On 07/21/2018 09:43 PM, Gene Heskett wrote:
On Saturday 21 July 2018 18:01:07 cyaiplexys wrote:
On 07/21/2018 12:20 PM, Gene Heskett wrote:
On Saturday 21 July 2018 11:42:31 Richard Owlett wrote:
When I'm "ignorant" and know it, I refer to myself as a "newbie".
My first contact with Linux was when Squeeze was just introduced.
I've been around computers for a while [remember 12AX7 based
CPU's?].
No, but I recall seeing, in Iowa City in the very early 1950's, a
bit of a monster that had 12,000 12AU7's in it. Used at the time to
grade the Iowa tests, the same one I had taken in school and got a
quite high score on. They had rigged a Harris Stream fed printing
press with a photocell at every mark location on the paper and were
calculating the scores from that.
As a BSEE student 50+ years ago I took an introductory programming
course. Later I programmed in 8080 assembler - at the time we were
moving to 8085. As a consumer I ended up in the M$ land.
I started with the rca 1802. Still an interesting architecture, one
that was able to function in several rads a minute of atomic
radiation. But I tried the z-80, found it wanting, then the 6809
which put me firmly on a unix like path, and to this day I still
don't have a winders box on the premises. Quite a few linux machines
though.
OS-9 Level II on a CoCo 3 by any chance?
Actually level 1.01 on a coco2.
I remember that as well. But I only had it because I snarfed up some old
stuff when the local Radio Shack was liquidating. I also had a couple
CoCo 2's. I never really did anything with Level I though since the 512K
CoCo 3 and OS-9 Level II was my main system at the time.
I had one of those systems
So do I but the two 1 Gb hard drives are seized from stiction.
I no longer have the CoCos unfortunatley. 1GB HDs on a CoCo? That would
have been totally awesome! The most modern thing I had at the time was
sticking a 3.5" 1.44MB floppy drive as the second drive in with the
5.25" floppy drive in the FD-502 disk box. That way I could use the
Tandy 1100FD laptop I had (which had the 1200 baud modem) to go on the
BBSs and download CoCo/OS-9 stuff and then easily read it off the disk.
and then I went to DOS and Windows. That to me was a step down until
Slackware came along. Then Red Hat, then Mandrake ('scuze me...er...
Mandriva), then Mint, Then Solyd, now full on Debian. I only used
Ubuntu as a web server at work and in test VMs. Oh, and there was a
stint in there somewhere where I was dabbling on a real-life Unix
system.
We had an AT&T 3b2 in between motherboard fires for a network message
system for about 3 years, replaced by a pdp-11/23. It also was a major
pita, crashing for no reason and dec's incompetant service techs
replaced everything in it except the frame rail with the serial number
on it. I finally cajoled the network tech at CBS into trading my machine
for his test mule. Worked fine, but my machine he then had was
worthless as a test mule, so we got, as did all the affiliates, at CBS
expense, an industrial IBM with an ARTIC card that actually did all the
work. That, once I had edited the sat table, worked well until a newby
tech dialed into it one day and helpfully fixed my tables. Took me about
3 days of waving a 7 meter dish around to find all the birds again. That
got the phone line unplugged unless they called me ahead of time. Most
of its data by then was sent over the teletex path in the ntsc vertical
interval. I was the CE at that tv station for the last 18 years I
worked. I had found my nitch. And it was a good one, getting raises I
didn't have to ask for, so I was making about $15k a year more than any
other similar market sized station could afford.
Sweet job! I been working for a small mom & pop web hosting company for
the nearly 15 years. Very easy stuff, actually, as I don't have much to
do overall (boss is very laid back and also likes to do plenty of stuff
himself). Before that I worked in electronic assembly jobs. Got out of
that mostly due to chemicals, and non-OSHA-compliant companies getting
away with (slow) murder. I think it was then that I decided to pursue a
career in programming.
My ISP back in the day had "shell accounts" and a wizard (RIP)
who worked there took me under his wing and taught me how to use it
and saved my sorry butt when I screwed up. :)
The VERY FIRST computer I ever used was a teletype terminal on a DEC
Rainbow (TeleWriter) at the Jr. High School. I was one year too young
to technically be allowed to use it but they let me anyway. Only a few
whiz kids were allowed on it. Me? I couldn't do a damn thing with it
so gave up. :-/ Then I started tinkering with the Bell & Howell and
Apple Computers at the school. I think that came after I bugged my
parents for a computer and they came home from Radio Shack with a
Trash-80 Model III with 4K RAM, cassette interface (later CGP-115 4"
roll paper 4-color plotter).
I still have one of those someplace in the midden heap of a basement.
You should put up an online museum! :) I haven't seen one of those since
my Jr. High years!
They never put disk drives in the thing.
I spent HOURS programming stuff and got good enough to do labels for
my dad's business and title screens for family videos (VHS - my dad
would record the screen, and tape-splice VHS tapes). From there they
gave me a Trash-80 (called "Tandy" by then) PC-4 pocket computer. When
I got a job I got a Tandy CoCo 3 and OS-9 Level II and let's just say
that was the beginning of everything Unix-like for me. Though it was
more a VAX/Unix blend I think. And Basic09 was more a Pascal/Basic
blend.
And I'm still a new bee... But a fading one due to the age of the
wet ram now.
Which I didn't state, but I'll be 84 this fall.
Much respect to you, sir! You've seen it all. Literally. I just turned
52 a little over a week ago. I was fascinated with computers and
electronics since age 7 (blame too much sci-fi for that). I soldered my
first electronics kit (Radio Shack AM Radio kit) at that age. My mother
told my dad I was too young but my dad said no that it would be OK and
gave me his soldering iron to put the kit together with. It turned out
really good and worked for years after! That I think really got me
started on my electronics path. Now I guess you can see why I am
interested in Arduino.
I'm also a bee of some kind. Probably a drone or worker bee. I'll
always be a bee of some kind though. I often find myself getting
sidetracked and wanting to learn new things, not realizing just how
old I got already!
Theres an echo in here. :)
That'd bee me. And to keep this somewhat on topic - I do enjoy using my
DeBEEian system (couldn't resist). :P
So, how would this group have me to refer to myself without
claiming competency I just *DO NOT* have?
P.S. I've saved ~6 years of useful posts from this group. I've been
trying to figure out how to organize it in order to create a QWSBFA
rather than a FAQ. QWSBFA=="Questions Which Should Be Frequently
Asked" ;/
That sounds like a heck of a usefull project.
OWL ducks fer cover ;}
If you find a good cover, see if there's room for me too.
And me too, along with a good flame-retardant suit and a nice, cozy
rock to hide under. ;->
That's the one cool thing about this group and groups like it is the
conversations where you learn a little bit about those folks in the
group in between learning other useful things. Reminds me of the old
FidoNet days (and later newsgroup days - do they still even have
either anymore??)
---
TAGLINE: "Wait-a-minit. Almonds don't have legs."
Take care guy.
Best wishes to you as well. I hope that I'm still playing around with
this stuff at that age. I remember taking an online C++ course years ago
and there was another student in the class that was 92. He was taking
the course to help him stave off Alzheimer's! He did really good too. As
for me, I got a 100% on my final exam. And here I am still not great at
C or C++. No I didn't cheat. Brain cells up and aged on me since then!
