What's everybody doing today?

[dademoss]

I still remember seeing advertisements for computers that had a whole 3kb of RAM. I think my computer in Guam had like 32Mb of RAM. First computer we had was the Apple IIE with monochrome screen. No mouse. Mom has me beat though, she got a college degree in computer science when they still used punchcards. Programming COBOL via keyboard sucked enough, but she had to do it on punch cards. BASIC was much easier to do than COBOL.

I went to get stuff out of the fridge to cook for Mom and realized we had leftovers of the same thing I was about to cook. So I added some sauteed mushrooms and microwaved it. She said she liked it better with egg. I pointed out that it did have egg in it. But she ate most of it-- saved a little for her dog because she always gives him some table scraps. I was thinking of going to the post office but am not feeling like driving anywhere today. I'll go tomorrow when I pick up RXs from the pharmacy.

You didn't ask for it, but here it is anyway. Computer #2, a Sinclair ZX81, with a 64 KB memory expansion and a 300 baud modem

As I recall, it was 32 or 48 KB addressable, further details are lost.

Base memory was 1 kb.

 

[Amish Heart]

Woke up with a cold today, and am miserable. Did manage to do the things, though, today. Just slower. Sore throat, stuffy head, sneezing all the time. Yuck. Little granddaughter survived the slumber party with a couple hrs of sleep and then to school. I think she's asleep right now.

 

[LadyLocust]

Watching it rain and dehydrating beets ......

Those two don't go well together

 

[kenv1950]

Those two don't go well together

Only did 2 beets and had to drive 36 miles to get them. humidity , 18% in the house , it will be ok

 

[Tirediron]

Our first computer was an IBM PS 1, I ended up with it on a weird deal at a big box store, it wasn't supposed to be released to the public or some thing. It cost a fortune at the time, it didnt even have a modem . but it had both sizes of floppy disk drives. and you could copy form one to the other.

 

[sonya123]

Sonya, I hope your daughter's husband will get better soon. I never had sheep but I had a goat who had triplets once and she rejected one of them. I had to bottle feed the one that got rejected. Sweet little thing. I hope your sheep that hasn't given birth yet will do so without problems and that all the lambs will be healthy.

Last sheep had her lambs, 3 of them, very big ones. She was really huge
Our goats most of the time have 3 or more. A few have 2. We had one that had 6 several times and tried to feed all of them. Of course I had to take some away.

 

[Spikedriver]

We ended up having to trim defects out of the used rails so there were a lot of pieces. We made 8 welds to put together a 239 foot stick of rail. It's supposed to go in the track tomorrow, but we have to foul a foreign railroad's tracks to install it so we need authorization from their dispatcher. I'm guessing they won't let us have any time to work. Might be a short day...

 

[12icemaker]

Good luck with the rail I remember Laying rail across a turntable bridge in winter over an area where the river current was about 4 or 5 miles an hour and the ties were icy.

A lot of things are hard to do when there are multiple railroads involved.

Kentucky Street in Memphis, Tn. is one of the places where NS, UP, CSX/Frisco/Cotton Belt, and BNSF come together to cross the Mississippi River chain.

 

[Supervisor42]

Our first computer was an IBM PS 1, I ended up with it on a weird deal at a big box store, it wasn't supposed to be released to the public or some thing. It cost a fortune at the time, it didnt even have a modem . but it had both sizes of floppy disk drives. and you could copy form one to the other.

I go back before there were PC's, my first was a TRS-80 Color Computer with 16K of ram. No disk drives, just a cassette recorder that we could save programs on. We were so proud to have color and not be trapped in monochrome.
I still remember the day that the much-awaited chips, (that I had paid out the wazeoo for) finally arrived for me to upgrade it to 64K.
I had finally made the big time!

 

[LadyLocust]

I go back before there were PC's, my first was a TRS-80 Color Computer with 16K of ram. No disk drives, just a cassette recorder that we could save programs on. We were so proud to have color and not be trapped in monochrome.
I still remember the day that the much-awaited chips, (that I had paid out the wazeoo for) finally arrived for me to upgrade it to 64K.
I had finally made the big time!

Shhh! You're showing your age

 

[Spikedriver]

Good luck with the rail I remember Laying rail across a turntable bridge in winter over an area where the river current was about 4 or 5 miles an hour and the ties were icy.

A lot of things are hard to do when there are multiple railroads involved.

Kentucky Street in Memphis, Tn. is one of the places where NS, UP, CSX/Frisco/Cotton Belt, and BNSF come together to cross the Mississippi River chain.

This is off the end of a lift bridge. That's something new for me. I've worked around a few swing bridges before. We're laying rail from a control point at a diamond with CP/KC, to the Conley joint at the edge of the bridge tomorrow. I've never had to thread rail into a Conley joint before so I'll let the more experienced guys handle that. You may have called it something else - it's a lot like installing rail at a diamond. You have to thread the new rail in perfectly and then bolt it in. There will be one flash butt weld where the rail connects to the insulated joint at the diamond. Otherwise it's just a matter of pulling spikes and knocking off Pandrol clips, yanking out the old, laying in the new, plugging, spiking and clipping. Our Pettibone operator has only about 3 weeks of experience though, so it'll be a bit slow.

 

[dademoss]

I go back before there were PC's, my first was a TRS-80 Color Computer with 16K of ram. No disk drives, just a cassette recorder that we could save programs on. We were so proud to have color and not be trapped in monochrome.
I still remember the day that the much-awaited chips, (that I had paid out the wazeoo for) finally arrived for me to upgrade it to 64K.
I had finally made the big time!

SHOW OFF

 

[dademoss]

SHOW OFF

in 1978, we had a trash 80 in the lab, we all got to write basic programs

Tonight, all I feel is OLD.

 

[Supervisor42]

Shhh! You're showing your age

Remember, it was $399 in 1986, which was 3 weeks wages for a working-guy . (TV not included)

And that ad is for the early one with only 4K of ram (notice the medallion is offset to the left instead of in the center like the one I posted)

 

[dademoss]

Then there was MACINTOSH.

I been broke ever since

 

[Spikedriver]

Then there was MACINTOSH.

I remember doing some basic plotting on a Mac in 1989. I think it was a very basic CAD module in computer class...

 

[dademoss]

I remember doing some basic plotting on a Mac in 1989. I think it was a very basic CAD module in computer class...

My first Mac was a 128K, second was a "fat" mac with 512, I had a long discussion with my associate director at work when he wanted to take my SE30 . Yeah, he won, but for a long time I had the only MAC at the technical center.
. BTW, I had the BEST coffee on site . He came down EVERY MORNING for coffee and BS.

 

[montanabill]

I took a computer repair course where we worked on discarded commador 64's, sometime in the 80's.
Our first digital camera was given to us by the wifes genius son....it recorded on 3 1/2 floppys. Took some great photos that we still use and have stored on line and on portable hard drives.

 

[hashbrown]

We dug into something cool today.

 

[UrbanHunter]

All this stuff is making me feel old, TSR80s, VIC 20s, C64s, TI had one too, then they were all followed by the 80-88 clones, monochrome monitors and all.... It seemed like every other year the systems upgraded, hard drives were added (10Mb was big!). Word-perfect and Word were fighting tooth and nail. Fortran and Basic were the goto languages... Then the march started, 80-88s, 286, 386, 486, and off to infinity!

 

[LadyLocust]

We dug into something cool today.

View attachment 125803View attachment 125804View attachment 125805View attachment 125806

Find any bones, a bear, a treasure chest ?

 

[UrbanHunter]

Tomorrow is a downtown day, full dress... not thrilled.

 

[dademoss]

I took a computer repair course where we worked on discarded commador 64's, sometime in the 80's.
Our first digital camera was given to us by the wifes genius son....it recorded on 3 1/2 floppys. Took some great photos that we still use and have stored on line and on portable hard drives.

I have a sony, and a box of floppys in the archives . Still works.

 

[Amish Heart]

I have a rectangle shaped cassette recorder. Ha Ha.
And my alarm clock is one of those that you see on memes for boomers.

 

[Neb]

We dug into something cool today.

View attachment 125803View attachment 125804View attachment 125805View attachment 125806

Is that concrete on the floor?

How extensive is that void?

Are those stalactites forming of the roof?

Curious

Ben

 

[dademoss]

All this stuff is making me feel old, TSR80s, VIC 20s, C64s, TI had one too, then they were all followed by the 80-88 clones, monochrome monitors and all.... It seemed like every other year the systems upgraded, hard drives were added (10Mb was big!). Word-perfect and Word were fighting tooth and nail. Fortran and Basic were the goto languages... Then the march started, 80-88s, 286, 386, 486, and off to infinity!

I HATED FORTRAN, and COBAL. I programmed in "Macsym Basic" a superset of basic for a specialized data acquisition computer, specific to the project I was on.

I could talk fortran, the Differential Scanning Calorimeter talked in fortran. We had to change computers on that, nobody made a 10 MB drive anymore

Kinda strange to type that, as I sit in front of 12 terrabytes of storage :

 

[Neb]

I HATED FORTRAN, and COBAL. I programmed in "Macsym Basic" a superset of basic for a specialized data acquisition computer, specific to the project I was on.

I coded in machine languages, Macro, Basic, DCL, C before I found LabVIEW. I made a living designing and building data acquisition and automation projects. It was fun but I don't miss it one bit.

Ben

 

[LadyLocust]

I have a rectangle shaped cassette recorder. Ha Ha.
And my alarm clock is one of those that you see on memes for boomers.

With the two bells on top like this? The last one I got like that was a piece of junk. I had one for years that was great but it was really old. Wish I’d kept it and tried to find someone to fix it. I now have a battery operated digital cheapo that works

 

[Amish Heart]

No it's a plug in one. But it's at least 45 yrs old. Husband had it when we were dating. I have to laugh when I see a picture of it on those click baits that say...look what boomers used

 

[dademoss]

I'm gonna feel REALLY old when amazon delivers the supercomputer @zannej recommended.

BTW, thanks to @zannej for the recco.