Remember when?

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No thank God, I got involved with computers at the tail end of everything computer related costing $$$$Thousands of Dollars$$$$. I can remember still using Windows for Workgroups 3.11 because I was too cheep to buy Windows 95, it wasn't until Windows 98 came out that I picked up a set of all the Win95 floppies at the swapmeet for cheep or a swap (can't remember). Same goes for Mac OS 7.6, I got that OS at a yard sale for $2.00 like a week after OS8 came out, never really figured out which was worse, I was on the final days of being a Mac user.
 
I remember those 300 baud modems well. Also the faster Develcon DS512 modems which used two phone lines, one for send and the other for recieve giving an effective 512 baud speed. In 1975 we purchased the first Dec 11/70 computer and used it as a time sharing system. We had a bank of 300 baud dial-up modems and a dozen or so dedicated paired phone lines for customers across the country who wanted dedicated super high speed 512 modems. Looking back it was a ludicrous setup, about 25 users could login at the same time to a half million dollar machine dumber than a sack of rocks. Even crazier, everybody raved over the "high speed". Today a kid with a smartphone blows away everything we had!
:lol:
 
I started out with a 300 baud "Pocket modem" for my Commodore 64. This was before the internet; I used it mostly to connect to local computer BBSes. It did not have a phone coupler; by that time designers were smart enough to figure out how to embed the circuitry to connect the modem directly to the phone jack.

I remember some BBSes supported non-standard baud rates and I used a terminal program that did also. On those I could get my modem up to 480 baud, and I thought I was really flying then!
 
My grandfather used to bake computer circuits in his oven years before anyone else in our family had a computer. He would make memory expansion for his timex Sinclair using a reel to reel recorder. He also made his own video tape recorder at least a decade before anyone had ever heard of a vcr. It has huge tapes with some family videos on it. I think it was called cartrivision or something like that
 
Jon O. said:
My grandfather used to bake computer circuits in his oven years before anyone else in our family had a computer. He would make memory expansion for his timex Sinclair using a reel to reel recorder. He also made his own video tape recorder at least a decade before anyone had ever heard of a vcr. It has huge tapes with some family videos on it. I think it was called cartrivision or something like that
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Very cool! What was your grandfather's occupation?

My grandad took radio and TV repair courses at night school, and built a bunch of his own test equipment from kits, some Heathkit but mostly Eico kits. A tube tester, oscilloscope, frequency generator, voltmeter, and some others I don't remember.

I remember my dad borrowing grandad's tube tester occasionally to diagnose problems with our TV. Then he would drive down to East Hamilton Radio with a list of replacement tubes he needed to buy. Finally one year they said they were no longer in the business of selling tubes and he was just going to have to buy a new TV.
 
Jon O. said:
My grandfather used to bake computer circuits in his oven years before anyone else in our family had a computer.
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One tip I got from the MIT geeks at the swap meet was cleaning corroded/tarnished circuit boards in the dishwasher, something about dishwasher powder which isn't actually soap but fine sand that would take off all the crude on the solder joints cleaning them up bright for re-soldering. Never tried it myself but have washed motherboards to get rid of the dust and other crude (I smoke) that gets on there running 24/7 because of the fans. Then there was the girlfriends Power Mac that took me over an hour to get the case open because of all the cat fur that had collected in there like a vacuum cleaner bag (packed).:eek:

You can find videos on YouTube on 'Re-Balling' SMD's now whereas years ago this was considered impossible.
 
Mike66Chryslers said:
Very cool! What was your grandfather's occupation?

My grandad took radio and TV repair courses at night school, and built a bunch of his own test equipment from kits, some Heathkit but mostly Eico kits. A tube tester, oscilloscope, frequency generator, voltmeter, and some others I don't remember.

I remember my dad borrowing grandad's tube tester occasionally to diagnose problems with our TV. Then he would drive down to East Hamilton Radio with a list of replacement tubes he needed to buy. Finally one year they said they were no longer in the business of selling tubes and he was just going to have to buy a new TV.
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He worked at a factory that made chains, and had access to a lot of the machinery there. Anybody in our family will tell you he is a genius.
I used to have an eico tube tester, and I still have an oscilloscope. I used to spend a lot of time fixing tube tvs and radios for people.
 
Jon O. said:
He worked at a factory that made chains, and had access to a lot of the machinery there. Anybody in our family will tell you he is a genius.
I used to have an eico tube tester, and I still have an oscilloscope. I used to spend a lot of time fixing tube tvs and radios for people.
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When I was in school I told my dad that I wanted my own oscilloscope. He said that we had one, grandad built it himself. I tried to explain why that old antique was adequate for fixing tube TVs, but useless for the high-speed digital circuits I was working on. It didn't even have an external trigger input to capture aperiodic signals. I may as well have been talking Greek.
 
Fury440 said:
I remember those 300 baud modems well. Also the faster Develcon DS512 modems which used two phone lines, one for send and the other for recieve giving an effective 512 baud speed. In 1975 we purchased the first Dec 11/70 computer and used it as a time sharing system. We had a bank of 300 baud dial-up modems and a dozen or so dedicated paired phone lines for customers across the country who wanted dedicated super high speed 512 modems. Looking back it was a ludicrous setup, about 25 users could login at the same time to a half million dollar machine dumber than a sack of rocks. Even crazier, everybody raved over the "high speed". Today a kid with a smartphone blows away everything we had!
:lol:
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Amazing how slow the early machines were, but the Americans landed men on the moon and brought them home safely using computers of similar or slower speeds which is more amazing.
 
LeBaron1973 said:
Amazing how slow the early machines were, but the Americans landed men on the moon and brought them home safely using computers of similar or slower speeds which is more amazing.
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Don't forget someone that knew how to do that math had to program those machines, and everyone working on those missions could do that math. Back then any person on the street could do math. Anyone my age now has to use a calculator in school or they fail any test, not me. I use my brain, I always count change with the cashier in my head as they pull change out of the drawer. You wouldn't believe the deer in the headlights look I get when I say they forgot a nickel.
I once had a manager at goodwill forget a dime, and when I told him, he had already closed the register. He looked dead at me and muttered "Of course I get the one damn millennial that pays attention," and went to get the key.
 
LeBaron1973 said:
True, I recall a news piece (obituary I think) on an African American woman who did the orbital calculations for the moon shots, like you said, pen and paper or whatever calculating device they had then.
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They made a movie on the subject. Hidden Figures.
 
Jon O. said:
Ive been looking, but it isn't too high priority. I have a clothesline, and now that its winter I dry them on basement pipes, chairs etc. And people say planned obsolescence is not a real thing... This is the only problem either one of them has ever had. You would be lucky to get 10 years out of a new set.
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Are you Amish? Buy a Friggin drier for the love of Mike... Sheezus .... :poke:
 
78Brougham said:
Are you Amish? Buy a Friggin drier for the love of Mike... Sheezus .... :poke:
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Not Amish at all. Just bought the part, ill fix it soon enough. Ill let y'all know when it works again since it is such a huge deal.
P.S. that Yosemite Sam picture makes your post look like you were telling not asking... haha
 
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