I remember about 1978 when I worked for Singer we had a small data entry terminal - 256char screen and 8K memory .... really state of the art in those days. We were asked by the local Night Club to generate a "dating application" which would match people who entered the nightclub based upon their profile. I duly got busy writing the software and finished the app and presented it to them. All was fine until the MD say the size of the terminal (Singer 1501 http://www.flickriver.com/photos/teclasorg/93746616/ ) which was the size of a small tower system today and included a built in keyboard. He was NOT impressed and said that he wanted something more spectacular. Thinking hat on.....
At the time I knew some people who worked at Granada television Studios and they had just finished filming a series called "Space 1999" (http://www.crazyabouttv.com/space1999.html )so we borrowed some of the set which included the base station computer..... flashing lights, levers, tape spools whizzing to and fro etc, etc and poked the little keyboard of the 1501 through the main seta and went live. That night we matched about 80 out of 200 people and 30 of them were actually couples who had come with each other which amazed everyone much to the amazement of my boss at the time. Everyone was commenting on how excellent the "flashing light and spinning tape deck computer" had been and how it was really advanced technology. If only they had looked behind my keyboard at exactly what the computer was!! Still, it got me a big bonus and lots of brownie points! Looking at the cost for the 1501 then, which had two "mini-tape" drives where it wrote data to it was in excess of 2,00 UK pounds ... for an 8K machine and 256 character mono screen (NO graphics in those days) but I wrote a "tennis" program with the bouncy ball cursor and paddles..... Happy days. Dave -----Original Message----- From: ProFox [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Alan Bourke Sent: 27 June 2013 15:58 To: [email protected] Subject: Re: [NF] Google is Your Lover! I just read a thing last night about the WOPR supercomputer in the film 'War Games'. Which was a prop, made of wood, with a load of LEDs and bits and pieces to make it look real. At one point they decided they wanted something flickering at a particular rate so that it would look OK at 24fps in a cinema. So the effects guy shaved the clock crystal down bit by bit with a graphite pencil until it was yielding the frequency they wanted. #hardcore [excessive quoting removed by server] _______________________________________________ Post Messages to: [email protected] Subscription Maintenance: http://mail.leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profox OT-free version of this list: http://mail.leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profoxtech Searchable Archive: http://leafe.com/archives/search/profox This message: http://leafe.com/archives/byMID/profox/[email protected] ** All postings, unless explicitly stated otherwise, are the opinions of the author, and do not constitute legal or medical advice. This statement is added to the messages for those lawyers who are too stupid to see the obvious.
