Jason T wrote:
Memory flood! I don't remember those there....but
I don't think I had
any classes that used them. I just remember them from the Engineering
Open House days (which would have been a similar period, probably
88-90.) They could very well have been those boxes rather than the
wooden ones, which I've probably seen in pictures and inserted into my
memories. Definitely had the orange plasma screens, though.
I remember some of the
wooden ones. University High (the high school
affiliated with UIUC) had some wooden ones in their lab. Uni High was a
destination for chess matches in high school (I sucked at chess, but the
local C64 heads went, so it was a cheap way to meet them each week or
two). Having only seen PC-XTs and home computers, those slanted wooden
beasts looked so foreign to me in 87-89. Little did I know I would be
using them in 90.
My hangout was 8-English (wonder when the old-school terminals were
finally removed? I still remember my
uxa.cso.uiuc.edu login, and
picking up my greenbar printouts in the mailtray next to the
sysadmin's desk down there) and occasionally DCL... They had a couple
NeXTs and an Amiga 500 on ethernet! Oh, the mighty speed of Kermit!
jlb31348 at
uxa.cso.uiuc.edu. Google (via Dejanews) has most of my old
postings under that ID. The accounts are coded. 3 initials, the year
of creation (3rd year of offering student IDs, I believe), and a 4 digit
number. As I recall, the student accounts ran on some multi-68K CPU
unix box that was sitting in the basement of the Illini Union. I saw
the behemoth while using the X terminals in that lab. Years before
Vista eye candy, I remember folks writing elaborate scripts so they
could have all their X goodies (xv, xeyes, etc.) come up on any X
terminal anywhere on campus, whether it be the IBM RTs, the Sparcs, or
the RS6000 units in DCL. I, sadly, was never that motivated, so I just
xterm'ed and started things by hand. I think the box was a Sequent, but
I'm not sure, memory is already fading.
To get (somewhat) back on topic, I knew there were lots of discussion
groups in the PLATO system, but UIUC was on NFSNet, and the dorm labs
got IP before I arrived. After someone tipped me off to USENET, PLATO
was relegated to schoolwork only.
Oh, but 333-1100 coupled with Novaterm 8.X (or maybe 9.1) and my trusty
2400 bps Zoom modem saved my bacon all through the CS classes. Being
able to code machine problems (MPs) from the room was pure nirvana.
Novaterm's soft-80 mode and reliable 2400bpx routines made it a platform
of choice. It sounds crazy, but I used that 64 for all my college work
until late 1992. PLATO on the 64, MPs via Novaterm, and term papers via
GEOS and my OKI180 printer.
Jim
--
Jim Brain, Brain Innovations (X)
brain at
jbrain.com
Dabbling in WWW, Embedded Systems, Old CBM computers, and Good Times!
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