On 18 Jan 2007 at 0:02, Ethan Dicks wrote:
And we
haven't even gotten to the feel of the keyboards and their
layouts...
Too true - for me, I type fast enough that tactile feedback and layout
_matters_. I have spent many hours on DEC keyboards (VT52, VT100,
LK201 (VT220, DECmate...), etc), and Commodores (PET, VIC-20, C-64),
Amiga, etc., and I fall into a different rhythm with each one.
I was never able to touch-type on an ASR-33. I automatically
degraded to a two-finger approach.
Otherwise, I was raised on keypunch. You learn to type *very*
accurately and blindly on an 026 (or if you were really unlucky, an
024 that didn't print on the card). Chunka-chunka-chunk. clickety-
clunk...
I hated terminals, probably because most of them were on the end of a
300 baud link at best. The first ones I used were something like
64x8--old CDC models without the memory upgrade to 64x16. I try to
forget them.
Personal computers changed a lot--you had a keyboard and display, as
in a terminal, but you talk to the local computer at 9600 or 19200
baud. I wrote programs for my Altair (and succeeding computers) and
talked to the remote boxes with a modem scavenged from a Silent 700
(acoustic coupler). I initially used a Techtran dual-cassette paper-
tape emulator as my offline storage and moved to floppy when I could.
Editing was local and fast. It was wonderful. The Silent 700
terminal eventually was replaced with a nice Racal Vadic that could
do 1200 baud (and use Racal protocol to do, what?--2000 baud when
talking to another Racal).
When I was later setting up a programming shop, everyone got a VT220
clone (I don't recall whose--it may have been Tab) on their desks--
except me. I brought in my IBM PC and my homebrew hard disk (one of
those Shugart 4MB 8" jobs; I recently discovered my interface card
for it). I was a lot more productive than the guys with the 220's and
wasn't bothered nearly as much when the VAX went down.
I don't miss terminals (or keypunches or teletypes) one bit.
Cheers,
Chuck