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

[radrock]

WOW. What an interesting thread. I'm not the smartest person on the block but my first computer was a Tandy with just a single 5-1/4" floppy. I can remember logging onto the local BBS. I only had that computer for a month as they had just come out with the dual 5-1/4 floppies. Oooohhh. Gotta have that upgrade. Of course it was a landslide from then on. It seems every year I was upgrading but don't know that I could remember them all. Never went to school for any of it but had a little fun messing around with Basic. I knew I could never be a programmer!!

 

[sodamo]

My resource management office had a CPT word processor - twin 8 inch floppies, one for the program, one for storage. Actually all the secretaries in the directorate had one. You could change the printer ball for different fonts. It also had a math package - insert another program disk and get 4 function math, very very few knew how to use it.

David Sent from my iPad using TractorByNet

 

[The kid]

WOW. What an interesting thread. I'm not the smartest person on the block but my first computer was a Tandy with just a single 5-1/4" floppy. I can remember logging onto the local BBS. I only had that computer for a month as they had just come out with the dual 5-1/4 floppies. Oooohhh. Gotta have that upgrade. Of course it was a landslide from then on. It seems every year I was upgrading but don't know that I could remember them all. Never went to school for any of it but had a little fun messing around with Basic. I knew I could never be a programmer!!

I remember when I got my first PC with a 286 processor.. I thought I was screaming. Alot of online games where written in Quick Basic and Pascal and later converted over to C+ so they would work with faster processors. I made a fake format bomb written in basic and my son started it up. He thought he was formating C: and yanked the cords out of the wallso hard I had to replace the wall plug. :laughing:

 

[radrock]

I remember when I got my first PC with a 286 processor.. I thought I was screaming. Alot of online games where written in Quick Basic and Pascal and later converted over to C+ so they would work with faster processors. I made a fake format bomb written in basic and my son started it up. He thought he was formating C: and yanked the cords out of the wallso hard I had to replace the wall plug. :laughing:

How funny. I didn't get very far in basic. Too much work. I can remember the first 286 too. I think I had three or four different Tandy,s. then I got to be a gateway fanatic. Yup technology really took its toll.

 

[sodamo]

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

 

[Gem99ultra]

You guys must be really old farts I jumped in on the sci-fi age with a TRS80 MODEL 2. That cutting technology used the 9" discs. And in no time at all (like 2 or 3 years) I was the proud owner of a screaming Hays 1200 baud that I used for my BBS - Carrz; car related topics.

It was only 4 or 5 years later that I snatched up several US Robotics 5600 baud modems for a mere 'thou' each and a super fast IBM AT ($2800) and a crisp NEC monitor ($900). Adding a 'cheap' DOT matrix printer for another 'thou' gave me a cutting edge system. Still, I couldn't afford to play around much on the TSO connections - not at $4.00/minute.

Uh - tell me again how prices have gone up

 

[radrock]

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

Oh gosh yes. I can remember paying Close to $4000 on a couple of those high priced computers.


And as far us old farts! Yup I am sure there are several of us here that can remember when the first color TV came out. I can remember watching lots of black and white tv shows.

 

[Notlaker]

I have been thinking of starting a computer museum. Anyone have an old Data General Nova 2 Processor or maybe a spare Diablo 5 MB drive handy?
I used to repair these type of products with a solder sucker, soldering iron, oscilloscope and bag full of chips. Used to design the peripheral boards as well.

 

[cqaigy2]

Try a Timex Sinclair 1000 - look it up! Apple ][ (not +, not E, nor C!) .. Hayes Smartmodems and US Robotics modems.. ahh, the good old days when you actually had to be smart to get online!

I think i sprained a finger or two on that Timex keyboard.:laughing:

 

[Soundguy]

mine never sprained.. but I think a few of them are flat on the end..

 

[Furu]

I'm thinking of how far computers have evolved in such a short period of time. I still have my old IMB XT with 10 megabytes of hard drive space and a wopping 256 kilobytes of ram. My son a I ran a single line SciFi themed Bulletin Board where users would call in and play games download files and such. This was pre-internet. The internet existed but few used it because it took some tech know how to do it. My oh my how things have changed. -kid

Yes but does your old IBM XT still run? I figure that it will be if not already worth something as a collector museum piece as yours is the first I have heard that someone still has one. Late 1984 and it was shipped all the way to England when I bought it.
Packrats-R-US

 

[The kid]

Yes but does your old IBM XT still run? I figure that it will be if not already worth something as a collector museum piece as yours is the first I have heard that someone still has one. Late 1984 and it was shipped all the way to England when I bought it.
Packrats-R-US

Good question. I honestly don't know. It's been many years since I've seen either one of them. I'll have to call my son and ask him if he know where they are stored.

 

[Redneck in training]

There used to be a independent computer supply store in Des Moines downtown. They had HD platters displayed on the wall. There was a platter of about 1m/3.3 ft diameter from IBM (i think) 20 kB drive. Then from there the platters went smaller and higher capacity.

 

[Soundguy]

i still have that old machine on cpm..

 

[brin]

Try a Timex Sinclair 1000 - look it up! Apple ][ (not +, not E, nor C!) .. Hayes Smartmodems and US Robotics modems.. ahh, the good old days when you actually had to be smart to get online!

I bought my son one of those Timex Sinclairs ...it hooked to the TV if it is the same one you are referring to...

 

[sodamo]

Oh gosh yes. I can remember paying Close to $4000 on a couple of those high priced computers.

And as far us old farts! Yup I am sure there are several of us here that can remember when the first color TV came out. I can remember watching lots of black and white tv shows.

LOL, yea I sure can remember, but it was years before my parents got one. We'd visit my grandmother and go next door to my aunt and uncles to watch Bonanza. As I recall, I was in kindergarten when we got our first B&W, Admiral, I believe.

David Sent from my iPad using TractorByNet

 

[DKCDKC]

Bought my first computer - an Apple II - about 1979 - monochrome screen, no HD, 48 K memory and the big floppy. There was little software. Applewriter was the word processor and it worked - but you have five diskettes and had to feed different ones in to get the function you wanted. Then, if you finished what you wanted, you used another floppy to save it. Got it for use by a disabled son, but found I had to learn to program it to get something he would use.

A little later I moved to a IBM PC, then a PC XT, PC AT, PC II and so one. for almost 20 years I moved up in computers ( partly paid for by work). Funny, but each computer was far more powerful than the last - and each cost almost precisely $2,000. Only in the last decade or so have there been cheaper computers available.

I remember CompuServe and AOL when they were proprietary networks before the Internet. It was all cutting edge, and fun. In some ways it was better because you had to work to get a little information. Today you are flooded with so much info that it is have to discern what is valuable, useful, true or simply trash... TBN excepted of course.

 

[Soundguy]

I bought my son one of those Timex Sinclairs ...it hooked to the TV if it is the same one you are referring to...

yep.. that'd be it!

 

[scott67]

I remember thinking 2400 was fast after using 300 on a C64.

 

[Soundguy]

I remember thinking 2400 was fast after using 300 on a C64.

after I had my 300 'dataset' I got an rs232-c pack fo rhte card slot and yeah.. 2400bps was awesome!