memory lane

[richard]

Anybody here old enough (Heirloom?) to remember running CP-M? I used to
have a Kaypro with it, and ran WordStar and later Perfect Writer as word
processors. When I hit Save on a 30 page document, I could have a couple
of cups of coffee before the pages were all saved.

Richard,of ages long gone.

 

[Joan Archer]

<lol> Well I'm probably older than Heirloom but I haven't even heard of
them <g> but then the first what you could call proper computer to be
installed in this house was in 1998 running Windows 98 First Edition, with
a massive 2.1 GB hard drive and all of 32 MB RAM or was it 64 GB can't
quite remember <g> and that had Lotus SmartSuite installed.
Joan


richard wrote:
> Anybody here old enough (Heirloom?) to remember running CP-M? I used
> to have a Kaypro with it, and ran WordStar and later Perfect Writer
> as word processors. When I hit Save on a 30 page document, I could
> have a couple of cups of coffee before the pages were all saved.
>
> Richard,of ages long gone.

 

[Mike M]

richard <rmk@wonderland.net> wrote:

> Anybody here old enough (Heirloom?) to remember running CP-M? I used
> to have a Kaypro with it, and ran WordStar and later Perfect Writer
> as word processors. When I hit Save on a 30 page document, I could
> have a couple of cups of coffee before the pages were all saved.
>
> Richard,of ages long gone.

I remember such waits having started with computers forty years ago using
punched paper tape and punched cards. Not that today is much different
although the work has changed somewhat, for example saving a 200MB graphic
after editing can on occasion take some time depending on how it is being
saved.
--
Mike Maltby
mike.maltby@gmail.com

 

[philo]

"Mike M" <No_Spam@Corned_Beef.Only> wrote in message
news:OXweDuB6HHA.5984@TK2MSFTNGP04.phx.gbl...
> richard <rmk@wonderland.net> wrote:
>
> > Anybody here old enough (Heirloom?) to remember running CP-M? I used
> > to have a Kaypro with it, and ran WordStar and later Perfect Writer
> > as word processors. When I hit Save on a 30 page document, I could
> > have a couple of cups of coffee before the pages were all saved.
> >
> > Richard,of ages long gone.
>
> I remember such waits having started with computers forty years ago using
> punched paper tape and punched cards. Not that today is much different
> although the work has changed somewhat, for example saving a 200MB graphic
> after editing can on occasion take some time depending on how it is being
> saved.



LOL!

I took a Fortran course back in 1968 with punch cards. Was that a horrible
experience!
I swore I'd never touch a computer again...and as a matter of fact never
even owned a computer
until I got a TI-99 in 1982. When the game port died...I put it away and
stayed away from computers until 1999...
when I got a pentium-1 and got hooked for good.

I then had to see what I had missed and ended up collecting older
machines...including a 486, 386, 286, 8088...and even a working Kaypro!!!
I enjoyed fooling around with CP/M !!!

After using nothing but discarded junk for all my machines...I am now
finally doing some serious work...and was forced into getting some pretty
high
end discarded junk ( an AMD 2400 with 1.5 gigs of RAM) I think it could
handle a 200meg graphic OK...but the Publisher document I'm working
on is getting pretty close to 1 gig. I takes up to a minute to perform a
save!

 

[Rocky T Squirrel]

yea MikeM, I remember the ASC and ASCII on 5 punch paper tape..
) a real joy to work with.. (even had the little cheater 1 hole punch to
change a mistake)

I also remember the 2k memory limit, that was a lot of fun...

remember the internet when you had to route the messages yourself via the
number groups..?

RTS



"Mike M" <No_Spam@Corned_Beef.Only> wrote in message
news:OXweDuB6HHA.5984@TK2MSFTNGP04.phx.gbl...
> richard <rmk@wonderland.net> wrote:
>
> > Anybody here old enough (Heirloom?) to remember running CP-M? I used
> > to have a Kaypro with it, and ran WordStar and later Perfect Writer
> > as word processors. When I hit Save on a 30 page document, I could
> > have a couple of cups of coffee before the pages were all saved.
> >
> > Richard,of ages long gone.
>
> I remember such waits having started with computers forty years ago using
> punched paper tape and punched cards. Not that today is much different
> although the work has changed somewhat, for example saving a 200MB graphic
> after editing can on occasion take some time depending on how it is being
> saved.
> --
> Mike Maltby
> mike.maltby@gmail.com
>
>

 

[Mike M]

philo <philo@privacy.net> wrote:

> LOL!
>
> I took a Fortran course back in 1968 with punch cards. Was that a
> horrible experience!
> I swore I'd never touch a computer again...and as a matter of fact
> never even owned a computer
> until I got a TI-99 in 1982. When the game port died...I put it away
> and stayed away from computers until 1999...
> when I got a pentium-1 and got hooked for good.
>
> I then had to see what I had missed and ended up collecting older
> machines...including a 486, 386, 286, 8088...and even a working
> Kaypro!!! I enjoyed fooling around with CP/M !!!
>
> After using nothing but discarded junk for all my machines...I am now
> finally doing some serious work...and was forced into getting some
> pretty high
> end discarded junk ( an AMD 2400 with 1.5 gigs of RAM) I think it
> could handle a 200meg graphic OK...but the Publisher document I'm
> working
> on is getting pretty close to 1 gig. I takes up to a minute to
> perform a save!

In my case FORTRAN IV on an IBM 350/65 in 1967 (plus using a tape punch
for data capture to punched tape) although my first use of a computer was
some months earlier whilst still an undergrad where I fed x-ray
diffraction data I had obtained as part of a final year project into a
valve (tube) driven Ferranti Pegasus. That actual Pegasus was restored to
working order in the 1990s and now forms part of the computer collection
of the Science Museum in London (as does the drum from the 360/65).
--
Mike Maltby
mike.maltby@gmail.com

 

[philo]

"Mike M" <No_Spam@Corned_Beef.Only> wrote in message
news:%232cCM4C6HHA.2752@TK2MSFTNGP06.phx.gbl...
> philo <philo@privacy.net> wrote:
>
> > LOL!
> >
> > I took a Fortran course back in 1968 with punch cards. Was that a
> > horrible experience!
> > I swore I'd never touch a computer again...and as a matter of fact
> > never even owned a computer
> > until I got a TI-99 in 1982. When the game port died...I put it away
> > and stayed away from computers until 1999...
> > when I got a pentium-1 and got hooked for good.
> >
> > I then had to see what I had missed and ended up collecting older
> > machines...including a 486, 386, 286, 8088...and even a working
> > Kaypro!!! I enjoyed fooling around with CP/M !!!
> >
> > After using nothing but discarded junk for all my machines...I am now
> > finally doing some serious work...and was forced into getting some
> > pretty high
> > end discarded junk ( an AMD 2400 with 1.5 gigs of RAM) I think it
> > could handle a 200meg graphic OK...but the Publisher document I'm
> > working
> > on is getting pretty close to 1 gig. I takes up to a minute to
> > perform a save!
>
> In my case FORTRAN IV on an IBM 350/65 in 1967 (plus using a tape punch
> for data capture to punched tape) although my first use of a computer was
> some months earlier whilst still an undergrad where I fed x-ray
> diffraction data I had obtained as part of a final year project into a
> valve (tube) driven Ferranti Pegasus. That actual Pegasus was restored to
> working order in the 1990s and now forms part of the computer collection
> of the Science Museum in London (as does the drum from the 360/65).



Wow...the last time I was in London was around 1990...so I'll have to return
some day!

All I could think when I was punching those cards was," This is the year
1968...we are about to put a man on the moon...
and computers are still using punch cards...this is beyond belief." If I
recall, there was *one* actual terminal on campus but it was reserved only
for
select upper classmen. (To the youngsters here: Back then a terminal was a
teletype machine using a paper print out...not by any means a CRT !)

I think it took until 1978 to finally get rid of punch cards!

 

[Mike M]

Rocky T Squirrel <gafa_usa@(nospam)hotmail.com> wrote:

> yea MikeM, I remember the ASC and ASCII on 5 punch paper tape..
>> o) a real joy to work with.. (even had the little cheater 1 hole
>> punch to change a mistake)
>
> I also remember the 2k memory limit, that was a lot of fun...
>
> remember the internet when you had to route the messages yourself via
> the number groups..?

UCL where I was a student and then member of staff was the initial (1973)
European node for ARPAnet. For more details see Peter Kirstein's article
at http://www.cs.ucl.ac.uk/research/darpa/internet-history.html. Although
I got to use JANet occasionally it wasn't until the mid 80s that I started
to use what we now know as the internet.
--
Mike Maltby
mike.maltby@gmail.com

 

[Eric]

The internet wasn't developed (or wasn't in widespread use?) until the '90s.
In the mid to late 80s we had mini webs, or bulletin board systems, where we
had to use a modem to dial up our friends' computers for messaging, little
text based games, and some file downloading. They had dedicated phone lines
for the bulletin boards and you had to have a seperate phone line to call
them for any significant file transfers (unless you wanted call waiting to
kick you off), back when 14400 bps was really fast. The 2400 speed
connections are almost unimaginable today.

I believe the 8088 was about the first machine that could be considered a
PC. They ran about 8 MHz and had about 64K RAM. Those days were tedious,
when we got to 386 machines with 256K RAM and had to actually configure RAM
with the DOS MEM commands.

Today we can cringe when we think about living with the technology we had
just 15 years ago, and just imagine what could be in another 15 years.

"Mike M" <No_Spam@Corned_Beef.Only> wrote in message
news:ua0qXYD6HHA.4436@TK2MSFTNGP03.phx.gbl...
> Rocky T Squirrel <gafa_usa@(nospam)hotmail.com> wrote:
>
>> yea MikeM, I remember the ASC and ASCII on 5 punch paper tape..
>>> o) a real joy to work with.. (even had the little cheater 1 hole
>>> punch to change a mistake)
>>
>> I also remember the 2k memory limit, that was a lot of fun...
>>
>> remember the internet when you had to route the messages yourself via
>> the number groups..?
>
> UCL where I was a student and then member of staff was the initial (1973)
> European node for ARPAnet. For more details see Peter Kirstein's article
> at http://www.cs.ucl.ac.uk/research/darpa/internet-history.html. Although
> I got to use JANet occasionally it wasn't until the mid 80s that I started
> to use what we now know as the internet.
> --
> Mike Maltby
> mike.maltby@gmail.com
>
>

 

[Heirloom]

You're all a bunch of puppies........I still remember the stone tablets that
would only hold about 100 bits....+ or - depending on how small you could
chisel the characters.
Heirloom, old and still have my chisels
P.S. seriously, worked with a lot of oiled paper punch tape,
the punch cards were modern~!!!!!

"Rocky T Squirrel" <gafa_usa@(nospam)hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:aL6dnTZH4fwSZ0zbnZ2dnUVZ_saknZ2d@vci.net...
> yea MikeM, I remember the ASC and ASCII on 5 punch paper tape..
> ) a real joy to work with.. (even had the little cheater 1 hole punch
> to
> change a mistake)
>
> I also remember the 2k memory limit, that was a lot of fun...
>
> remember the internet when you had to route the messages yourself via the
> number groups..?
>
> RTS
>
>
>
> "Mike M" <No_Spam@Corned_Beef.Only> wrote in message
> news:OXweDuB6HHA.5984@TK2MSFTNGP04.phx.gbl...
>> richard <rmk@wonderland.net> wrote:
>>
>> > Anybody here old enough (Heirloom?) to remember running CP-M? I used
>> > to have a Kaypro with it, and ran WordStar and later Perfect Writer
>> > as word processors. When I hit Save on a 30 page document, I could
>> > have a couple of cups of coffee before the pages were all saved.
>> >
>> > Richard,of ages long gone.
>>
>> I remember such waits having started with computers forty years ago using
>> punched paper tape and punched cards. Not that today is much different
>> although the work has changed somewhat, for example saving a 200MB
>> graphic
>> after editing can on occasion take some time depending on how it is being
>> saved.
>> --
>> Mike Maltby
>> mike.maltby@gmail.com
>>
>>
>
>

 

[Godfrey Wilkes]

"richard" <rmk@wonderland.net> wrote in message
news:uA0ClCB6HHA.5424@TK2MSFTNGP02.phx.gbl...
> Anybody here old enough (Heirloom?) to remember running CP-M? I used to
> have a Kaypro with it, and ran WordStar and later Perfect Writer as word
> processors. When I hit Save on a 30 page document, I could have a couple
> of cups of coffee before the pages were all saved.
>
> Richard,of ages long gone.

Oh yes indeed, I'm old enough to remember CP/M very well. I had a Memotech
MTX/FDX 512 (anyone remember them?) with twin 5 1/4" floppies running CP/M.
Was a very nice piece of kit in its black anodised aluminium case, quite
fast, and an 80 column colour display too. Came supplied with SuperCalc and
NewWord. Also messed around with a Commodore 64 plus single 5 1/4" floppy
and a CP/M add-on. Was hopelessly slow for any serious work.

Godfrey

 

[Eric]

"Heirloom" <roland58XX@suddenlink.net> wrote in message
news:ep3I7SP6HHA.4712@TK2MSFTNGP04.phx.gbl...
> Heirloom, old and still have my chisels
> P.S. seriously, worked with a lot of oiled paper punch tape,
> the punch cards were modern~!!!!!
>
That was before PCs. My college professors used to love to tell stories of
when they were in college and had to "write" programs on punch cards, then
carry a stack of cards to a central machine to print out their program, and
if they dropped the cards it was such a pain to get them back in order.

Those dinosaur machines would seem quite ridiculous today. I once saw a
10MB hard drive the size of a washing machine.

It's like Back to the Future, where they go to the future and kids scoff at
an ancient video game that requires you to use your hands.
Fortunately we've steered away from the games that would encourage more
brain activity while discouraging physical activity, with games like the
Wii, and laws now in China attempting to cut back on video game addiction.
They said about 6% of kids were actually gaming for more than 40 hours per
week. Now they have software attempting to force them to take a break after
3 hours, and school age kids are required to have at least 3 hours of
physical activity per week... (a far cry from the daily games of kick the
can)