Giveaway of the Day Forums

1. 

   Dragonlair
   Member

   personal computers didn't have hard drives by default?
   I do -- but the only such ones I used were in a work environment. I even had a Tektronix computer that the boss decided didn't need a hard drive so I was forever flipping floppies to compile my FORTRAN programs on it.

   the operating system (DOS 3.3 and before) would not address more than 32 MB at a time?
   I do -- my first computer (IBM PS/2 Model 60 - 286 without a math coprocessor) had a 40 MB hard drive and I had to partition it into 2 parts to access all of it. DOS 4.0, and DOS 4.01 quickly afterward, solved that problem.

   you had to remember to "park" your hard drive before you turned it off?
   That was true under DOS. The hardware eventually sort of auto-parked if not used for a bit but it was still a good idea.

   computers didn't come with color display cards by default?
   Even into the late '80s, monitors were monochrome (usually either amber or green) and it cost a lot extra to be able to handle color both from the monitor and the system end!

   More memories?

   Posted 7 years ago #
2. 

   mikiem2
   Moderator

   What sticks in my mind are the 1sts... I remember the 1st upgrade to our 1st 286... We were living in Florida at the time, and had to drive across the state to buy a 386 CPU & motherboard. Our 1st modem was bundled with the Prodigy online service, but at the time I was more enthusiastic about using it to fax in mail orders. The 1st scanner was a monstrous & expensive affair, using an SCSI cable that seems like it was almost an inch thick.

   Originally we special ordered a dot matrix color printer from the shop where we got the 1st PC in Orlando -- that printer was a terrible mess. Eventually we bought a horribly expensive HP Laserjet from Sears. It earned its keep printing masters for weekly fliers or handouts my wife used at the store she managed. I used Harvard Graphics at the time, plus scanned in clip art [using a hand scanner], & each print took about 3-4 hours processing from the time I clicked the print button.

   I remember driving for hours to a brand new Best Buy to get one of the 1st available CD drives. That sticks in my mind for 2 reasons -- 1) it plugged into the bundled sound card, taking 4-5 days to get working, & 2) that was my introduction to [terribly small & grainy] video on a PC.

   We take GPS for granted nowadays because it's on every smart phone, but I remember driving cross country when we moved, using a GPS device that plugged into the laptop -- I thought it was the greatest thing in the world to see where we were on the map.

   You mentioned display cards... Today it's all about 3D processing for games & such, & maybe decoding video, but I remember saving up for & buying an expensive card just for 2D images.

   And to get past floppies for storage, remember Zip drives? Before CD burners, before USB for that matter [it connected to the parallel port], it used pricey discs that looked like a floppy on steroids.

   Posted 7 years ago #
3. 

   Dragonlair
   Member

   My first computer, the IBM PS/2 had a TAPE drive. It accepted tiny 40 MB tapes that were terribly slow on which to write. We used them for backups. When the monitor when up in smoke (literally - shorted out) 5 years later, we realized that the format of the drive was such that we could not read the tapes on ANYTHING else. Using a rented monitor we used 3.5" floppies to download EVERYTHING on that 40 MB hard drive (a lot of work back then) in preparation for our 2nd PC -- 200 MB hard drive Gateway 2000 machine (still DOS).

   On that PS/2, I did actually get a math coprocessor for it. From 386 on up, no special chip was needed. I never paid for it, though. That was more than 25 years ago and I'm still waiting for the bill. I'll pay it if it ever shows up. It was ordered by mail.

   Posted 7 years ago #
4. 

   jgf
   Member

   My first computer experience was in college - Time Shared Basic on an HP2000E, with TTY terminals and "cradle modems" (aka acoustic couplers); online speed was an astounding 300 baud. Learned Basic, COBOL, and Fortran on that old tape spinner.

   Hated it so much it was nearly ten years before I dealt with computers again - a Tandy TRS-80 (Trash-80, lol); no HD, it used an ordinary audio cassette deck for data storage and a TV for a monitor. I think the only useful purpose it served was when I wrote a program to record my collections of books and record albums ...most of its time was used playing an old Star Trek "sector and quadrant" game with ANSI graphics.

   First system with a HD had a staggering 270meg unit, that seemed large enough to hold anything I'd ever want to install ...within six months I'd added (at great expense back then) a secondary 1.2gig drive.

   For all practical purposes no internet then; we ran up ludicrous phone bills contacting BBS's.

   Posted 7 years ago #
5. 

   mikiem2
   Moderator

   My dad had his degree in civil engineering -- because of all the math he aced the aptitude tests they gave at work, & IBM wanted to pay to send him to school to become a System's Analyst. He declined, which for anyone else would have been in hindsight a tremendously stupid decision, but when it came to anything electrical, never mind electronics, he was cursed. Seriously, some people are klutzes, some have bad luck, & then there are the very few you don't let near anything expensive that uses electricity.

   [FWIW I'm not as bad, but I did inherit that curse... After a couple of years of college coursework I could design or troubleshoot electronics, but I've never been able to build or repair a solid state circuit, ever. Anything more than a capacitor or resistor goes bad before the job can be finished.]

   Hated it so much it was nearly ten years before I dealt with computers again...

   While I was going to school I worked for a while as a computer operator on a Control Data mainframe. At the time if you hired on as a programmer you were more-or-less an apprentice for 6-8 years, limited to formatting report printouts. I don't have the nature for that, doing the same mind-numbing busy work day after day, so rather than moving up to programming I moved out the door when they started changing my shifts every few weeks.

   ... within six months I'd added (at great expense back then) a secondary 1.2gig drive.

   I actually still have the most expensive hard drive I ever bought... Waaaayyyy back I was messing with video on PC, & it took an SCSI drive spinning at 10k to write the captured video file. I paid so dearly for it I kept it as a souvenir of sorts. :)

   Posted 7 years ago #

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