HUMOR: How long have you been in this business?

[Gerry]

..you can remember the project you were working on during the Challenger Shuttle disaster.

...slaving away on a PLC-3 with -T4 programmer, -SB tape deck, and Xycom documentation system (8 in. floppies, P-system O/S).

What does it mean if you remember what you were working on during the first moon landing?
...anyone even heard of Philips Norbits? (RTL nor gates wired with crimp connectors)

Some of the down-under oldies may remember Pye Hi-Log.

 

[jstolaruk]

..you can remember the project you were working on during the Challenger Shuttle disaster. Bonus points for you if the place is still open, and the project you were working on is still running.

Yes, sadly, I was coming back from lunch when I heard the news; the place is barely still open; and the project long ago was replaced.

..you've bid on a project to upgrade or ripout a project you originally installed 'years ago'. Bonus points if the owner didn't know that you were involved originally.

Yes, several times, and no, I'm not even sure the customer contact was even born when it was originally installed.

 

[Andybr]

Peter.
Are your machines supplied by Key Technology. We have a number of different versions of their ADR machines which go back as far as ADR2's which use 68000 processors on VME bus. The current machines use free download versions of LINUX and look nicer but I suspect that they might become a support headache.
Andybr

 

[Sheldn]

...You wondered why the Allen Bradley KT card for PCs has 64 pins and only uses 3...

...you had to order 15 pin D-shell connectors for the PLC-5 and KF module from Radio Shack...

...A null modem connector, gender changer, and break out box/traffic cop was an essential part of your tool kit.

 

[Tom Jenkins]

Man, I am getting too old for this stuff.

- going through a program shortening variable names and eliminating "X" from NEXT X so it would fit in available memory

 

[DJM]

CP/M check
8080 and 8086 check
TRS 80 check
PDP-8, PDP-11/23;44;84 check
HP-1000 check
Rebooting from the Switch register (HP) check
IPC 90 PLC (ISSC) check

Does anyone remember Bubble memory? It was all the rage!

 

[Peter Nachtwey]

Peter.
Are your machines supplied by Key Technology.

No. We make machines that are much different than the Key Technology machines. We compete with Key in a limited way. We are not users, we are suppliers.

We have a number of different versions of their ADR machines which go back as far as ADR2's which use 68000 processors on VME bus. The current machines use free download versions of LINUX and look nicer but I suspect that they might become a support headache.
Andybr

Can you still get support? I have heard this is an issue.

 

[Lancie1]

Perhaps there are some equally good tests of longevity..??

How about: Designing a control panel for an experimental process plant, using 110 timer relays in 2 large 72" cabinets, before PLCs and computers were in use, and integrated circuit (IC) chips were only an idea that Kilby and Noyce just thought of (circa 1960).

Years later, I was involved in selling the same plant equipment to a salvage dealer, then tearing down the buildings and planting grass on the site.

How about: Working at NASA in the 1960's (Marshall Space Flight Center) and sitting in meetings with von Braun and the other German scientists brought over after WWII. I had many talks with engineers who worked on the early rockets at Cape Canaveral in the 1950's and described those as the "good old days at NASA". They would design a circuit, build it, hop on a military plane to Florida, install the circuit board in a rocket, then watch it lift off. There were many failures! While there, I worked on the flight computer for the Saturn V rocket, and a bunch of other stuff that I have forgotten except at rare times....

 

[DJM]

While there, I worked on the flight computer for the Saturn V rocket.

WOW!

 

[OkiePC]

Thanks Guys!

You are all making me feel younger.

I just turned forty, and now it doesn't seem too bad at all...LOL

 

[Andybr]

Peter
We can still get support from Key, even for the old machines, though many of the parts are obsolete. The best support, however, comes from our operators. Some of them have been working on these machines since they were new.

Lancie
Back in the mid 70's when I was an apprentice electronics technician my first boss had a certificate mounted above his desk.
It expressed in very elegant terms that the President and People of the USA thanked him for his help in landing the first man on the moon (he worked for NASA at the time). This was not only the most elaborate and impressive certificate I have ever seen but it made me realise that the great achievements we see are accomplished by people just like us and there is no limit to what ordinary people can achieve. He was immensely proud of that piece of paper and rightly so.
Andybr

 

[Lancie1]

It expressed in very elegant terms that the President and People of the USA thanked him for his help in landing the first man on the moon (he worked for NASA at the time)

Somewhere I have a similar certificate, kind of dorky but I have kept it all these years. It has a little medallion glued to one side, that contains metal from the first craft to land on the moon.

 

[jimbo3123]

The data width should be 32 bit minimum but 64 bits is prefered. I can represent a chess board with 64 bits representing sets of pieces. I used to write othello and chess programs for a hobby. I came in 7th in the world first international computer and human Othello tournament ( 1980). No one help me there either. I had to read between the lines to figure the search, evalution and hash table routines.

Ok, I'm trying to figure out how to represent a chess board in 64 bits.

I started with 32 (pieces) x 64 squares. 64 = 2^6, so 6 bits to address each square. That gives 192 bits.

I'm shure that you could optimize the data in some ways (ie. you don't have to differentiate between individual pieces of the same type, bishops are limited to half of the board, etc.). However, there is additional data required for some special cases (ie. whether pawns have been queened or not).

hmm, sounds like an interesting problem.
Can you provide any more info?

 

[BudW]

Good to know there is still more of us out there.

Vacuum tube checkers at the local drug store and the local drug store sold tubes.

Magnetic core memory?? I still have a long stick (3' long) of magnetic core.

Acoustic coupler (modem).

Putting a quarter on the tone arm when playing a LP.

STD bus.

Reel to reel audio & video tape.

Analog needle meters.

Tuning eye tubes.

 

[Norbert J. Gallagher]

While we are reminiscing, here are some additional entries:

Has anyone replaced any "Nixie Tubes" lately?

How many of us remember the real reason behind the phrase "Bugs in the Circuitry" or "Programming Bugs"?

Has anyone every connected the Tandy Color Computer to the TV in a hotel room only to have a visit from security, thinking you were trying to steal the TV?

Same as above only you set off the fire alarm? (That really happened in Louisville.)

Or when 16k memory was a quantum leap?

Ah yes, those were the days...