I trained on a CDC computer with its weird nand/nor logic hardware & learned Cobol. My first real programming language was SAP on an Elliott 503 that used 8 channel paper tape input.
Martin
Deleted
May 16, 2023
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I trained first on an IBM 1140 (I think) back in 1971. Learned Fortran.
Went to college from 73 to 76 and did it all again on an old ICL 1900. ICL assembly language (PLAN) was a hoot. I am sure they made the symbolic code using the scrabble letters with the highest points score. I remember lots of 'Xs and 'Z's in the names.Then I worked as a database designer for 2 years on some kit that I cannot remember. It had 8K of memory and loaded from paper tape.
In 1978 I went to work in the oil industry doing borehole surveying and well analysis. This was on Data General Nova 1200's. We got Nova 3's while I was there and a micronova that I converted to a waterproof luggable machine (a story for another day). In 1981, we were taken over and told to scrap those and convert to DEC. By then, I was the computer manager and I ordered a VAX 11/780 with 2Mb of memory and 480Mb disk. Truly the best.I can continue this if you are interested. I've got a LOAD of war stories!!!
Alan
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Do you remember DEC tapes? Linear storage medium with a directory structure? They didn't hold a lot of information but it was fun watching them spin forward and backward seeking a specific block on the tape.
An then much much later DLT... another great evolution of tape storage.
Peter
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Yes. At one time I had 3 vaxes in my house with DEC tapes. And, if I remember correctly, you could boot an 11/750 from tape.Not very fast, but you could tell by the sound if it was booting OK.
Alan
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Yes please
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The plural of VAX is VAXen. š
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How about a new title, too? Perhaps something along the lines of āOld men discuss coal-fired and steam driven computersā? š
PS Anyone remember the HP 9810A?
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Come on Jim man... drink more coffee. lol
When something belongs to multiple items or acronyms (plural), you add an apostrophe to the plural word of the acronym. For example: There are five UFOs over there. The UFOs' lights are different colors.
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No wonder we get all these pedantic tech laden superthreads. Y'all are a bunch of geeks.
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Yeah-butā¦ itās all good fun, and weāre not discussing stoopid triangles - - yet !
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I guess I'm showing my (comparative) lack of age, since my first concrete contact with computers was getting a VIC-20 when I was a kid in 80's, then progressing through Commodore 64, Amiga 500, Amiga 2000 and Amiga 4000 (which I still have in working condition). Then as a university student I ended up becoming a Linux user and after graduating, ending up in a company doing embedded Linux and eventually Android software development too.
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In the days when a 'hacker' meant someone who hacked at code for the common good, then I considered myself one. But the name got usurped and now I don't.
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I never encountered DEC tapes with VAXen, only with PDPen. Our CS department had a PDP 11/34 but lacked the funding to purchase a proper O/S. One of the faculty was reading a Bell Labs Journal - a small blue, soft cover - which include an paper about the development of a new O/S that happened to run on PDP 11 systems. For the mere amount of $100 USD and a RK07 disk pack - which would be returned - one could have a copy of the work-in-progress. That is how we began with UNIX. A couple years later we git our for VAX 1//780 (and an early edition of BSD when it was ported to VAX) - we couldn't even afford a full MB of memory (yet).
Yeah, way off topic - I'll let it go for now.
Peter
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- By Deleted on May 17, 2023, 5:31 p.m..
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Cute!
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Hi,
I recall using something HP PC with a alphanumeric LED display to code up an EMC automated test system based around a HP 8566A spectrum analyzer. That was in the days when Dave and Bill were adamant that HP was NOT into the computer business.
What the model number was, I can't recall.
I am still pizza'd off that HP changed to Agilent and went and stuck the proper logo onto PCs. I used to buy brand new Agilent equipment and peel off the ugly logo plate for a proper HP one from a piece of surplus gear on my Shelves of Obsolete Electronics!
And that pizza'd off the Agilent calibration engineers we kept in the basement. Ha ha!
Stan
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Hi,
Oh, and cool beans on the title change. Jim and I love to go down these rabbit holes. And I see we aren't alone in this around here!
Everything is built upon what came before. We can trace this stuff back to steam engines if we want to. :P
Maybe if I hadn't bought those six $30k CCDs from Kodak when I was at IBM in the early 80s, we would not have what we shoot with now.
I do know that Commander Ballard would not have found the Titanic when he did if I hadn't bought those image sensors when I did. And that story winds right back into the 5150 PC. ;)
Stan
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The 2116 came before alphanumeric LED displays, so it would be hard to argue that hp wasn't in the computer business.
But Tom Perkins did cancel the Omega project in 1970 because it was getting into the computer biz in too big a way, so hp took the long way round to get there.
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Hi,
Used to be there was a HP journal published. And there was an article in there which made it clear that HP was making computers solely to run their test equipment. Which was a whole lot easier to do than on the IBM 5150/5160 Personal Computer or the earlier 5100/5110 Portable Computer that I also (tried) to make do that.
Stan
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That became hard to believe the minute the HP 2000A Timesharing System was announced in 1968.
