ottg Posted September 27, 2015 Report Share Posted September 27, 2015 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mara Posted September 28, 2015 Report Share Posted September 28, 2015 You know you are old when your first introduction to data input was on a system which was reel to reel and had an in house programmer writing and correcting the program daily as the need arose. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ottg Posted September 28, 2015 Author Report Share Posted September 28, 2015 Have no idea what you on about Did it really exist!!It is just fantastic that technology came a long way in such a relative short time Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mara Posted September 28, 2015 Report Share Posted September 28, 2015 Hehe Ottg, yes it did exist... I worked for Wynns Oil in Isando and that is how it was done. The computer was nearly the size of my study at present... just the programmer and myself in there with it.Next was the 2 x floppy disc system, program on one, data on the other, beware that you do not put the wrong disc in the wrong slot, or all your data and program is wiped!Then we moved to hard drives, first one we had in our business, around 1983 was 10mb... wow, a year later we bought another, which was 20mb...It is phenomenal what memory mobile phones have these days....Sometimes I think back and I am relieved that I was introduced to computers so early in their appearance and that I have been using them ever since, I can just imagine how difficult life must be for those older folk trying to get to grips with them today. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HadEnoughofJuju Posted September 29, 2015 Report Share Posted September 29, 2015 Who remembers punch cards. I know someone who can read them without the help of a machine. Pretty amazing talent if you ask me. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OubaasDik Posted September 29, 2015 Report Share Posted September 29, 2015 Who remembers punch cards. I know someone who can read them without the help of a machine. Pretty amazing talent if you ask me. ... and toootallly day-to-day USEful .... notI had a whole box of them that I used for taking notes and as bookmarks when reading - my wife cast them out, something to do with fishmoths ... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RichtB Posted September 29, 2015 Report Share Posted September 29, 2015 Programming micro computers in Hexadecimal! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mara Posted September 29, 2015 Report Share Posted September 29, 2015 I remember those punch cards, used them for travellers cheques in the bank. What about the tapes for the telex machines, wow, we are going back years now! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HadEnoughofJuju Posted September 29, 2015 Report Share Posted September 29, 2015 What about signal fires? Sure Mara and OBD used those too. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mara Posted September 29, 2015 Report Share Posted September 29, 2015 Nah, never managed to get the art of making fires by rubbing two sticks together! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Peterthe1 Posted September 29, 2015 Report Share Posted September 29, 2015 Things were advanced in my time then. Always used the running guy with a stick, with the message stuck on the end of the stick. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ottg Posted September 30, 2015 Author Report Share Posted September 30, 2015 But today they start the kids so young 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mara Posted September 30, 2015 Report Share Posted September 30, 2015 Ottg, that is priceless! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OubaasDik Posted October 1, 2015 Report Share Posted October 1, 2015 Nah, never managed to get the art of making fires by rubbing two sticks together!I taught boy scouts to make fires by rubbing their legs together - it also played cricket music, which was a happy side effect.Let's see -1975 - IBM 360 - used to IPL it (boot it to you whippersnappers) with paper tapes - the operator would walk in with wreaths of them round his neck and feed them into the paper tape reader sequentially.1975 - OBD learns FORTRAN and writes programs on cards (IBM -370)1976 - 1978 - OBD uses real terminals to write programs (in FORTRAN)1978 - OBD teaches himself BASIC and uses the Civil Engineering minicomputer1981- OBD gets a job programming in COBOL1983 - OBD becomes a System Programmer and never looks back2015 - OBD is still a System Programmer on the descendants of the IBM 360 and 370 of his youth.Yes, I am very old. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RedPanda Posted October 6, 2015 Report Share Posted October 6, 2015 But today they start the kids so youngalphabet.jpgWhat do you mean X-> Xp, what's that??? Is it related to DOS or something??? ...hahahaha!They'll have to keep updating that thing yearly the way things are going now. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OubaasDik Posted October 6, 2015 Report Share Posted October 6, 2015 What do you mean X-> Xp, what's that??? Is it related to DOS or something??? ...hahahaha!They'll have to keep updating that thing yearly the way things are going now.X-windows .... that's disappearing too, now. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RedPanda Posted October 6, 2015 Report Share Posted October 6, 2015 I read a while ago that Victoria(I think), has made a deal with Microsoft to continue support of Xp for something like 3 or 5 more years, at an astronomical cost, simply because so many of their organisations are still using it. I don't know why they don't just make Windows in two streams, one for individual users and some corporations, and then a stripped down version for more industrial applications, where they only need a stable platform that is still compatible with other users, without any of the nice visual effects and the constant sharing of all your user information.Seriously, the sharing is a major problem for companies like banks, they won't upgrade to Windows 10, because it keeps connecting to the internet and sends all your information to Microsoft. It's even supposed to do key logging. And for a company that doesn't even allow its employees usb ports on their computers that's simply not going to float.I wonder what they'll do about it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OubaasDik Posted October 9, 2015 Report Share Posted October 9, 2015 (edited) We should move this out of "Funnies", but one of the reasons big businesses don't upgrade their PCs every 5 mins is that they have to be SURE that an upgrade or a change will not break anything. So, considering the "apps" that so many Windows machines run - it takes a looong time.Also consider that so many companies/entities have written stupid IE 6.0 only applications, and upgrading Wondoos means that it doesn't support Internet Exploder 6 anymore and so on. All Microsoft's fault for taking internet standards and "enhancing" them.A number of government "entities" have contracted with MS for more XP support (internationally). The ATO has moved to Win7 within the last year.Maybe they should have gone to SLED or RHED - they wouldn't be seduced into thinking IE 6 applications would be a good idea.Ohyes - if you upgrade to WIn 10 - it is extremely difficult to prevent it "sharing" your details with MS. Business users are allowed to preview fixes and decide which are applied - the rest just get upgraded hither and yon and new "telemetry" ( a euphemism for spyware) gets installed as and when they feel like it.As someone once said - "If you sit down at a poker game and you can't see the sucker - it's you". Similarly, when so many people offer free email addresses and you can't see what they're selling - it's you. That goes for all the free email providers I have seen. Edited October 9, 2015 by OubaasDik 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RedPanda Posted October 11, 2015 Report Share Posted October 11, 2015 Yip, the quote I know on the subject is: If it's a free service, you are the product. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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