Re: Questions for you glass-panel folks

On Thu, 06 Mar 2008 14:31:16 -0600, Rich Ahrens <rma@xxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:

Darkwing wrote:
The first computer I owned was a nightmare, it had no hard drive, you had to
load all the operating system with disks everytime you booted it up, most of
the commands were done in DOS. That pales in comparison to a new computer
with WinXP, but I wouldn't go back to what I used to have to do just because
it worked well at the time but I have always liked new technology, it keeps
me interested.

You had disks? Paper tape and punch cards were an advance - I remember
having to load the boot loader in machine code via the front panel
switches...

Ohhhhh...Lordy... We had those on the old Westinghouse P2000s at work.
Most had 8K, but a couple had 16K of core memory. It took nearly two
hours to boot the system. We had Teflon coated paper tape for
durability. Besides, in that atmosphere paper didn't last very long
at all. It's a wonder we did.

IIRC we paid nearly a quarter million each. Just a few years later we
purchased a "truckload" of them for parts at $450. I bought one to
play with for $30.


Roger Halstead (K8RI & ARRL life member)
(N833R, S# CD-2 Worlds oldest Debonair)
www.rogerhalstead.com
.

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