already falling out of favor by 1990, for all but people requiring connection to the older AMPS networks. The Motorola MicroTAC's came out in 1989, and by 1990 most folks buying a new cellular phone were putting it into their pocket, not carrying it in a bag. I think I got my first MicroTAC (DPC550 CellStar) around 1992/93.

But if you really want to go back, we had a car phone from about 1978/79 onward. It had one box the size of a VCR, typically mounted on the trunk shelf, a second box you would mount under the passenger seat, and then a handset that would mount on a swivel cradle on the dash. The handset had a simple keypad that looked a little like a Colecovision game controller.

 

[MossRoad]

I found my receipt for my bag phone.

How much was it back then?

I had to carry one for work. I had to guard it with my life.