Yes you are right modern technology is great but a fail safe backup system no matter how crude is a must. In the end the best computer you will ever own is between your ears. A Necktop.
bert
I think that puts me in the 16k Tandy catagory
alex
Now they wee cuting edge and only a little over $2000 and a dot matrix printer was only $1500... we worked out that in the office we spent over $25,000 on stuff that $300 would get ten fold today.. first luch box phone $4000 now a phone can be had for $50 or less
alex
Yep, had one of those too the, Dork Smuth "System 80", it too came with a humungous 16K of ram upgradeable to 48K (with dual floppy drives) if you bought the expansion interface. Permanent storage was on audio cassettes unless you had the expansion interface with FDD's.
The name Aristo and model Studio seens to ring a bell... and here you go, can't find mine at the moment, but, for those of us who have fond memories, here's Eric's Slide Rule Site
I was put off by computers in 1968 by a DEC PDP 8 with 2k of memory. It was the size of a fridge. It consisted of discrete component structure ie single transistors. You could get it to work better by connecting wires at the back OH JOY!. I had to learn machine code to do anything significant.
Now I have six computers and they collectively have more processing power than the whole of CSIRO had fifteen years ago.
And I still have trouble! Thats why I have six. One that works and the others to make sure it does!
Me too. The slide rule was a mystery for a while but I managed to master it. Mind you, if you put one in my hands now I'd probably be lost. How quickly we forget - unlike riding a bicycle.
I'm not sure whether or not I ever owned a slide rule though. My father was a surveyor so there was always one in the house for homework (his, mine and my siblings') and suchlike. My father eventually came into possession of a mechanical calculator. I cannot for the life of me remember what it was called but it wasn't half a miracle of mechanical engineering. It consisted of a cylinder with dial-up numerals around the top lip and a fold out device - it looked like a ring pull from a soft drink can, only much more solid - which, once your settings were done was whizzed around at a million miles an hour in order to perform the calculations. This was compacted into a cylinder about, oh, I don't know, say 3" high and 2" in diameter.
Alex, as a child I'd occasionally help the local milkman, sitting on the back of the dray and leaping off with a ladle (there's probably a more accurate term) and racing up to each front door to pour the milk into the jugs left on the doorsteps. When I started work in a bank one of my duties as office junior was to empty, wash and refill the inkwells (black and red). The ink had to be made freshly each day. Ballpoint pens were not allowed; the reasoning was that no one was sure as to how long such impressions would last, so, being tied down to a system which required long term retention of records, understandably they were banned.
I also had to set and light the fires in wintery weather. All calculations were done by hand. In order to get us sprogs up to speed we were given a page of the telephone book each day and consigned to a corner to add up a column of 'phone numbers. Ah, halcyon days.
Shame on you, Alex, for bringing back all these memories.
Me too. The slide rule was a mystery for a while but I managed to master it. Mind you, if you put one in my hands now I'd probably be lost. How quickly we forget - unlike riding a bicycle.
I'm not sure whether or not I ever owned a slide rule though. My father was a surveyor so there was always one in the house for homework (his, mine and my siblings') and suchlike. My father eventually came into possession of a mechanical calculator. I cannot for the life of me remember what it was called but it wasn't half a miracle of mechanical engineering. It consisted of a cylinder with dial-up numerals around the top lip and a fold out device - it looked like a ring pull from a soft drink can, only much more solid - which, once your settings were done was whizzed around at a million miles an hour in order to perform the calculations. This was compacted into a cylinder about, oh, I don't know, say 3" high and 2" in diameter.
Alex, as a child I'd occasionally help the local milkman, sitting on the back of the dray and leaping off with a ladle (there's probably a more accurate term) and racing up to each front door to pour the milk into the jugs left on the doorsteps. When I started work in a bank one of my duties as office junior was to empty, wash and refill the inkwells (black and red). The ink had to be made freshly each day. Ballpoint pens were not allowed; the reasoning was that no one was sure as to how long such impressions would last, so, being tied down to a system which required long term retention of records, understandably they were banned.
I also had to set and light the fires in wintery weather. All calculations were done by hand. In order to get us sprogs up to speed we were given a page of the telephone book each day and consigned to a corner to add up a column of 'phone numbers. Ah, halcyon days.
Shame on you, Alex, for bringing back all these memories.
The Curta Peppermill
Made in Lichtenstein
We used it to calculate with 9 digit Logarithms!
gee this is geriatric walk of fame in this thread!!!!!!!!
I was lucky and missed out on using the slide rule, however I lived through the sinclair, microbee and texas TI99A days, commmodore32 and the commodore64, the ibm ps1, HP Apollo then on into the 286's through to present. I still have my HP42 calculator, barcodereader wand, and programs
I remember the first year they allowed calculators to be used in my school.
The rules were that you were allowed to use them in general classes but they were banned in exams, a strange ruling that was revised after the first mid year exam when half the school did poorly.
Thanks, Jakob. I think the one my father used was more like the images below so it's probably just a later model that he had. (see attached images).
I must remember to ask my mother (who is still alive - my father passed away in 1977) if she still has the machine somewhere. Possibly not as it could well have belonged to the people for whom he worked.
This, by the way, was probably in the late '50s or, at a stretch, 1960.
We learned to use a slide rule throughout high school, but were the first year that were allowed to use non-programmable calculators for the HSC. I had a Hewlett-Packard HP32E reverse polish number. Great calc because no-one else knew how to use it - so it was never borrowed by anyone.
The Faber-Castell was my slide rule of choice. I had two, the wooden single face style, and then the upmarket. double sided plastic one. If I want to blow a few minds at work I'll bring it out occassionally to upset the younger engineers who have never seen them. But before the slide rule, there was the log tables, and I haven't seen them for a long time, and they never appeared in my kids school book lists either.
I saved a fortune, $200+, for my first HP33, back in 1972?. Currently using a HP39g+. First computing done at Swineburn Institute in Fortran with punch cards and day(s) turn-around times, provided your compiling was correct. My first experience with Basic, was with a machine the size of a fridge. Oh how its changed!
Yup, back in Oakleigh, we had milk and bread delivered by horse drawns carts in the mid to late 50's. I even remember when doctors made house calls!!!
Wasn't the HP35 was it? I know that it was released in 1972 as an "electronic sliderule". The HP33EC came out in 1978 along with my HP32E. All great units. I wish I still had mine as I now run a HP12C, but miss the larger form factor. Ah, those were the days.....
Me too, Graeme. Not so much as what they are but what they do to help your own memories of times of yore.
I have very little grey matter between my ears but whatever I do have I like to protect. Dredging out information stored and unused for year upon year is part of that exercise. For instance this thread has prompted me to research the site of two of my greatuncle's farms, on Google Earth, and then try and put my memories into context (after all an eight year old does see the world through different eyes than an old phart)
