'Ye Old Computing Machines

Jesus Wept · 24-05-2011 10:57PM

I went to School A.

Capt'n Midnight · 25-05-2011 02:03AM

AnonoBoy wrote: »

Cassette tape?

You were lucky to have it.

We had to input data using punch cards and we had no monitor only print out from dot matrix printer to let us know we were standing in a clearing, to the north was a river, to the south was a road.

Pfft , cards ?
Back in t'day we'd have to use the toggle switches on PDP11 to enter boot instructions.

OutlawPete · 25-05-2011 03:29AM

Had a Commodore 64 also and there was this one game that we were all addicted to, were you had to mow lawns, hundreds of them. We used to play it for days on end, never getting bored. Can't remember what the feck it was called though.

Some other favs were: Ghosts n Goblins , Lode Runner, Rambo First Blood, Paperboy, 1942, Green Beret etc etc

This guy made a laptop from his Commodore 64:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0AwfyBzeidk

roast · 25-05-2011 03:35AM

I still have a perfectly working Commodore 64, an Amstrad CPC464 and an Amstrad CPC6128..... christ.... those things were released before I was even born!

OMG Its EoinD · 25-05-2011 03:38AM

Dean0088 wrote: »

Anyone ever have nostalgia for the computers of days gone by?

It seems like yesterday I was listening to my friends dad's old Windows 95 PC click click click as it booted up so we could look at porn for the first time. (Went well - printed off hefty amounts of it to sell on the playground market at school ).

Also, floppy disks. Everytime you go to save a Word document or whatever you have to click on a floppy disk yet I doubt younger people (keep in mind I'm only 19) would have a clue what it is!

And VHS tapes... I remember the excitement of pushing one into the player and the disappointment when you realised you had to rewind it ALL the way back!!

Sometimes I'm watching a movie from the 90s or whenever and I go 'Oh yeah! Remember that!!"

Anyone else ever miss old technology.

No I enjoy porn and being productive too much.

The Scientician · 25-05-2011 03:46AM

I remember in the early '90s reading about retro-computers from the early '80s. At that point in my life those old computers seemed a lifetime before (which they were to a 10 year old

). It amazes me that essentially twice that time has elapsed without there being all that much of a change in computing. The same brands (well except from Gateway) peddle the same platforms, albeit incrementally improved. It seems a far cry from the plethora of platforms that were available when micro-computing really took off. Of course even in 1993, the average PC was so much faster and more useful than any of the early '80s machine. However, I think in progress we lost something.

ballsymchugh · 25-05-2011 04:17AM

feckin hell, we used to gave to tune out channel 4 so we could use the commodore 16. then wait for ages for the games to load.
now i complain when the friggin page won't reload straight away. even with channel 4 minimised in the corner.

OPENROAD · 25-05-2011 04:24AM

atavan-halen wrote: »

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gsNaR6FRuO0

choon :cool:

mgmt · 25-05-2011 04:54AM

Microsoft Windows is a wonderful invention. Remember DOS, you had to type in every command.

I played this game in the very early 90s on my PC.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=91CDXfNmbkU

Buceph · 25-05-2011 05:07AM

Huge 400 page manuals as a normal thing with games. Partly to be able to work the game, but mostly as a security device. "Plase enter the fourth word of the fifth paragraph from page 126 to continue."

And even more recent than that, computer games coming in big boxes, and not DVD cases. Now it won't be long before buying physical copies of games is history.

JustAddWater · 25-05-2011 05:21AM

Nokia 5110 and snake

Legend!

http://i641.photobucket.com/albums/uu137/sunkast/phones/nokia5110.gif

Feelgood · 25-05-2011 05:38AM

This

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cLtt3j4m-hQ

and This

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FCNMcUzQ3Ws

So many hours gonnnneeeeeeeeeeee

25-05-2011 07:07AM

Place I worked in had one of these until 2005!
http://archive.computerhistory.org/resources/text/Ferranti/Ferranti.Argus.1961.102646234.pdf

pennypocket · 25-05-2011 07:36AM

Interesting experiment...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vPnehDhGa14

syklops · 25-05-2011 07:44AM

The Scientician wrote: »

I remember in the early '90s reading about retro-computers from the early '80s. At that point in my life those old computers seemed a lifetime before (which they were to a 10 year old ). It amazes me that essentially twice that time has elapsed without there being all that much of a change in computing. The same brands (well except from Gateway) peddle the same platforms, albeit incrementally improved. It seems a far cry from the plethora of platforms that were available when micro-computing really took off. Of course even in 1993, the average PC was so much faster and more useful than any of the early '80s machine. However, I think in progress we lost something.

Time to switch to Linux.

Microsoft Windows is a wonderful invention. Remember DOS, you had to type in every command.

Do you mean the Graphical User Interface is a wonderful invention? If so, then you should be praising Xerox not Microsoft for their genius of the GUI.

bnt · 25-05-2011 08:20AM

I found a Cambridge Z88 portable for not much money around 1992, when I was living in London. It was frankly amazing for its time, about as thick as a fat magazine but lighter. It chewed AA batteries, so I rigged up a holder for eight D-cells and a power plug, which more than doubled the weight but kept me working for far longer. The screen was a pain to see, however, and I have no nostalgia for the old days ... :rolleyes:

pickarooney · 25-05-2011 09:24AM

I remember my first experience 'programming' in BASIC on the Atari 65 XE (it was one higher than the Commodore 64). There was one program you typed in to display the American flag on screen. Cool, I thought, as I embarked on my first foray into hacking. Two hours later, after carefully amending each REM statement to tell it to use vertical stripes, three of them, green white and gold, no stars... it runs and displays the American flag.

Ray Palmer · 25-05-2011 09:30AM

latenia wrote: »

25 years on I've yet to hear better game music than Robocop on the cpc464

That brings back memories. I had the CPC6128 great machine

Wossack · 25-05-2011 09:46AM

spending hours programming **** magazine games (mostly from crash, and your sinclair iirc) on my zx speccy - and half the time the dodgy power cable to gets knocked and it all gets wiped (no storage on it).

I attribute much of my present day patience (and 2-3 destroyed zx spectrums), to that youthful endeavour

--Kaiser-- · 25-05-2011 09:59AM

Any C-64 heads remember the Ocean Loader screen? Savage music for an 8 bit computer

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P2qT7vGqg7c

Some other C 64 tunes

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CT2GEVqsomQ

Faolchu · 25-05-2011 10:01AM

Feelgood wrote: »

and This

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FCNMcUzQ3Ws

that game rocked i loved it, but throwing them stars was a pain in the ass if you where just a fraction off. I recall he made nunchuks out if the chains used to flush a toilet Mcgyver or what

Mr Benevolent · 25-05-2011 10:08AM

Fiendish Freddy's Big Top O'Fun.

That is all.

hardCopy · 25-05-2011 10:12AM

strokemyclover wrote: »

I remember programming games on the Atari 800XL - you'd spend days typing in hundreds of lines of code from a book which meant nothing to an 8 year old only to find the game was a piss poor line representing a snake who'd chase dots on the screen and grow larger each time it ate them .....For that time and effort at that age and time I thought I was creating a new TRON world FFS! :mad:

Disappointing computing at it's best!

I have a similar memory of trying to code a game for my C64. I spent hours typing only to find to errors in my code.

I went and played football instead of trying to fix it.

jester77 · 25-05-2011 10:14AM

The first time I ever sat in front of a PC was at a course. Knew absolutely nothing about them and internet was something very few had heard of at the time. We had a list of instructions on what first to do, a sort of basic tutorial e.g. booting up into DOS, how to stick in floppy disk, format it and navigate it, how to launch windows 3 from DOS, etc

We would do some work and save it to the floppy and I was able to navigate to where I had it saved and see it. I would take out the disk and go home all proud. On returning the next week, I would take out my list and follow the instructions again, stick in disk, format and navigate only to see that my work from the last week was no longer there. Coudn't figure it out, took me a few weeks to figure out what the format command meant

phill106 · 25-05-2011 10:33AM

I have one of these next to me.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twentieth_Anniversary_Macintosh

Still works

Sinfonia · 25-05-2011 10:46AM

Eric Cartman wrote: »

Zip Drives - how 100mb on a disk was unimaginable

Jesus yeah, and weren't they really expensive too?

I hate buying stuff now, I feel like if I buy a 1TB external HD, the'll probably bring one out next year the size and weight of a toenail clipping with a gazillion TB for a fiver

syklops · 25-05-2011 10:52AM

Sinfonia wrote: »

Jesus yeah, and weren't they really expensive too?

I hate buying stuff now, I feel like if I buy a 1TB external HD, the'll probably bring one out next year the size and weight of a toenail clipping with a gazillion TB for a fiver

I, too, am becoming suspicious of buy ing cutting edge technology. When I think of the small fortune I spent on Mini Disc equipment, which was obsoleted by the mp3 player in a very short period of time.

stimpson · 25-05-2011 11:21AM

phill106 wrote: »

I have one of these next to me.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twentieth_Anniversary_Macintosh

Still works

Nice!

They were silly money weren't they? I remember a friend who works for Apple offering me one for $500 about a year or two after they launched. I was tempted, but found other ways to spend my cash.

Sinfonia · 25-05-2011 11:27AM

syklops wrote: »

I, too, am becoming suspicious of buy ing cutting edge technology. When I think of the small fortune I spent on Mini Disc equipment, which was obsoleted by the mp3 player in a very short period of time.

Ha! I'm the same, although I was so stupid really, I bought a MiniDisc player and showed it to someone and they asked "Why didn't you just get an iPod?"
iPods weren't even that new, I'd just never heard of them for some reason..
Had an old 64mb Mp3 player before then too, so it was realistically a step back.
D'oh!

Wibbs · 25-05-2011 11:33AM

phill106 wrote: »

I have one of these next to me.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twentieth_Anniversary_Macintosh

Still works

I'm typing this on one of these http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1045/856745672_f19ff8032c_o.jpg I use it a fair bit for interwebbing. Built in wireless, USB and firewire, will run 1 Gb of RAM and up to a 120Gb HD and you can shove a DVD writer into the drivebay and it'll run it. Will go for 8+ hours on two batteries and doesn't fry your thighs while it's doing it. It's from 1999. Apple to be fair were innovators in the portable arena.

'Ye Old Computing Machines

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