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

[dmccarty]

I started working for Honeywell in 1969 on their entry level mainframe, the H200. It had a maximum 32 kilo-bytes of memory and had a processor with 2 micro-second cycle time. (same as VIC-20?)
Physically, these systems occupied the space equivalent to a one-car garage, and needed air conditioning equipment that occupied that much more space.
...
Pete

I first programmed on a Honeywell mainframe owned by the school system. I did a field trip one day to see the thing. Huge with lots of blinking lights. We attached to it with an acoustic modem that was either 110 or 300 baud. We used a teletype which used up a lot of paper. To save programs that we could physically keep, it was done on paper tape. I know I have a couple of programs on paper tape that are in boxes as my parents house. One of the games was a Star Trek game. :laughing::laughing::laughing:

More than a few years ago, the lab guys found a box under the lab floor with stacks of 80 column cards. I took a handful since those things are museum pieces now. I also found a stack of 8in floppies and a LASER disk that was being tossed. I kept all of this stuff and show it the young "kids" out of school. :laughing::laughing::laughing: Many of them have never seen a real floppy disk. They have seen but not used a 3.5 inch disk. :shocked: Showing them the 80 column card and they finally understand some of the limitations on some older programming languages regarding text placement in a file.

Later,
Dan

 

[dmccarty]

Our "computer lab" in HS consisted of 2 Commodore Pet's with cassette tape drives. I wish I had taken up programming back then. Only the super-geeks did that. Now I'm a greasy tractor mechanic, lol. Sometime after I got out of HS my dad bought an Apple IIe I think it cost $2500. I was the only one that could do anything with it though it wasn't much.

Brian

Our school had two Pet 2001s. One had the chiclet keyboard with a 4KB of memory, yes that was not a typeo. The other had a full keyboard and 16KB of memory! :dance1: I had programs that would NOT run in 4KB. :shocked:

Programs were saved to cassette tape and I am sure I still have those tapes in a box with the programs stored on paper tape.

I spent the money I earned on a farm to buy an Apple II+ with 16KB? of RAM. I remember pushing the memory into the slots and bending the pins! :shocked: Got the pins straightened out but I was sure I had just broke the chips that were worth a lot of money that I earned splitting firewood and driving a tractor! The memory worked but I was sweating bullets for awhile. I used to run out of memory on that system as well. Eventually I fully populated that system to 64KB though the last bit of memory was on a board and it cost me $200-250! I needed the memory so I could run USD Pascal which cost another $250. :shocked:

Before I bought the Apple II+ I looked at the Atari 400/800, TRS 80s, and TI99s. Glad I bought the Apple II+ though I always thought the Atari 800 looked better. :laughing::laughing::laughing:

Ironically, the money I earned running a tractor, allowed me to buy a computer, which helped me earn a living in one profession and allowed me to buy a tractor later in life.

Later,
Dan

 

[Soundguy]

these pre internet days remind me of fidonet. I was a network corridinator for net 365 (NC365) for many years.

 

[The kid]

Back in my BBS days pre-DSL, there was ISDN protocol the phone companies where pushing. But like DSL it had a limit in distance to the switchgear. Our house was just outside the limits. The phone company tested and the signal was just too faint to work. So our BBS ran off of modem.
A good friend of mine founded the Nashville Network which was the most popular pay BBS sites in the area. He later went to startup and internet bussiness called ISDN Net. He sold internet to bussiness across Nashville. As the switchover from DOS to windows started to catch fire, the internet became easier to access. If it had not been for the developement of the Windows to interface with the internet we probably wouldn't be doing what we are today on the net. The need for speed quickly changed from BPS to MPS. Now the speed is going even faster for the home user. Cable companies around the globe and nation jocky for customers offering speeds only dreamed of 20 to 25 years ago.
There are a few BBS's still running todat thru the internet. A friend of mine and I developed and updated a online game called Gutterbowl which we sold quite a few rights to use. A far as I know he is still writing code for it. i later gave him full rights to it for his work supporting it over the years.

Did any of you ever play the online BBS games. If so, what was your favorite?

 

[dmccarty]

...
Did any of you ever play the online BBS games. If so, what was your favorite?

I never did play online games for some reason. They were out there, I knew about them but I did not play. I don't play any of the Internet games either. Go figure. This always surprised me. :confused3:

Later,
Dan

 

[Soundguy]

tradewars was a fun one...

 

[k0ua]

My first modems were the little motorola 110/300 buad units and first pc was an TI 99/4A. No floppy at first.. i later got the "P Box" with a 180K floppy and 32K of memory.. whoo, Hoo.. later traded it (with an obscene amount of money) for an IBM PC without hard drive to begin with, just 2 360k floppys and 64K of memory at first.. I put in an AST "sixpack" to support up to 640K of mem and I bought a 20 MEG...YES! 20 MEG hard drive.. it was used, but it served me well for many years.. those were the days. I finally built a 386 DX40 from pieces parts.. and never looked back..!

James K0UA

 

[Soundguy]

a mfm 20 went in my 32k pc.. and then.. a perstore card..

at some point i had a sperry pc with a whopping 720k memory and a herculese graphics card.. and the nice green monochrome screen.. that matched my amber one on the same desk..

 

[KTurner]

How many computers have you had?

I worked at a local mom and pop type computer store from '95-early '98 (mid-late 486s to PentiumIIs). I estimated that, including new builds and service, I personally worked on about 8,000 computers during that time frame. You end up with lots of parts leftover from upgrades that people don't want. And the store owner was adamant about those old parts never getting used for anything in the store. One local store had their reputation trashed (rightly so) over some used parts getting sold as new. So, us techs ended up taking a bunch of those leftover parts home. In other words, I've had lots and lots of different computers. I moved about 4 years ago and gave away probably 10 computer cases so I wouldn't have to move them. From where I'm sitting right now, I see eight computer cases, containing various levels of computers (just a case up to a full computer), that are not in use. There's probably at least half a dozen in the garage, including a KayproII and a Motorola 68020 based Tektronix workstation. And the three or four that we actively use. I wouldn't even know where to begin trying to count all of them I've ever had.

I tell you what... You run across some crazy stuff working at a computer store like that. For a not so crazy example... Probably at least once a month, we'd have a customer call back claiming that we broke their computer because it didn't work when they got it home. We'd have to explain to them that their computer has an on/off switch that was set to off. These were computers that the customer had already had for a long enough time that it needed upgrading.

Keith

 

[/pine]

since the basic topic of PC advancement...I'm surprised that no one has mentioned anything about HDD technology...although the capacity/bus speeds has greatly improved the "spinning platter" technology has not changed much since the 1950's....by this time I would have thought we would all be using solid state drives...