too much bandwidth required

[SCSG-G4]

Anyway, anyone remember those old Osborne Computers? I think they had 12" floppy disks. Some of the first floppies. A friend of mine had one. Never knew what you did with it.

Osborne, the first luggable computer! I remember a demo in Rock Hill where the salesman tossed it up in the air and let it hit the floor, then opened it back up and booted it. Worked fine but I wound up buying a Compaq with two full height 5.5 floppies, replaced them both with half height ones and got a 10 MB hard disk for $1000 from Qube Distributors, then added a 300 baud modem and an Attachmate memory board to boost it to a full 640K of RAM. That was high cotton in 1983!

 

[tigger]

My first video game was PONG! Enyone remember that!

 

[swbradley1]

I think I mentioned it before but my first computer that I owned was a Sphere. 1k of Static RAM with an RF Modulator to hook up to a TV and a built in keyboard. Audio cassette recorder for storage, no hard drive. It had a Motorola 6800 that was super easy to program in assembly language. My first computer to program was a Varian 622/I in the Navy and I used Machine Language. I've been in electronics for 43.5 years so I have seen a little bit.


D@mn I feel old......

 

[3dAngus]

WOW! Mike, I didn't know you were such a geek. Cool beans! I mean, Really!

 

[3dAngus]

D@mn I feel old......

You ARE OLD.

But, you don't look it. I would have never guessed you are older or the same age as I.

If I remember correctly, the old Atari had a modulator and you would hook it up to a TV as well. I think I still have one of those around here somewhere. And yes, I think it had pong on it too. Only thing it was good for. I don't think you programmed in machine level language though. Assembly yes, and it would convert to machine where you might edit small features, like data points and such. Used to do that a lot in early 90s using PCTools and hex conversion tables to run up our scores and make it look like we were the top level player on the machine. Our favorite game back then was Maj Jong.

 

[ryan77]

Yes i remeber the modulator had a switch for when u used the game! Mine had the 2 wire antenna hook up! Old school!!

 

[o1951]

Anyway, anyone remember those old Osborne Computers? I think they had 12" floppy disks. Some of the first floppies. A friend of mine had one. Never knew what you did with it.

Yes. The floppy discs had the operating system on them! No hard drive. You saved your work to a floppy.

 

[SCSG-G4]

Dell,
I was geek when geek wasn't cool! Still have all issues of "P C Tech", many issues of "P C Magazine" including (unless the box has been tossed) the 'Sears catalog' December issue that went over 1000 pages (in Jan they split it to two issues a month), and wound up sending a dozen or so issues of "BYTE" to a collector 'down under' just to thin my pile. Played with the Apple II but parted ways with them when Jobs went proprietary on us. Atari graphics beat the pants off everybody else back then. Never did like the Trash-99, too may cables running from one box to another. Oh, and I built and played with the Popular Electronics 'Psych-Tone' synthesizer back in Feb 1971.

 

[3dAngus]

Mike, I am HUMBLED. I never knew you were so cool.

Now, if Patracy only knew what you were talking about. Bet you a hundred dollars he looks half of that up.

 

[Stretch44875]

I was just a kid, but we had a commodore vic 20. You would get a magazine with the program code, then type it into the computer to make your own games. Had a cassette drive, lol. Moved up to a 64, then a 128 before going to PC's.

Back to the original issue, yes it he has a slow connection, but what I think he was asking was there a way to have less to load a page. If we had a mobile site, that may help. I just got broadband at home myself, there was nobody for internet in my area. Had to use cell phones, or satellite, either of which suck.

 

[swbradley1]

I just got broadband at home myself, there was nobody for internet in my area. Had to use cell phones, or satellite, either of which suck.

Welcome to the 19th century Stretch

 

[phil2968]

I must be in retrograde mode. I just dumped DirecTV and put a antenna. I got tired of paying $100 a month to watch tv. I now get HD. 21 channels.

 

[patracy]

Dell,
I was geek when geek wasn't cool! Still have all issues of "P C Tech", many issues of "P C Magazine" including (unless the box has been tossed) the 'Sears catalog' December issue that went over 1000 pages (in Jan they split it to two issues a month), and wound up sending a dozen or so issues of "BYTE" to a collector 'down under' just to thin my pile. Played with the Apple II but parted ways with them when Jobs went proprietary on us. Atari graphics beat the pants off everybody else back then. Never did like the Trash-99, too may cables running from one box to another. Oh, and I built and played with the Popular Electronics 'Psych-Tone' synthesizer back in Feb 1971.

Ahh a Trs-99 hater. I remember those people...

Mike, I am HUMBLED. I never knew you were so cool.

Now, if Patracy only knew what you were talking about. Bet you a hundred dollars he looks half of that up.

I've got a collection of old PC rags in my mother's basement. Pretty much everything I played with already had some sort of sound cabilities. I did play with the SAM speech synthesis on my C64.

 

[Recovry4x4]

Retrograde mode eh? I've never had any satellite TV systems, only had cable a few times. All of my TV is on the antenna and DSL is all of the internet I get. Now with that and all this other talk, consider this. I work for the largest fully accredited sheriff's office in the nation. Last year we phased out the 3.5 floppy and now are using flash drives to move our documents. Our crappy MDTs in the cars used RF modems until recently. I have had an air card in the car for just over a year now. Hows that for high tech. If you could get a Crown Vic with 8 track stereos, we would have it!

 

[phil2968]

Retrograde mode eh? ... If you could get a Granada with 8 track stereos, we would have it!

Fixed it for ya!

 

[o1951]

Retrograde mode eh? If you could get a Crown Vic with 8 track stereos, we would have it!

If you could get a new crown vic period

 

[SCSG-G4]

Drew,
I didn't HATE the TRS-99, just did not like the mess of cables. main box to tape drive, main box to speakers, main box to keyboard, main box to the cartridge box with it's own power supply cord, RCA jacks to the TV, ad nauseum.

 

[73m819]

This may sound strange coming from me, but when I got my first computer, it was a ATARI 1200, tv hook up and the all nine yards, got it because I was in model railroading and ran prototype operation, I could not find any make up forms, operation forms, trouble forms (hot boxs, ect.), ect., so I tought myself atari basic so I could program the random make up and ect. forms, then when I moved to the top of the line TANDY 386 with it's own moniter, I learned micosoft basic. Now I just push keys, if things do not work, I ask my wife for HELP,

 

[jaxsof]

Hello, my name is John, and I too am an old geek. I still have an 8086 (with Turbo at 12hz) machine, 2 PS2 servers, with the optional 20MB hard drives, a 386 with a whole 1MB of ram, which I may remind you cost a good chunk of the allowance back then ($1600). I still have a working Apple 2e clone, well I guess it still works, I haven’t booted it in a long time. All my PCs now are SMP, which I still build myself. My 8088 (at 2 Hz) recently gave up the ghost, but I haven’t had the heart to make it go away, yet.

In the last few months my better half directed me toward Raspberry Pi. It looks like its going to be a fun project to tinker with. It a single card complete motherboard with on-board audio, graphics, and USB for keyboard/mouse. It uses SD cards for storage. Its $35 for the card and the proceeds go to educating underprivileged kids

 

[3dAngus]

This may sound strange coming from me, but when I got my first computer, it was a ATARI 1200, tv hook up and the all nine yards, got it because I was in model railroading and ran prototype operation, I could not find any make up forms, operation forms, trouble forms (hot boxs, ect.), ect., so I tought myself atari basic so I could program the random make up and ect. forms, then when I moved to the top of the line TANDY 386 with it's own moniter, I learned micosoft basic. Now I just push keys, if things do not work, I ask my wife for HELP,

Huh? Who is this? Who stole Ron. A body snatcher? It's some kind of conspiracy, I tell ya!