R.I.P. Steve Jobs
- Thread starter Dakota
- Start date
Shame on everyone posting here with their "android app" signature. Well I guess without the one we wouldn't have the other 
Dakota
Veteran Expediter
Shame on everyone posting here with their "android app" signature. Well I guess without the one we wouldn't have the other
hahaha, I was thinking the same thing
Ah, the good old days. I was originally involved in Usenet when it was still on ARPANET. Jim Ellis and Tom Truscott were a couple of grad students at Duke who figured out a way to connect their computer at Duke to one at UNC using shell scripts written by Steve Bellovin in 1979. I moved in next door to Steve when he was working at AT&T Research Labs in New Jersey, and he introduced me to Jim and Tom and to the infant Usenet in 1980. In late 1981 I moved to Pittsburgh, where Jim was then working at Carnegie Mellon, where I got to continue my obsession with telecommunications and helping develop Usenet protocols using their computers and a UNIX terminal that I had at home.
In 1984 I got a Commodore 64 in order to be an alpha and beta tester for the PlayNET porting of what would become Quantumlink (A.K.A., Q-Link), but still continued with Usenet with my butt-kicking USR 300 baud modem and university terminal. I was a Q-Guide on Q-Link, and if you were on there and used GEOS, I was in the GEOS Technical Support group as one of the geoReps (I handled geoWrite, geoPublish, geoRAM, and printer drivers). I was then one of the five original beta testers for the Q-Link porting of what would become AOL, where I continued to work for AOL and Berkeley Softworks (GEOS) online.
By 1991 GEOS had faded into the shadow of Windows and AOL was driving me nuts, so I moved on and stuck primarily with Usenet and other online pursuits. Sadly, Jim Ellis died in 2001 at an early age, but I am still in contact with Steve Bellovin, who is a computer sciences professor at Columbia. I still think the Dr Emmett Brown character from Back to the Future was inspired by Steve Bellovin. You have no idea.
Dakota
Veteran Expediter
Ah, the good old days. I was originally involved in Usenet when it was still on ARPANET. Jim Ellis and Tom Truscott were a couple of grad students at Duke who figured out a way to connect their computer at Duke to one at UNC using shell scripts written by Steve Bellovin in 1979. I moved in next door to Steve when he was working at AT&T Research Labs in New Jersey, and he introduced me to Jim and Tom and to the infant Usenet in 1980. In late 1981 I moved to Pittsburgh, where Jim was then working at Carnegie Mellon, where I got to continue my obsession with telecommunications and helping develop Usenet protocols using their computers and a UNIX terminal that I had at home.
In 1984 I got a Commodore 64 in order to be an alpha and beta tester for the PlayNET porting of what would become Quantumlink (A.K.A., Q-Link), but still continued with Usenet with my butt-kicking USR 300 baud modem and university terminal. I was a Q-Guide on Q-Link, and if you were on there and used GEOS, I was in the GEOS Technical Support group as one of the geoReps (I handled geoWrite, geoPublish, geoRAM, and printer drivers). I was then one of the five original beta testers for the Q-Link porting of what would become AOL, where I continued to work for AOL and Berkeley Softworks (GEOS) online.
By 1991 GEOS had faded into the shadow of Windows and AOL was driving me nuts, so I moved on and stuck primarily with Usenet and other online pursuits. Sadly, Jim Ellis died in 2001 at an early age, but I am still in contact with Steve Bellovin, who is a computer sciences professor at Columbia. I still think the Dr Emmett Brown character from Back to the Future was inspired by Steve Bellovin. You have no idea.
****, my memory is failing me it was Q-link that I was on, not compuserve.
I was 14 at the time and remember you had to pay by the minute or hour so I was mowing lots of lawns to support my habit LOL
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What struck me when I received my AP mobile alert that Steve had passed was how many of us learned of his death on a device that he was instrumental in creating?
Dakota
Veteran Expediter
Did you have the color monitor and a 1541 disc drive?
I bought my C 64 at K-Mart on layaway LOL
Oh, I'm sorry Colour monitor for our Canadian speaking friends
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Dakota
Veteran Expediter
I know exactly what you mean. Even though my access was free for being a Qguide and for working for Berkeley, when I moved back to Murray from Nashville I lost my "local" dialup number, having to call long distance to connect. That severely cut into my online time, causing withdrawal symptoms. When I informed Berkeley Softworks about my dilemma and that I'd probably have to quit being a geoRep, they paid my LD phone bill to the tune of about $500 a month. That was kewl.
Oh yeah. I had dual 1541s, then dual 1571s (the double-sided, double-density 340K monster gggrrrr that you didn't have to punch a hole in and manually flip to use both sides), then with the C=128 I had dual 5¼" 1581 drives.
The only thing I never had was the tape drive, the Datasette or something like that. I used carts for the few games I played, and to get online. The 1541 came out pretty quickly after I got mine, so I went with that.
IIRC, I bought my C=64 at K-Mart, as well.
Dakota
Veteran Expediter
I remember using a hole punch on the disk so that you could use the other side, I had the tape drive also, because I started with a Vic 20.
Remember Compute's Gazette? I wish I saved some of those. I have a few old computer magazines from the early 80's that are fun to flip through. Things sure have changed LOL
Remember Compute's Gazette? I wish I saved some of those. I have a few old computer magazines from the early 80's that are fun to flip through. Things sure have changed LOL
You betcha. The Compute! Gazette, RUN, Ahoy, Commodore Power Play, Info, Commodore World, Die Hard, lots of them. I really liked it when they started including disks of all the programs in the magazine. Waaaay better than having to type in all those peeks and pokes.
Dakota
Veteran Expediter
You betcha. The Compute! Gazette, RUN, Ahoy, Commodore Power Play, Info, Commodore World, Die Hard, lots of them. I really liked it when they started including disks of all the programs in the magazine. Waaaay better than having to type in all those peeks and pokes.
I remember typing in those programs and was not and still am not a good typist, the machine language was the worst
Jack_Berry
Moderator Emeritus
All you guys using new tech are funny. I remember my cousin taking classes to learn computing with punch cards.Gracie even used a Sinclair for a while.
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I am here: http://maps.google.com/maps?ll=42.725751,-87.820223
Dakota
Veteran Expediter
My first computer was a Sinclair ZX Spectrum. 64 kB of memory, running at 3.5 Mhz. No disk drive, just a regular tape recorder and tapes. Those were the days, but we had fun with them.
Punch cards, then paper punch tapes then metal punch tapes. Before that, we loaded programs with buttons, no keyboard.
First computer I would on was 6 feet high, 30 feet long and 3 feet deep. It had to be keep at around 60 degrees or it crashed. ALL it did was store "stuff" from 20 operators AND put in a date and time hack at the end of every line I type. It was an AG22.
We even got a "special" addition to our MOS. NON AG 22 ops were 05H. Those of us WITH AG22 certifications were 05H20S3. Now, how exciting is that?
I am sorry to hear Mr. Jobs passed. He had a horrible disease. I don't think that I have ever used anything that he produced.
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