[AT] OT - computer advice

[Phil Vorwerk]

OK, I can't resist. 

I went to St. Olaf in the early 80's, just at the start of the PC
revolution.  The Chair of the Economics Department was trying to explain
during class one day how cool we had it for computers, with a PDP and VAX
mainframe system available to us and the coming wave of PC's.  He had taught
at MIT in the 50's, and the computer that they were working on "would fill
the basement of this facility".  The computer had a total memory capacity of
8K, and when they tried to run their first program they learned that the
program slightly exceeded 8K. After scratching their heads for a bit, they
came up with a solution: they took the random number generator out of the
program, and instead shuffled the punch cards by hand to come up with random
numbers.

I always loved that story....

Phil V
In temperate New Ulm, MN

-----Original Message-----
From: at-bounces at lists.antique-tractor.com
[mailto:at-bounces at lists.antique-tractor.com] On Behalf Of Steve W.
Sent: Tuesday, August 05, 2014 1:09 PM
To: Antique tractor email discussion group
Subject: Re: [AT] OT - computer advice

Stephen Offiler wrote:
> I go back to Radio Shack TRS-80, Timex-Sinclair 1000, Commodore 64, and
> Apple IIe.  Dinosaur enough for ya?
> 
> SO


Nope...

My first "computer" was an IBM 704 that used a stack of hollerith cards 
for data entry and storage was on tape reels. Learned FORTRAN, COBAL and 
others.

First "home" computer was an Altair 8800, also had Coleco, Commodore 
PET., Sinclair, TI 99/4 a few different IBM boxes. Couple AST machines. 
Worked for Rat Shack when the trash 80s came out.


What's really amazing is that I started out on machines that took hours 
to boot the OS and longer to finish the run, and these days I'm ticked 
when it takes more than 30 seconds to boot a computer...

-- 
Steve W.
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