Our next door neighbor was a programmer for some big company, but in his free time he was working on a database for pharmacies. Store and update info. Print labels. Easy shit today, but this was in 1975. After playing with "my" toy a little while, he gave me a job entering his program and punching the fan fold paper tape (I think he had a shitty Altair 8800, or something older, but I forget). Boring as hell, but I was getting a couple of bucks an hour to listen to music, flip those damn switches millions of times, watch those pretty lights flash, and make sure the paper tape didn't fall into a messy tangled pile. Not bad for a 13 year old. (Looking back, I realize that is when I started to really love hardware, but hate programming. This was confirmed when I took Cobol and Fortran courses in '80.) A little while later my father got a second hand super special tape recorder to connect to our 8080. Paper tape was soooooo 1960's. Sheesh.

Thanks for the pleasant derailment! Most people have no clue what amazing technology is literally in their hands, because they never were involved with the precursors of 30-40 years ago.

Fun fact (for old nerds like me): The original IMSAI 8080 used in "War Games" is up for sale!

It is currently appraised at over $25,000, potentially making it the most expensive "personal computer" ever! It is widely considered one of the top five "Movie Computers" of all time, and the only one which was a real commercial product!

https://www.imsai.net/movies/wargames.htm


Mods: feel free to move these posts to a new thread titled "Old Farts Talking About Nerdy Stuff - NO TROLLING SOCKS OR SNOWFLAKES ALLOWED!". Thanks you berry mutt.

Mods! Here: tech-zone/old-farts-talking-about-nerdy ... 20014.html

Thanks!

fax wrote: ↑Tue May 08, 2018 2:16 pm Every year lives are ruined by that shit. I hope you can reconsider and be open minded about less dangerous things. Meth causes permanent brain damage and psychosis and stuff, it's not good. Please stay away from crystals. It's one thing the old farts are right about.

Those old farts had to survive this long for reason!

No offense but if I was the CEO admin I'd be worried about this thread, it could be used against you by authorities.

what specifically?

frank lee bent wrote: ↑Thu May 24, 2018 9:00 am what specifically?

Discussion on acquiring controlled substances, I'm no expert, but it strikes me as something they could use against you.

maybe work on your reading comprehension.
no mods or admin are advocating anything of the kind.
quite the reverse in fact

What's lead the OP to pontificate? Clearly, he don't know nothin' i.e. he knows something he felt compelled to tell the newbie stoners... but why? I don't know nothin' either and I's a English teacher. I's here to learn Cambojuns to talk English good... and smoke medicinal marijuana (after all, drugs are bad).

Cruisemonkey wrote: ↑Thu May 24, 2018 10:45 am What's lead the OP to pontificate? Clearly, he don't know nothin' i.e. he knows something he felt compelled to tell the newbie stoners... but why? I don't know nothin' either and I's a English teacher. I's here to learn Cambojuns to talk English good... and smoke medicinal marijuana (after all, drugs are bad).