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Location:
Sydney
Registered:
September 2004
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The Good ol' days of computers
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Mon, 17 January 2005 07:17
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Location:
Coffs Harbour, NSW
Registered:
November 2004
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Re: The Good ol' days of computers
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Mon, 17 January 2005 07:29
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| Quote: |
lightning fast 20MHz
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bahahaha 
does that say "provides RAM-fast access to your data"? wtf? 
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Location:
Sydney
Registered:
September 2004
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Re: The Good ol' days of computers
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Mon, 17 January 2005 07:31
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probably a memory caching program like smartdrv that came with DOS....
$8499.00 monitor and mouse NOT included hehe
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Location:
Brisbane, QLD, Australia
Registered:
May 2002
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Re: The Good ol' days of computers
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Mon, 17 January 2005 07:56
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It's using MCA so it could have a small memory cache on the I/O controller. 
That's a pretty advanced machine for it's time, but I would expect at least a 20MB HDD for that price though to be included, heck, even the monitor and mouse included too.
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Banned User
Location:
Camden (Sydney)
Registered:
September 2004
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Re: The Good ol' days of computers
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Mon, 17 January 2005 08:08
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No way! when did you take picture of my living room?
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Location:
Perth
Registered:
August 2003
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Re: The Good ol' days of computers
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Mon, 17 January 2005 10:13
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shit we paid $4000 for a 486 model in the early 90's
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Location:
Land of Oz
Registered:
June 2004
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Re: The Good ol' days of computers
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Mon, 17 January 2005 11:24
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Hi,
I paid $88AUD for an Intel MDS-225 system just before Christmas.
This beast comes in three pieces - the main unit with 8-inch single drive 250k byte floppy and 12inch B&W monitor (a mere 49kg), the 4-slot expansion chasis (a sprightly 17kg) and the superlative twin double-density 8-inch floppy diskette array (500k byte per floppy and 26kg).
This light and portable system was the ducks-nuts back in 1976 when it cost 28,000USD to buy.
This baby runs an 8-bit 8080 processor that screams along at 2Mhz. It has 64K of RAM, which is it's maximum - unless you want to get into bank switching stuff.
One of my most minimal systems is a Motorola MEK6800D2 kit. The 6800 series processor runs at 640khz and has 128 bytes of RAM, but I doubled it to 256bytes of RAM. It has only a hex keypad for input and the output is 6 7-segment LED displays. I can hook up a cassette unit for mass storage (well... until I hit the 256byte RAM limit anyway) at 300bps transfer rate. This baby was made in the late 70's and sold, in kit form, for $400AUD.
I have an old IMSAI system that has address and data switches - in binary - and you gotta set up the address switches, then set up the data switches and then hit the "load" switch. Then onto the next address and data stuff. No boot ROM in this old beast.
None of this poofy GUI or pretty graphical stuff for me. Hell, I've taken the mouse off the PC's at home. I tell the family if you want respect from me you gotta use the keyboard to navigate around the system.
The best thing about Win95 and later is I can open multiple DOS sessions.....
seeyuzz
(Old man) river
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Location:
1st street on the right
Registered:
November 2002
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Re: The Good ol' days of computers
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Mon, 17 January 2005 12:09
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I thought I'd be the only one who'd know what an imsai was. But then I just built a system for a friend (p4, 2gig ram etc) and installed a 5 inch Fdd for a laugh. Ever seen a reel to reel modified to work as an external tape drive? thats low speed data access
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Location:
brisbane
Registered:
October 2004
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Re: The Good ol' days of computers
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Tue, 18 January 2005 12:04
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and the shameful thing - we still use 32 bit 
64 bit is pretty much useless until the software is
designed for it. but how mad are these old computers!
bill gates "no one will ever need more than 640k ram"
i saw ancient memory at my course - grid memory with metal
lines and metal beads that could be charged or read -
now that was awesome!
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Location:
Land of Oz
Registered:
June 2004
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Re: The Good ol' days of computers
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Tue, 18 January 2005 21:11
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Hi,
The most shameful thing is the shit programmers that now inherit the world.
Let me take you back with another old-man river tale.....
Back in the 70's and early-mid 80s the hardware was very expensive but programmer time was quite cheap. We programmed in assembler and then walked-through and hand-optimised our code for compactness and performance. To get more performance you'd have to again go through and try and optimise your code. No one was gonna spend another few thousand dollars for an extra 16K of memory!
As hardware prices fell and programmer wages skyrocketed, the situation reversed. The solution now is to buy another processor or whack more memory in the bitch. Don't bother fixing or tightening your code. You can get away with shit code now and trust me, I've seen a lot of code that would make baby jesus cry.
I think all programmers should spend some time with little 8bit processors, doing assembly language - so they can understand the hardware (ie CPU registers, stack, memory limits, instruction cycle timings and interrupts) before they go off and write bloated inefficient code that does bugger all and still sucks the life out of a 3Ghz Pentium with 2G of RAM.
There are still some great programmers out there, but the vast majority are crap.
I liken it, in some fashion, to the cars of years ago to the ones that will probably be in our future. Take your old 1970s era car - with no ABS, manual transmission, manual choke, etc - just your basic old style car. Look to the future and see cars that have all the mod things - say, ABS, adaptive suspension, and the ability to drive in traffic without driver interference, auto-transmission, automatic everything etc. I think the 70's era vehicle demands more from the driver and it's a hell of a lot more fun. If you're just a passenger, then I guess the later era cars are better for you.
64bits, to me, equal more inneficient programming, more bloated OS and pretty graphics that does bugger-all (excpet for top-notch games, where graphical capabilites are necessary).
Well, that's my rant. Luckily I didn't get onto the hardware aspects of todays electronics where everything is thrown away if its broken. I like to build my systems from the chip level upwards and fix them (down to chip level), which is damn near impossible with the SMT, PLA and PGA type of hardware around today. Besides, this shit goes into landfill and there's some very nasty stuff in PCBs and chips that will leak into the environment.
seeyuzz
river
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Location:
c'town, NSW
Registered:
May 2002
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Location:
Land of Oz
Registered:
June 2004
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Re: The Good ol' days of computers
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Tue, 18 January 2005 21:36
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Hi
| styler wrote on Tue, 18 January 2005 23:04 |
i saw ancient memory at my course - grid memory with metal
lines and metal beads that could be charged or read -
now that was awesome!
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That's called "core memory". It was used on the older style (60's-70's) mainframe computers and some mini-computers of the same vintage. Some companies, like Intel, dabbled a little with this type of memory and called it "bubble memory".
It worked by magnetizing the little metal ring. Each time the memory was being read it would destroy the magnetism so the system had to have a "sense" line that told it the ring was indeed magnetised before it was read. If this happens, after the data is read the system has to remagnetise the ring again.
Usually there is a large metal plate, that is earthed, that goes over the top of the ring matrix to prevent unwanted or spurious spikes that can change the memory. I used to program and repair Data General Nova mini-computers and the memory board was 15 by 15 inches and had a grand total of 4K core memory. Core memory also retains its status when powered-off, so you don't lose your data in a power failure.
Modern dynamic memory chips are similar in that when the data bit is read it drains the capacitor charge and needs to be reset if required. Furthermore, dynamic memory requires constant updating - called refreshing - to maintain its data. Hence the term "dynamic". Between the CPU cycles the memory controller chip scans the entire memory row & column addresses and checks each bit. If it was a "1", it then refreshes the bit 'cos all the little bits are merely baby-sized capacitors that can hold a charge for a very short period. If it ain't refreshed before it's charge vanishes then you lose data. Dynamic memory loses its data when power is lost.
I think that's enough techno and historic babble from Uncle River today
seeyuzz
river
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Location:
Land of Oz
Registered:
June 2004
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Re: The Good ol' days of computers
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Tue, 18 January 2005 21:44
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Hi,
| rob_RA40 wrote on Wed, 19 January 2005 08:32 |
i dont understand the reasoning behind this river.
GUI was conceptualised and the computer mouse was invented in 1964!
its not one of those "the kids are using one of those fandangled mouse things", it was made in your time, so why take it away from your computer?
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Awww, I was just having a lend
seeyuzz
river
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Location:
c'town, NSW
Registered:
May 2002
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Location:
Land of Oz
Registered:
June 2004
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Re: The Good ol' days of computers
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Tue, 18 January 2005 22:12
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Hi,
Hehehe..
Hey, I love that old mouse pic you put up. I can just imagine one of the kids asking "Why have you got a shoe-box connected to the computer?"
"That's no shoe-box, that's the mouse!"
I'd have muscles like Popeye after pushing that thing about the desk for a week or so!
seeyuzz
river
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Location:
1st street on the right
Registered:
November 2002
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Re: The Good ol' days of computers
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Wed, 19 January 2005 11:35
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| river wrote on Wed, 19 January 2005 08:11 |
Hi,
The most shameful thing is the shit programmers that now inherit the world.
We programmed in assembler and then walked-through and hand-optimised our code for compactness and performance. To get more performance you'd have to again go through and try and optimise your code. No one was gonna spend another few thousand dollars for an extra 16K of memory!
As hardware prices fell and programmer wages skyrocketed, the situation reversed. The solution now is to buy another processor or whack more memory in the bitch. Don't bother fixing or tightening your code. You can get away with shit code now and trust me, I've seen a lot of code that would make baby jesus cry.
I think all programmers should spend some time with little 8bit processors, doing assembly language - so they can understand the hardware (ie CPU registers, stack, memory limits, instruction cycle timings and interrupts) before they go off and write bloated inefficient code that does bugger all and still sucks the life out of a 3Ghz Pentium with 2G of RAM.
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Where doI sign up for your church?
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Location:
Melbourne - NthSubs
Registered:
January 2004
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Re: The Good ol' days of computers
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Wed, 19 January 2005 11:51
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ui like how theres a line going through "Our" in
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Our most power full computer ever!
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Location:
Melbourne
Registered:
December 2004
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Re: The Good ol' days of computers
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Fri, 21 January 2005 07:52
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| river wrote on Wed, 19 January 2005 08:11 |
Besides, this shit goes into landfill and there's some very nasty stuff in PCBs and chips that will leak into the environment.
seeyuzz
river
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oh the irony
PCB = poly chlorinated biphenol (one of the bad daddies of the toxic world)
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Location:
Adelaide
Registered:
September 2003
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Re: The Good ol' days of computers
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Sat, 22 January 2005 00:16
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Location:
Australia
Registered:
December 2002
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Re: The Good ol' days of computers
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Sat, 22 January 2005 12:28
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There is only one word for 1989...
AMIGA
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Location:
brisbane
Registered:
February 2004
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Re: The Good ol' days of computers
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Sat, 22 January 2005 12:44
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Can't believe someone brought up the AMIGA.(Cue blurry memory recounting effect) I used to have an AMIGA 500+. Thought it was THE SHIT when i first got it. (End blurry memory recounting effect).
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Location:
Brisbane, QLD, Australia
Registered:
May 2002
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Re: The Good ol' days of computers
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Sat, 22 January 2005 13:02
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| ra23mad wrote on Sat, 22 January 2005 10:16 |
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That picture has proven to be fake. It's really a control center in a submarine or something like that. The printer/keyboard thing and the TV were chopped in. I think the dude was too.
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Location:
Albury
Registered:
January 2005
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Re: The Good ol' days of computers
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Sat, 22 January 2005 14:17
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not a bad chop job actually
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Location:
Land of Oz
Registered:
June 2004
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Re: The Good ol' days of computers
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Sun, 23 January 2005 06:21
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Hi,
In any event, it's an hellaciously impressive computer room - considering it'd probably be able to play noughts & crosses and bnugger all else. I'd hate to see the power bill.
And..... where's the godamn "shoebox" mouse?????
seeyuzz
river
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Location:
Melbourne
Registered:
December 2004
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Re: The Good ol' days of computers
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Sun, 23 January 2005 16:11
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and it's got a steering wheel
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Location:
Epping, Sydney
Registered:
April 2003
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Re: The Good ol' days of computers
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Sun, 23 January 2005 21:51
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Location:
Melbourne
Registered:
December 2004
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Re: The Good ol' days of computers
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Mon, 24 January 2005 07:58
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ahahah i still have 1 of those and i gave it to my grandpa to type up his life story on... lol
then he asked if he could connect it to the internet
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