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Technology you've never owned or used.

I guess the biggest thing I've never used is a computer with a flip button panel to program it (in binary/ML). I have an IMSAI now but have yet to get what I want to prepare powering it on with less risk.

I also never got to do punchcards, although I have a book on writing code on the (4301?). Interesting read and atleast I know about the trick some programmers did with their stack of punchcards, taking a ruler and drawing line across them in pencil (not perfect, but when you drop your computer program, you could atleast attempt to put the cards back in order vs shoot yourself).

- John
 
barythrin said:
Interesting read and atleast I know about the trick some programmers did with their stack of punchcards, taking a ruler and drawing line across them in pencil (not perfect, but when you drop your computer program, you could atleast attempt to put the cards back in order vs shoot yourself).

- John
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Yes, a diagonal line across the top of the deck was very handy when you had funny friends that like to shuffle them.
 
Druid6900 said:
Yes, a diagonal line across the top of the deck was very handy when you had funny friends that like to shuffle them.
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Or would have been when you're carrying a three foot stack (abt. 4000 cards) from the sorter to the collator and sneeze... Been there...
 
paul said:
Re, Linux PPC, this was 10 years ago now and the Mac 8200-120 was even older. It did not run very fast at all. The only thing I was impressed by was seeing a colored linux duck when it started booting, something I don't think is possible on an older PC which boots in text mode.
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Colored duck....hmm, maybe I'll pass :)

How about the versions of Windows NT that ran on PowerPC systems? Has anyone ever used one of those?
 
I've never had a Mac of any kind even though I think the old "bricks" are tempting because they look so cool. I tried one once but I couldn't really figure out how to work it.
 
Ole Juul said:
I've never had a Mac of any kind even though I think the old "bricks" are tempting because they look so cool. I tried one once but I couldn't really figure out how to work it.
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I've had two and I still can't figure out how to work it....or I should say rather, I can't figure out how it works.
 
nymetropolitans said:
Linux PPC is a technology I've never used but would like very much to. What's your take on it? Is there a decent amount of software available out there for it?

The list of things I haven't owned or used would take up several pages and probably break this forum's database. I'm almost always late to the party, it took me until 2001 to have a computer faster than 10MHz haha.
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I ran yellowdog on a PPC for a while. It was alright, but later I wiped it out and put netbsd on there since I liked the packaging system better. I never did too much advanced stuff with it though, I just had it dual booting between MacOS8 and Yellowdog. I could do nfs from it and used it for a sniffer a little bit but it was more just a test.

lol "yellow duck?" .. penguin perhaps? ;-)
 
Yeah, penguin, that's it. Thought there was something funny about typing "duck."

There was a program on the Burroughs 6200 that would print one large letter per line-printer page for party banners and such. I was only 17 at the time so this was fun for me to run one card through the massive high-speed IBM card reader and get a dozen pages of printout out of the amazingly fast line printer. One time I forgot the terminating asterisk and got nearly 80 blank sheets.
 
gerrydoire said:
Technology you are aware of, heard of, but had nothing to do with.
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I think...an ICBM! I've built, played with, whatever, toy model rockets when I was a kid (and when my kids were kids), but those are just a teaser. I'd love to get my hands on the real thing. Of course, if it came with a warhead, that'd be just extra icing on the cake...

--T
 
Aaahh, they don't even bother anymore with real techs inna black van fulla kewl 'lectronic surveillance gear. These days, all I rate is some low-level lackey inna black Ford Focus...

--T
 
8K core memory modules are fun to work on--especially when tied to a computer system older than I was when I worked on it. . .and if it has a 9900 series microprocessor in it, I either have one or want one. . .

I've pretty much avoided contact with Apple or Commodore computers of all types.
 
gerrydoire said:
With Vista floating around, a MAC sure looks attractive don't it...
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Vista is why I now have all of my computers running on Ubuntu 8.10. Although, I still have a dual boot with Vista on one machine (can't find my XP disks) for those painful times I need to use Windows for something.

Now if I can only get my hands on an Intel based Mac so I can try it with Ubuntu; that would be a attractive machine :)
 
I recently switched my missus over to Kubuntu 8.04 from XP and she never skipped a beat - except she won't stop talking about the increased speed. Apart from vintage machinery, I'll never buy a brand name again. IMHO the days of any advantages (or no disadvantages!) to brand names are long gone.
 
That's an interesting one too. I think I'd love to use core memory and use ferrite core memory or wirewrap memory/boards. I know wirewrap would be a pain but I'm still intruiged how non random access memory would be.
 
I learned FORTRAN IV in the early '70s using punch cards on IBM 3/60 and 3/70 mainframes. I have an IBM 029 and 129 keypunch in my collection, and a functional card reader. I moved on to CP/M systems in the early '80s, and still have my TRS-80 Model 4 as well as Kaypro and Osborne systems. I also worked on the biggest vacuum tube computer ever made, the SAGE AN/FSQ-7 with hundreds of blinking lights and switches, spinning tape drives and core memory.

However, I completely missed the DEC PDP systems. I worked on HP3000 minicomputers in the late '80s, but would dearly love to have a PDP-8 of some vintage. My other dream machine is an IMSAI 8080. I'm not ready to drop $1600 on an IMSAI, though.

http://sturgeon.css.psu.edu/~mloewen/Oldtech/
 
In the last month I have seen so many IMSAI 8080s in the hands of people I know that your head would spin. I still wonder where the heck they found them.
 
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