Three relics of the past

[maddmaxx ★]

[Wilbur ★]

Where is your picture?  :) 

[sheep_herder ★]

Yep, along with many other types of computer discs.

[Road Runner]

I thought this was going to be about Sheep Herder, Maxx and Me.   

[Ralphie ★]

33 minutes ago, Road Runner said:

I thought this was going to be about Sheep Herder, Maxx and Me.   

That’s what I thought also!

[Road Runner]

37 minutes ago, RalphWaldoMooseworth said:

That’s what I thought also!

You aren't that far behind!  

[Ralphie ★]

1 hour ago, Road Runner said:

You aren't that far behind!  

I am just a pup!

[Digital_photog ★]

8 hours ago, maddmaxx said:

 

 

I wrote my first computer programs using one of those terminals.

[Scrapr ★]

gawd I hated those punch cards. Turn it in, wait for a couple hours....blammo...there's a loop in the program. Go back & try again padwan

or you could sneak over to the teletype and punch up your program. Instant analysis. #Winning

[sheep_herder ★]

Yep, we were still using electric typewriters and white out when I started working at Texas A&M in the mid-70s.  Luckily I was able to hire a student that was a whiz with the computer and punch cards, and that was a life saver.  Finally  advanced to desktop computers in the mid-80s in Oregon. We used Leading Edge machines from Korea. I am really glad that folks presently do not have to go through hand writing manuscripts, then having drafts typed up, and then having to deal with rewrites on the typewriters during the editing phase. However, we went through a disconcerting phase in Oregon, before the secretary realized she had to resave the edited version, and we received versions that looked very much like the unedited version.  This went on longer than it should, but finally stopped when it also happened to the 'boss'. Heck they did not have any pcs at Fort Keogh until I arrived in 1988.  Yes I am old, but still remember some of the 'Good Ole Days'.?

[tybeegb]

5081 cards.  We sorted and collated input decks from the keypunch group.  Payroll input was almost 3000 cards.  Some departments would send over mag tapes for their input for their reports.  Then there was the punch tape input from a few remote sites.  Then there were the disk drive banks.  Big platters with a whopping 20mb capacity.  Each application had its own platter we had to swap out and assign drive numbers to for each run.  And the mountains of printouts that had to "de-carboned' and then 'burst' for distribution to the different departments.   

[maddmaxx ★]

3 hours ago, tybeegb said:

5081 cards.  We sorted and collated input decks from the keypunch group.  Payroll input was almost 3000 cards.  Some departments would send over mag tapes for their input for their reports.  Then there was the punch tape input from a few remote sites.  Then there were the disk drive banks.  Big platters with a whopping 20mb capacity.  Each application had its own platter we had to swap out and assign drive numbers to for each run.  And the mountains of printouts that had to "de-carboned' and then 'burst' for distribution to the different departments.   

For the maintenance people there were hours of teletype cleaning and re oiling.  You just had to see all the spinning gears and articulating arms moving like you worst nightmare of steampunk to understand that they were magic.  We had giant versions of the platter disk drives with 12 flying heads that ran on an air cushion so close to the surface of the spinning platter that a bit of cigarette smoke would crash a head.  That involved a physical strike of the head and platter surface that resulted in the destruction of the platter and usually all 12 heads as the dust created by the first crash would crash all the other heads in rapid sequence.  We used punch card decks as technician programs and sometimes even had to load programs using the 16 bit front panel switches when the card reader wouldn't work.  That was raw machine code work, not a compiler or user language in sight.

[shootingstar]

I thought it was strange that for a history time capsule for our country's next 175th or 200th birthday year, someone locally wanted to bury an iPhone, a memory stick. Seriously, will there be the right technology to even see the images in these things at that time in future?