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To: rdb3; Calvinist_Dark_Lord; GodGunsandGuts; CyberCowboy777; Salo; Bobsat; JosephW; ...

Long, but fun.

2 posted on 06/03/2009 6:35:11 AM PDT by ShadowAce (Linux -- The Ultimate Windows Service Pack)
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To: ShadowAce

Yes, memory lane.

I had a much modified Trash 80, full compliment of memeory 64K on mother board by strobing stacked chips. No hard drive, and twin 5-1/4 floppies. Long term storage was a magnetic tape drive.

Terrible RF generator. Could not have a radio within 50 feet of the unit, even with a RF suppressed home brew power supply.

I was pretty good with DOS and Basic then. Oddly, still use some of those skills. Pretty comfortable with command line.

PC’s have always been “another tool” for me, have never got into having the latest just to have it. Utility user.


6 posted on 06/03/2009 6:46:47 AM PDT by Texas Fossil (Once a Republic, Now a State, Still Texas)
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To: ShadowAce

Interesting, but devoting an entire museum to computer history is a little too geeky for me.


7 posted on 06/03/2009 6:47:09 AM PDT by shorty_harris
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To: ShadowAce
Intersting, thanks for posting.

Years ago, a buddy in the Air Force built an Altair. He called me late one night and told me to come over... he had hooked up an old teletype to it and had finally been able to get the Altair to ring the bell on the teletype. Drove his wife crazy playing with that thing. :-)

32 posted on 06/03/2009 8:08:16 AM PDT by ken in texas (come fold with us - team #36120)
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To: ShadowAce
Taking off on this theme....came across some fascinating ...stuff:

The Big Boys of Computing’s Early Days

Build Your Own Linux Ubuntu Supercomputer For Under $350

****************************EXCERPT*******************************

Jun 2, 2009, 21 :03 UTC

"What's more interesting is that, on average, I would guess that most of these machines will never be used to 1/100 of one percent of their capacity. What a waste of power. See On Programming: Ecocode.

"Note that a copy of Vista would cost $100, over a quarter the cost of the hardware. Thank goodness we have Linux Ubuntu available at no cost.

"Note especially the CDC 6600, the world’s largest supercomputer from 1966 to the early 1970’s. It cost almost $10 million in 1970 dollars. You can now get a machine that is several orders of magnitudes bigger in memory , , with one terabyte of disk space, AND faster, for less than 1/30000th the price of the 6600.

"Or put the other way, the CDC 6600 would cost at least three hundred billion dollars today!!"

39 posted on 06/03/2009 11:13:31 AM PDT by Ernest_at_the_Beach (Support Geert Wilders)
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