zuben el genub
Extreme Android User
The Strange Beauty of Historic Computers Brought Back From the Dead | Wired Enterprise | Wired.com
Must have been fun to work on.
Must have been fun to work on.
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Computer memory lane
- Thread starter zuben el genub
- Start date
Speed Daemon
Android Expert
I don't know about that particular one, but I wouldn't mind having one of those Cray designs that double as a circular couch, and used an early fluorocarbon blood substitute as its cooling agent. Retro-chic, blinkenlights and a little bit of creepy to thrill the kids! 
Sexy! :laugh:
Sexy! :laugh:
pbf98
Android Expert
I remember back in the '90s when working for a large bank, we had to change this old hard drive. I really hated having to do it!
And just think how easy it is to change hard drives now! haha
Davdi
Android Expert
First Mainframe I worked on (1972) Honeywell. 256K memory (Magnetic core) 50Mb Fixed head-per-track disk. About the size of a wahing machine. five tape drives and various card handling machines (readers, sorters, MFC (Multifunctional Card Machine - Plugboard programmable, almost a computer in its own right.
For those in the UK, if you get the chance, visit Bletchley Park for the Computer Museum
http://www.tnmoc.org/visit
For those in the UK, if you get the chance, visit Bletchley Park for the Computer Museum
http://www.tnmoc.org/visit
SiempreTuna
Android Expert
They had one of those Crays where I worked in the 80s .. don't remember it being Orange, though. I got one brief chance to play on it but had absolutely no idea what to do! I was working on DEC Vax at the time
I remember when those Cray supercomputers were a BIG, big deal--their price tag was in the millions, right?
As for computer memory lane...I just wish I still had my Commodore 64. Although he's denied it for many years, I believe my husband threw it out in 1989 when we were moving to a new house. It had been in the garage gathering dust, so I guess he thought it could go.
As for computer memory lane...I just wish I still had my Commodore 64. Although he's denied it for many years, I believe my husband threw it out in 1989 when we were moving to a new house. It had been in the garage gathering dust, so I guess he thought it could go.
SiempreTuna
Android Expert
Excellent!
Re partners throwing out kit: I had an original Mac (given by a client and never used) that my missus insisted on ditching during our last move. I'm sure it would have been worth something at some stage - Apple-ites have more money than sense.
Re partners throwing out kit: I had an original Mac (given by a client and never used) that my missus insisted on ditching during our last move. I'm sure it would have been worth something at some stage - Apple-ites have more money than sense.
I remember when those Cray supercomputers were a BIG, big deal--their price tag was in the millions, right?
As for computer memory lane...I just wish I still had my Commodore 64. Although he's denied it for many years, I believe my husband threw it out in 1989 when we were moving to a new house. It had been in the garage gathering dust, so I guess he thought it could go.
My parents still have one, boxed in the basement with MANY software titles.
ACK!!! I don't know whether to slug you or hug you. Slug because they have theirs and I don't have mine, or hug because maybe they'd like to sell it?
My daughter had one of the original iMacs, in Bondi Blue. I bought it for her for Christmas--but put its box inside a box for whatever my latest PC was at the time. She's an Apple person through and through, so while she was excited when she saw a computer, it wasn't until she actually opened the outside box that her eyes lit up and her chin hit the floor.
Mayhem
Android Expert
I remember back in the '90s when working for a large bank, we had to change this old hard drive. I really hated having to do it!
Be thankful it wasn't one of these:
nickdalzell
Extreme Android User
I had an iMac G3 with a CD-writer and Mac OS 9.1. i hated it. everytime the damn thing had an app crash it required a restart. even Windows will have apps crash but never require rebooting the machine, it just closed the offending app. back when i burned CDs of MP3s i swear every successful disc had five more that were preceeding it, rendered bad due to the Mac saying something cryptic such as 'Sorry, a System Error has Occurred: Address Error [RESTART]' or 'Sorry, the application 'CDwriterFREE' has quit because an error of type B occurred [RESTART]'.
there was never any rhyme or reason why the iMac decided to crash. it could be sitting doing nothing at the desktop and i'd go to the bathroom and come back to one of those 'system errors'. it would 'Sad Mac' randomly on the reboot too. nothing was really wrong with it, the errors were always random, never caused by a specific extension or app, never due to lack of RAM or disc space. it just did it for pure joy i guess. i tossed it after angrily taking a hammer to it and its CRT after it got so unstable it only worked less than 10% of the time.
Apple has gotten their stuff together lately and makes their systems ten times more stable than that piece of junk. but i wondered what they were thinking back then. do they honestly think it was beneficial to the user to hear the sound of a car crash during a Sad Mac error?
there was never any rhyme or reason why the iMac decided to crash. it could be sitting doing nothing at the desktop and i'd go to the bathroom and come back to one of those 'system errors'. it would 'Sad Mac' randomly on the reboot too. nothing was really wrong with it, the errors were always random, never caused by a specific extension or app, never due to lack of RAM or disc space. it just did it for pure joy i guess. i tossed it after angrily taking a hammer to it and its CRT after it got so unstable it only worked less than 10% of the time.
Apple has gotten their stuff together lately and makes their systems ten times more stable than that piece of junk. but i wondered what they were thinking back then. do they honestly think it was beneficial to the user to hear the sound of a car crash during a Sad Mac error?
saptech
Android Expert
I have an iMac G3 I bought a couple years ago for like $20. It didn't come with any OS, so I put Ubuntu on it. I used it for a few months before putting it in the basement and it's been sitting down there ever since.
I did hear people say OS 9 was a pretty crappy OS. I tried to find one on ebay but turns out the iMac I have wouldn't run the latest ver of OS 9.1 or something about it wouldn't.
I did hear people say OS 9 was a pretty crappy OS. I tried to find one on ebay but turns out the iMac I have wouldn't run the latest ver of OS 9.1 or something about it wouldn't.
SamuraiBigEd
Under paid Sasquatch!
I remember back in the '90s when working for a large bank, we had to change this old hard drive. I really hated having to do it!
I'd like to get my hands on one of these just for decoration!
ACK!!! I don't know whether to slug you or hug you. Slug because they have theirs and I don't have mine, or hug because maybe they'd like to sell it?
They've considered selling it, we have no clue exactly what it's worth, especially with all the programs they have for it. I think they have 2 drives for it, they never seemed to work right. I'd LOVE to snag it and hook it up to see if the dang thing would work, I MIGHT be able to find a way to hook it up to my LCD in my living room...
jefboyardee
Extreme Android User
I think it was 1991, I had to double the capacity of my hard drive so I could run Windows 3.0 and Q&A at the same time. When my PC went forty to eighty whole megabytes, I was the talk of the office.
h4x0rj3ff
Chemist
nickdalzell
Extreme Android User
i have seen modems like that on the movie Wargames, it was the one he used to contact the W.O.P.R.
the TI-99-4/A Home Computer i had as my first computer also had a 300 baud modem like that (required the phone receiver and manual dial) as an add-on accessory, but i never had it. i think it was only good for dialing in banks, businesses, or perhaps a BBS or two. it would never have been fast enough to do anything like telnet, Gopher or WHOIS.
i think the first PC i ever had with a modem was an IBM 5150 (Personal Computer XT, 256K RAM, 20MB full-height hard disk drive, DOS 3.3) and it had one of those huge U.S. Robotics 2400bps modems, with all those neat flashing lights and loudspeaker. i think the speed was even selectable from 300 all the way to a 'turbo' 2400 bps
The old modem is pictured in this ad pic for the TI-99-4/A Home Computer
My First PC:
U.S. Robotics 2400 Courier Modem
And how's this for a 'laptop?'
and in the realm of make-believe computers, i always wished i had one of these from the short-lived Nickelodeon series Today's Special:
the TI-99-4/A Home Computer i had as my first computer also had a 300 baud modem like that (required the phone receiver and manual dial) as an add-on accessory, but i never had it. i think it was only good for dialing in banks, businesses, or perhaps a BBS or two. it would never have been fast enough to do anything like telnet, Gopher or WHOIS.
i think the first PC i ever had with a modem was an IBM 5150 (Personal Computer XT, 256K RAM, 20MB full-height hard disk drive, DOS 3.3) and it had one of those huge U.S. Robotics 2400bps modems, with all those neat flashing lights and loudspeaker. i think the speed was even selectable from 300 all the way to a 'turbo' 2400 bps
The old modem is pictured in this ad pic for the TI-99-4/A Home Computer
My First PC:
U.S. Robotics 2400 Courier Modem
And how's this for a 'laptop?'
and in the realm of make-believe computers, i always wished i had one of these from the short-lived Nickelodeon series Today's Special:
Speed Daemon
Android Expert
Is that the type that people used to carry around in what looked like a regular-sized cake cover with a T-handle recessed into the top?I remember back in the '90s when working for a large bank, we had to change this old hard drive. I really hated having to do it!
I used to fly ORD <--> AMA (w/ stops at ICT or nearby) in the '60s and '70s, and saw many engineers carrying their "disk pies" and portable scopes on those flights. Wichita was the home of lots of small (and a few not so small) plane manufacturers back then, and the Pantex plant where we built all our nuclear bombs was near Amarillo. I'm guessing that in that pre-Internet age, that they flew their data to Chicago to be crunched, then flew it back...
Yep, you're too young. Damn you!ive never seen anything like that before! lol i must be too young
You can see an example of that kind of modem in one of my favorite, dated, computer-related movies, WarGames. By the way, near the beginning of the movie, the entrance to the NORAD tunnel is actually a tunnel at one of my favorite places, Griffith Park. Every time I drive through it I think about the movie.
Great bunch of pics, Nick.
I always loved US Robotics modems because they could be counted on to work without issue with *nix.
saptech
Android Expert
That was the way to go when it came to modems with *nix...I had a couple of external USR at one time. They sure made a difference when it came to those daggone Winmodems not working wit Linux.