memories for thos of us older than dirt

[MEM]

Some of you guys must have taken computer science in the 70s when the 'mainframe' was as big as a room and you had to use punched cards - in the absolutely correct order - to run the most simple of commands. And you set the pile of cards somewhere and then knocked them onto the floor !? :blink:

 

[Patriot]

Some of you guys must have taken computer science in the 70s when the 'mainframe' was as big as a room and you had to use punched cards - in the absolutely correct order - to run the most simple of commands. And you set the pile of cards somewhere and then knocked them onto the floor !? :blink:

fortran fartsrans

 

[ShinyPartsUp]

Some of you guys must have taken computer science in the 70s when the 'mainframe' was as big as a room and you had to use punched cards - in the absolutely correct order - to run the most simple of commands. And you set the pile of cards somewhere and then knocked them onto the floor !? :blink:

Hate to tell ya. My first career was a mainframe operator. IBM 370/145. Yup, punchcards off 029's, Tape drives the size of refrigerators, REMOVEABLE Hard disk drives, and printers the size of a freezer with punch-tape controlled printing. The console was a typewriter-like stand-alone device and the start-up sequence was about 80 different commands, including dials and switches thrown in sequence.....

Our softball team was called the megabytes, because it was a magical number -- we wondered who the hell would ever need a megabyte of memory...

 

[High Desert Rat]

Ignition switches in the dash, now that is modern... I remember pushing the switch with my foot right next to the gas pedal. This was great if one stalled on a hill. Pull the hand brake, pull the choke out part way, step on the starter with tranny in neutral, put your toes on the brake and heel on the gas, left foot working the clutch while putting the tranny in "compound low", release the hand brake, heel the gas, slowly release the clutch, then you're good to go. Don't forget dim the headlights with your left foot.

 

[NightShine]

Even bread was deliverd to the home -- the Omar Bread Man.

Yep. When I was a kid, we had the bread man, the milk man, the fish man, and the egg lady. The bread man and the egg lady came to the front door; the milk man and the fish man to the back.

 

[ionbeam]

Guess I'm old, I can remember all that stuff. What I can't remember is:

I had a doctors appointment today

Why I opened the pantry door

Why I walked into this room

My brother's birthday

Your name

My wife asked me to stop at the store and pickup _______

We are supposed to be going to our friends house next Saturday

What I CAN remember is:

I haven't ridden my FJR in 6 weeks

It will probably be 14 weeks or more before I can ride again

My rear shock needs to go back to Pensky for the 3rd time in 14 months, damn damping keeps going away

I need a set of tires

I need a full set of bulbs for my dash gauges

Our rear Russell seat needs to go back for a tweak

 

[wfooshee]

Some of you guys must have taken computer science in the 70s when the 'mainframe' was as big as a room and you had to use punched cards - in the absolutely correct order - to run the most simple of commands. And you set the pile of cards somewhere and then knocked them onto the floor !? :blink:

Before you got them in the right order, you had to have them punched correctly, typing at the keypunch machine.

Typo = throw away card, try again.

 

[Geezer]

Some of you guys must have taken computer science in the 70s when the 'mainframe' was as big as a room and you had to use punched cards - in the absolutely correct order - to run the most simple of commands. And you set the pile of cards somewhere and then knocked them onto the floor !? :blink:

Not only do I remember, I still have a stack of punch cards that I use for grocery lists and such. Back then you had to reserve time on the mainframe, no sharing, and you were lucky to get in one compile a day. I've heard horror stories of people dropping a stack of cards (a program) on the floor.

 

[Dr. Rich]

What really makes me feel old now days is to go to an antique shop and see lots of the stuff that was in the house when you were growing up as a child.... Remember cars with stick shifts on the steering column?

Before we moved out of the Central California Coast, we had lived in a home in the country for 28 years. My son had a friend who had come over for dinner and the friend wanted to call home.... He didn't know how to use the phone... He had never used a rotary dial phone!

Guess it is all a matter of perspective... I have difficulty texting with these old tired hands

 

[beemerdons]

OrDrive-ins? Anyone ever watch the movies?

:lol: Reminded me of the last time I was at a drive-in. There was lemon gin and a yellow Toyota Celica involved. It was half-past midnight when some a**hat started blowing his horn so we poked our heads up to take a look. Turns out my foot was caught in the steering wheel ......

MEM, your post is worthless without pictures. Ah crud, I'm still at the library and I wouldn't be able to look at them anyway!!!

 

[Old Michael]

.... Remember cars with stick shifts on the steering column?

I'd have guessed that cars from your era were being pulled by Mr. Eds.

 

[beemerdons]

.... Remember cars with stick shifts on the steering column?

I'd have guessed that cars from your era were being pulled by Mr. Eds.

I think that the Ford Model A first rolled off of the assembly line when Niehart was a sophomore in high school!

 

[FJRay]

.... Remember cars with stick shifts on the steering column?

I'd have guessed that cars from your era were being pulled by Mr. Eds.

I think that the Ford Model A first rolled off of the assembly line when Niehart was a sophomore in high school!

That would put you in the 8th grade. Be carefull Don.

 

[JimNtexas]

Geek stuff:

I recall fixing my parents black and white TVs by taking the tubes to the drug store and testing them on the tube tester.

Talk radio was BBC on short wave.

I remember Dad taking me outside one night to see the 'Echo 1' satellite pass overhead. That was shortly after Spudnik.

In my senior year of college I paid $99 for a TI four function calculator. I couldn't afford the $400 an HP35 cost. I used a slide rule or CRC tables before that.

Not so geek stuff:

If you stepped out of line in my Texas high school they didn't call the cops, they didn't call a shrink, they didn't call your parents, nothing was 'documented'. Instead a coach would grab you, bend you over, give your three or four 'licks' with a large wooden paddle, shake hands with you, and the incident would then be forgotten. By the coach, but not by you.

All adults and most teens smoked, everywhere. High schools had smoking areas for students.

James Bond had a digital watch with red LEDs that he had to press a button to light them up.

There was no MSF course. To get your MC endorsement you just borrowed a friends 50cc bike, went to the DPS office, and a scary looking Trooper followed you around the block.

 

[wfooshee]

Dude, I had an HP-35. And a 67. My brother has a 41 (I think.) I still have the 67, but the card reader is gummed up with melted nylon.

 

[Mizz Bustanut]

If you stepped out of line in my Texas high school they didn't call the cops, they didn't call a shrink, they didn't call your parents, nothing was 'documented'. Instead a coach would grab you, bend you over, give your three or four 'licks' with a large wooden paddle, shake hands with you, and the incident would then be forgotten. By the coach, but not by you.

Damn I miss that.

<_<

 

[SacramentoMike]

Those lists. I remember everything. And how the wipers would s l o o o w w a a a a a y d o o o w n when your old man's car crested a hill. And the milk freezing on the front porch and making a column of frozen cream that pushed the paper cap up a couple of inches.

And the gearshift on the column? When I was 17 I worked a summer in a resort hotel in Kennebunkport, ME, as a busser and bellhop. Hadn't learned to drive a "stick." So they send me out to take this lady and her cute daughter (my age) up to their cabin, and we went in her Chevy. She pulled just into the drive and I got the door open and the bags inside. She tells me to pull the car up between the cabins--a little grade. Too embarrassed to admit I didn't really know what I was doing, I ended up popping the clutch and laying a patch of rubber back up the driveway, and then slamming the brake before I smashed her car into her cabin--as she and the daughter stared in horror--very impressed.

 

[ALDAWG]

Umm, yeah you guys take the 'whole grain' cake. I thought I was old when is was telling some 11 year old kid about my Atari 2600, from 'way back in the day' but now in retrospect that was yesterday compared to your memories. Sheesh you guys are some old ass mo-fo's...

 

[ShinyPartsUp]

Some of you guys must have taken computer science in the 70s when the 'mainframe' was as big as a room and you had to use punched cards - in the absolutely correct order - to run the most simple of commands. And you set the pile of cards somewhere and then knocked them onto the floor !? :blink:

Before you got them in the right order, you had to have them punched correctly, typing at the keypunch machine.

Typo = throw away card, try again.

Yup, remember the 029 and 129 keypunch machines? We had hanging chads without knowing the name.

 

[Crash Cash]

Some of you guys must have taken computer science in the 70s when the 'mainframe' was as big as a room and you had to use punched cards -

Remember when you got punch cards with your power bill, and had to return them with the bill to get credited for the payment?