Nostalgia

[kellys_eye]

Just watched the latest EEVBlog on Youtube where Dave enthuses over the pre-Arduino Single Board Computer that is the PC/104.

I could relate to everything he said - pre-empting all his knowledge - just from the fact that I dug one out of my own scrap box a few months ago and spent a frustratingly happy day getting it booting to DOS and, eventually, WIndows 3.11!

How many of you here actually recall DOS???

I've now got a complete PC/104 setup - main SBC, PSU, 3.5" floppy, HDD cable and drive (with various OS's and BASIC programs on it), VGA lead (plugs straight in to a standard 1024x768 display, PS/2 keyboard and mouse......

But I have absolutely ZERO application for it!!! Just one of those 'things' you tend to keep for nostalgia sake....

So... what do YOU have/keep for nostalgia purposes? Or what WOULD you have kept had you had the foresight to do so?

 

[davenn]

How many of you here actually recall DOS???

my days with computers go way back before then

being from the "motherland" surely you must have played with the Sinclair ZX80/81 etc

 

[(*steve*)]

A colleague and I spent a few hours at the computer history museum just outside San Francisco.

It was all "used one of those", "had one of those", "seen one of them", "ooh, always wanted one of them", "saw the advertisement", "own a piece of one of them", "wow, never thought I'd see one of them"...

When you say "DOS", which disk operating system do you mean?

CP/M, MPM, CPM-86, DOS/360, DOS/VS, MS-DOS 1.0, MS-DOS 2.0+, PC-DOS, FreeDOS, DR-DOS,...

 

[Minder]

Believe it or not, I have two CNC machines running under DOS, the still available out there, DOS 7.1, the 'unofficial' version.
Just proof that you do not need a bloated program such as Windows to run CNC.
One missing from the list is ZDOS, the Zenith-Heathkit version.
M.

 

[kellys_eye]

my days with computers go way back before then

oh, so do mine. I built a PC (the ETI Triton) in 1979(?) and have been 'intimate' with every iteration of PC's since - with a 'diversion' to μcontrollers (MC68705P3S) and many other devices.

ISTR starting out with MSDOS 2 with spatterings of DR DOS in there too. I resisted Windows as long as possible - and have done since - always being at least one version behind the standard i.e. currently using Win7 and/or Ubuntu with no intention of moving up.

I cut my teeth on assembly (8080 and 6502 onwards).

spent a few hours at the computer history museum

I also did that at the Science Museum in London! Makes you reconsider your life when you see stuff in MUSEUMS that you grew up with! Such is the pace of change though

 

[kellys_eye]

Just proof that you do not need a bloated program such as Windows to run CNC.

Windows being, imho, solely responsible for the creation and encouragement of bloatware - a personal peeve of mine.

 

[OBW0549]

How many of you here actually recall DOS???

I remember it well, from my first PC (Leading Edge D2, with an ultra-fast 10 MHz 80286). I remember GWBASIC, too. Ugh.

So... what do YOU have/keep for nostalgia purposes? Or what WOULD you have kept had you had the foresight to do so?

Have kept:

My father's collection of nuts, screws and other assorted fasteners.
My copy of Volume 1, Issue 1 of Byte magazine.
My copy of the GE Transistor Manual (1964 edition)

Wish I'd kept:

My Dad's collection of vacuum tubes, including some high power RF tubes and some klystrons, too.
His collection of power resistors.
His stash of Nixie tubes.
His collection of oil-filled paper capacitors, including one lethal 25 μF monster rated at 3 kV. One time he and I charged it up to max voltage and then shorted it with a screwdriver; the last half-inch of the screwdriver vaporized with a bang.
The home-brewed MC6800 computer I built back in 1976.
My old Apple II+ computer.
Some of the old germanium transistors (CK722, 2N107, 2N170, 2N1305, etc.) I played with as a kid back in the 1950's and 1960's.

Moving around the country over the years, there's a lot of stuff I threw out that I now wish I'd kept.

 

[Minder]

Early transistors, the Mullard OC71 general purpose NPN that had black paint covering, if you needed a photo cell, just scratch the paint off!
M.

 

[kellys_eye]

Early transistors, the Mullard OC71 general purpose NPN that had black paint covering, if you needed a photo cell, just scratch the paint off!
M.

They soon got wise to that and started filling them with opaque 'gel' (silicon grease?).

 

[Minder]

I used to buy a portable radio kit that I built and sold to friends back in the 70's, Everything portable back then, was powered by a PP9.
I just checked to see if they are still available, https://www.amazon.ca/1603S-Superce...F8&qid=1506892845&sr=8-2&keywords=pp9+battery
Back then they cost half a crown (2/6p).!
M.

 

[Bluejets]

Couldn't afford a Commodore 64 so alternative was a Dick Smith VZ200.
Plugged in to a tv and programs were written and saved on an audio cassette tape player.
8k memory which we kept running out.
There were add on memory arrangements but they too were out of reach of the family budget.
Good start for my 2 sons at the time who went on to bigger and better things.

90's saw the purchase of a Bondwell portable with 2 * 5.25" floppy drives and a massive bunch of books and "original" floppies which one had to make copies of, just in case.
Programs were all "star" .... word-star, calc-star etc etc and one had to build the spreadsheets to suit one's application.
Quite impressive at the time was it's ability to "read back" documents in either English or Phenom over the inbuilt 3" speaker.( I think that was the correct spelling)
Visual was via an inbuilt amber lit 5" screen
Had the machine "saved" for future but sadly went in the 2013 flood with just about everything else.
VZ200 was on a high shelf.....

Often seen "bad" soldering jobs on here but nothing like one that was presented to us to try to "repair" back in the 80's when I went to tech to do electronics training. Bloke brought in a kit computer full of bad soldering so first lesson in bin-job.

First amp I built was copied from an old tv back in the 60's. Built everything including the chassis but could not get it to work no matter what I tried. Then the chief tv tech showed me that the arrow with 300v wriiten above was for high voltage 'in' not 'out' as I had presumed. Either way nothing showed. Honest mistake I think. Worked lovely after that for many years.

 

[kellys_eye]

8k memory which we kept running out.

Beats the 256 BYTES my first PC had...... it had an optional 2k memory upgrade but the £300 to purchase the computer itself (in 1979) was all I could afford at the time. By the time I had enough money to afford a memory upgrade technology had moved on enormously and it wasn't worth the effort!

 

[FuZZ1L0G1C]

Was lent a Sinclair ZX80 Spectrum by a neighbour/friend when he went away on business - my initiation to programming.
Many years later I invested in a 386 Dell with Dos 6 and Win 3.11.
Still have my electronics magazine collection from 70's+ of ETI, PE, Electronics Australia, etc.
Many of these (several 100) mags have useful circuits, technical data, and (now) amusing articles/adverts.
Amazing 1MB of RAM!! Only $100.
Gee... wow.

 

[Tha fios agaibh]

I knew my my way around Dos but mostly just the basic commands.
Doshell was "the bomb" on my 8088.

I remember entering .exe and enter and watching dos script flashing across my monochrome screen and thinking;
Wow, is this thing fast!!

 

[shrtrnd]

I've still got the Sinclair ZX80 and Atari 400 I got for my oldest boy.
I paid a bundle to have a computer place build my boy an Intel 166 before they even hit the commercial market.
Paid-off. I was never much interested in software. I still just fix stuff.
He's a Ph.D. with Google now.

 

[darren adcock]

my bbc is treasured. Not totally unrelated, but am a huge hitchhikers fan and only found out today there is an interactive story game!!!!!!!!!!! arrrrrrrrrgh, was meant to be planing my floorboards this weekend!

 

[kellys_eye]

was meant to be planing my floorboards

..is that a euphemism for a deviant sexual practise?

 

[darren adcock]

..is that a euphemism for a deviant sexual practise?

haaaaaaaaa, dunno how to respond here. Just harrrrrrrr

 

[kellys_eye]

dunno how to respond here

show us your internet history.......

 

[darren adcock]

show us your internet history.......

tooools toools and mre tools! I'll let you think which ones! ;-)