11 Feb
2013
11 Feb
'13
5:45 p.m.
Back in the early years of mass-computerism you had to be a
hobbyist/experimenter with good soldering skills to make computers do
what you wanted them to do. Today they do it without your input and/or
knowledge. Is that not scary? Were there prognosticators who predicted
what would be now, 35-40 yrs. on? Vintage/classic computing were the
safer years, maybe not as exciting! Maybe part of the answer is not to
be connected but we would lose out on participating in this forum and
so much more.
Murray--
12 Feb
12 Feb
4:36 a.m.
Or at least programming skills. I think the Vintage/classic years
were more exciting, but maybe that was because I was a kid, and these
adults let me play with all this cool adult stuff! (And sometimes
they didn't let me, but I did anyway...)
On 11 February 2013 22:45, Murray McCullough
<c.murray.mccullough at gmail.com> wrote:
Back in the early years of mass-computerism you had to
be a
hobbyist/experimenter with good soldering skills to make computers do
what you wanted them to do. Today they do it without your input and/or
knowledge. Is that not scary? Were there prognosticators who predicted
what would be now, 35-40 yrs. on? Vintage/classic computing were the
safer years, maybe not as exciting! Maybe part of the answer is not to
be connected but we would lose out on participating in this forum and
so much more.
Murray--
--
Yoyodyne Propulsion Systems: "The Future Begins Tomorrow"
Visit us at: http://www.yoyodyne-propulsion.net
--------
"The Market research says that people love monkeys."
--Wes Craven
10:11 a.m.
John Many Jars wrote:
Or at least programming skills. I think the
Vintage/classic years
were more exciting, but maybe that was because I was a kid, and these
adults let me play with all this cool adult stuff! (And sometimes
they didn't let me, but I did anyway...)
On 11 February 2013 22:45, Murray McCullough
<c.murray.mccullough at gmail.com> wrote:
>Back in the early years of mass-computerism you had to be a
>hobbyist/experimenter with good soldering skills to make computers do
>what you wanted them to do. Today they do it without your input and/or
>knowledge. Is that not scary? Were there prognosticators who predicted
>what would be now, 35-40 yrs. on? Vintage/classic computing were the
>safer years, maybe not as exciting! Maybe part of the answer is not to
>be connected but we would lose out on participating in this forum and
>so much more.
>
It was possible to feel the same way even when we were
officially adults, but still going to school. Back in 1960
when I was just 22, the adults let me play with an
IBM 650 (which was probably about as fast as a
calculator is today although it at least had 2000 words
of memory on a drum for both program and data - no
core yet even back then). The IBM 650 was a room
with a single computer and Air Conditioning. There was
no operating system and ONLY one person at a time
could use the hardware. My program took an hour to
calculate one value and I was able to get time from
midnight until the first person on the morning shift took
over (and stored the results produced on punched cards
in my box) when they cane into use the computer in the
morning.
So I never had to learn how to solder anything. Maybe
that is why I am a software addict rather than the more
"normal" hardware addict which is on this list.
Jerome Fine
10:28 a.m.
A big part of the reason IMO for the excitement in the earlier years of
computing technology was that models were varying and unique, whereas today
they are uniform and ubiquitous. There's not much today that differentiates
computers from the desktop machine on up to super computers except for the
scale. "Back then" computers used a variety of different processors and had
different models had strong points to them, storage technology was
different, etc.
Not to say that modern day computing technology isn't impressive. But we
have since at least the last decade or two entered an era of incremental
changes rather than radical ones.
On Tue, Feb 12, 2013 at 9:11 AM, Jerome H. Fine <jhfinedp3k at compsys.to>wrote:
John Many Jars
wrote:
Or at least programming skills. I think the Vintage/classic years
were more exciting, but maybe that was because I
was a kid, and these
adults let me play with all this cool adult stuff! (And sometimes
they didn't let me, but I did anyway...)
On 11 February 2013 22:45, Murray McCullough
<c.murray.mccullough at gmail.com**> wrote:
> Back in the early years of mass-computerism you had to be a
> hobbyist/experimenter with good soldering skills to make computers do
> what you wanted them to do. Today they do it without your input and/or
> knowledge. Is that not scary? Were there prognosticators who predicted
> what would be now, 35-40 yrs. on? Vintage/classic computing were the
> safer years, maybe not as exciting! Maybe part of the answer is not to
> be connected but we would lose out on participating in this forum and
> so much more.
>
> It was possible to feel the same way even when we were
officially adults, but
still going to school. Back in 1960
when I was just 22, the adults let me play with an
IBM 650 (which was probably about as fast as a
calculator is today although it at least had 2000 words
of memory on a drum for both program and data - no
core yet even back then). The IBM 650 was a room
with a single computer and Air Conditioning. There was
no operating system and ONLY one person at a time
could use the hardware. My program took an hour to
calculate one value and I was able to get time from
midnight until the first person on the morning shift took
over (and stored the results produced on punched cards
in my box) when they cane into use the computer in the
morning.
So I never had to learn how to solder anything. Maybe
that is why I am a software addict rather than the more
"normal" hardware addict which is on this list.
Jerome Fine
10:56 a.m.
On 2/12/2013 8:28 AM, Geoffrey Oltmans wrote:
A big part of the reason IMO for the excitement in the
earlier years of
computing technology was that models were varying and unique, whereas today
they are uniform and ubiquitous. There's not much today that differentiates
computers from the desktop machine on up to super computers except for the
scale. "Back then" computers used a variety of different processors and had
different models had strong points to them, storage technology was
different, etc.
Not to say that modern day computing technology isn't impressive. But we
have since at least the last decade or two entered an era of incremental
changes rather than radical ones.
Nah. The same as before, the SUITS still have the power. The average
person has the illusion of personal computing. Very little can be done
with typical computer, all development is still done on BIGGER machines.
The other Ben.
2:28 p.m.
On 02/12/2013 10:56 AM, ben wrote:
Nah. The same as before, the SUITS still have the
power. The average
person has the illusion of personal computing. Very little can be done
with typical computer, all development is still done on BIGGER machines.
The other Ben.
Heh. Speak for yourself. If that's the way you've chosen to do YOUR
computing, you get what you've got coming.
The "average person" can elect to attempt to use a complex tool
without learning a damn thing about it...they'll get what they've got
coming, too.
-Dave
--
Dave McGuire, AK4HZ
New Kensington, PA
1:01 p.m.
On Mon, 11 Feb 2013, Murray McCullough wrote:
Back in the early years of mass-computerism you had to
be a
hobbyist/experimenter with good soldering skills to make computers do
what you wanted them to do. Today they do it without your input and/or
knowledge.
"Today they do IT"??!?
What is "IT"?
Does that actually reference "what you wanted them to do"??
They certainly do things without input and/or knowledge, but not
necessarily what you wanted them to do!
Is that not scary? Were there prognosticators who
predicted
what would be now, 35-40 yrs. on?
Didn't we all?
". . . They will be everywhere, and in everything. You'll have
computers in watches, rings, earrings, fillings in your teeth,
and IMPLANTED. cf. "President's Analyst" And, if the SUITS
get control, they will do all sorts of things you don't want
and don't know about."
Vintage/classic computing were the
safer years, maybe not as exciting! Maybe part of the answer is not to
be connected but we would lose out on participating in this forum and
so much more.
Much more exciting. Current stuff is locked up - it is DIFFICULT to make
anything new or change anything existing. We are being forced into a role
of CONSUMERS (product for advertisers?) instead of artists and creators.
We don't even know WHO TPC is, anymore.
--
Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin at xenosoft.com
13 Feb
13 Feb
1:29 p.m.
Murray seems to want to get some discussion of our social
structure(s) in the good old days, . . .
<FORWARDED MESSAGE>
--------------------------------------------------------------
Date: 12 Feb 2013 03:16:43 -0800
From: Lee Felsenstein
Subject: EE380 talk Wednesday 4:15PM - Makers, Hackers and the Personal
computer Revolution
I will be giving the EE380 colloquium lecture Wednesday (2/13) at 4:15 PM,
on
the parallels and divergences between the maker movement and the early
personal computer industry (when it, too was still a "movement", propelled
by
passion and not riches).
With about 36 hours to put the slides and the outline together it will be
interesting to see the results. They will be streamed live and available
for
replay later - see http://EE380/Stanford.edu .
For more shameless self-promotion I offer my new website
www.leefelsenstein.com . I really must put up a notice of the 380 event
there...
Lee Felsenstein
http://www.leefelsenstein.com
2:02 p.m.
Fred Cisin wrote:
Murray seems to want to get some discussion of our
social
structure(s) in the good old days, . . .
<FORWARDED MESSAGE>
--------------------------------------------------------------
Date: 12 Feb 2013 03:16:43 -0800
From: Lee Felsenstein
Subject: EE380 talk Wednesday 4:15PM - Makers, Hackers and the Personal
computer Revolution
I will be giving the EE380 colloquium lecture Wednesday (2/13) at 4:15 PM,
on
the parallels and divergences between the maker movement and the early
personal computer industry (when it, too was still a "movement", propelled
by
passion and not riches).
With about 36 hours to put the slides and the outline together it will be
interesting to see the results. They will be streamed live and available
for
replay later - see http://EE380/Stanford.edu .
bad link - try this: http://www.stanford.edu/class/ee380/
John :-#)#
For more shameless self-promotion I offer my new
website
www.leefelsenstein.com . I really must put up a notice of the 380 event
there...
Lee Felsenstein
http://www.leefelsenstein.com
--
John's Jukes Ltd. 2343 Main St., Vancouver, BC, Canada V5T 3C9
Call (604)872-5757 or Fax 872-2010 (Pinballs, Jukes, VideoGames)
www.flippers.com
"Old pinballers never die, they just flip out"
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days inactive
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days old
8 comments
8 participants
participants (8)
-
bfranchuk＠jetnet.ab.ca -
c.murray.mccullough＠gmail.com -
cisin＠xenosoft.com -
jhfinedp3k＠compsys.to -
john＠yoyodyne-propulsion.net -
mcguire＠neurotica.com -
oltmansg＠gmail.com -
pinball＠telus.net