HUMOR: How long have you been in this business?

[darrenj]

i dont remember how oldi was was challenger went up..but i do remeber watching it..

I to remember the ZX81 and the zx spectrum..Sinclair made a fourtune with these..it was the first affordable computer..then the moron sunk his entire fortune into the the "C5"..it was an electric car!!!...come on who would want an electric car!!!???...i think sinclair was about 20 years to early...he should take his "C5" desighn out from storage and blow the dust off..technology has come along way...

i also remember punch cards, and much later in life being told by the computer salesman that i would never ever need more than 64MB of ram...

the first PLC i touched was a SLC 150 C/W hand held programmer...i also still have one!!

I remeber the day of 9/11 but to this day have not seen any news coverage of it..i refuse to watch it...it just gives the terrorist what they want..

d

 

[RMA]

I would think this is a good thing when the customer keeps coming back after 25 years.Can anybody claim something similar?

Following the sale of the plant last year, the last four of 17 systems I installed for Bayer in 1980 - 81 have finally been put to rest, but my last service visit to spruce them up was December 2005, so I just scraped into the 25th year!

I was in first year university when Kennedy was shot and a few years later, 1969, my first project for Kent Automation (now part of ABB) was the control system for the hydraulic rams and air-conditioning for the system which ran the simulated flight of Concorde 001 from London - New York and back each day (basically as a check for metal-fatigue problems, following the famous Comet debacle). All done with a PDP 8 and 12kB memory!

The system was still running till Concorde was withdrawn from service.

 

[MarkTTU]

being told by the computer salesman that i would never ever need more than 64MB of ram...

I remember being told the 64k in the Atari was a ridiculous amount that would never be utilized in a computer... oh how times have changed.

 

[MikeW]

Held off reading this thread, if it's up to four pages, it must be interesting.

- Learned how to keep 3 digit precision on a slide rule in high school and was estactic when I bought a $150 scientific calculator in college in 1974 (TI-50).

- Hand wired analog computers with banana cables to solve PID tuning settings for an automatic control class in 1976.

- First desktop computer was a HP 9820 with a magnetic strip reader, ~ 6k memory (~ same as on Apollo) Learned how to program in HPL on a 32 character wide LED display with a "lazy T" as a line terminator. (1/1974) PDP's were then used a few years later.

- Seemed like I had to learn a new programming language at least every year for all the different computing equipment that I had to use. Glad things finally slowed down a bit in the '90's (or was it me???)

- Bought punch cards by the box (was it 2000/ box?) Must have gone through a dozen boxes while in school/ working to put myself through school. (Still use them as bookmarks in my older reference books)

- My first car didn't even have a PVC valve on it, it was waaayy before anyone thought a computer would be needed on them to make them run efficiently.

 

[milldrone]

MikeW,
You can edit the number of posts in each page by going to profile, edit options, thread display options, number of posts to show per page.

if it's up to four pages, it must be interesting.

I prefer to show 75 posts per page. It makes for fewer pages. On fast moving threads it's easy to find where you left off.

 

[plchacker]

First computer Apple IIE, I had a friend with a TI99 and tape drive. Worked with TRS80's in the Navy. Also punched a few too many cards. First PLC SLC 100. I found the exact PLC a few days ago in storage here at the school.


When the Challenger exploded I hepled pick up the pieces. We were home ported in Charleston. I stood lite off watch that morning. Our drug run to the Caribean was canceled at 8:00am. We stayed "hot." I have always wondered about that.

Hayes 1200. Z Modem was great! I ran a BBS based on PCBoard. Learned Novell the hard way. FIDONet was awsome. Compuserve was too rich for my blood.

EPROM erasers, yep. If you were real careful, an Arc welder flash would get the job done. IBM luggables were great for PLC work.

Saturn V, just too cool. I still get the chills when thinking about that monster blasting off. Great job!

Ever attach a laptop to a coax 10BaseC network through a parallel adapter?

 

[curlyandshemp]

A 'mass' storage device was a Winchester 5Meg hard drive. Who would ever find enough data to fill that?

The real 'state of the art' companies had a Telex #

My Goodness IBM has shrunk a floppy from 8" to 5 1/4". WOW technology is amazing. And rumour has it that 'clone' PCs have a TURBO switch that will jack up the CPU clock rate from 4.77MHZ to the unthinkable speed of 12MHZ !!!!!!

Gould has this thing called a P-L-C ?????

Ian

 

[Corbis]

Nostalgia

I remember my first experience with a computer, the Commodore PET 2001.
The whole world seemed different to me after that!

I can still remember quite clearly my first computer (Commodore VIC20), complete with tape deck and 28159 bytes free! I spent that whole summer never seeing much sun!

Later on I got the C64 and could not believe the advancement! 64K RAM (but really only 38911 bytes free), a 1541 5.25 disk drive, and a 1200 baud modem (and man was that fast!)

I remember countless hours reading BASIC and 6502 Assembly programming books and magazines, trying to learn all I could about the cool and mysterious languages of my newest best friend.

I tell my two sons about all this from time to time, only to get the same laughs, smirks, and the sorts most people do. Then I laugh too and realize I speak their language too.

I watched Challenger clear the tower with awe and envy, only to feel sick and depressed two minutes later.

I don’t spend a whole lot of time looking back. But I always catch myself in a smile when I do. Back then I didn’t think about global warming, the price of gas, or looking up the definition of downsizing. I never think the past was better mind you, just different.

I do hope, that twenty five years from now, I get to think about today, just as I do now about yesterday. I just bet I will. I just bet we all will.

Regards,
Corbis

 

[jdbrandt]

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

I remember re-addressing timers in a PLC-2 so I could get a little more of RAM available.
I also remember topping out a PLC-5 so bad that I could not EDIT a rung.

 

[Soggy Canuck]

First service call involving a PDP11. Reloaded the program via winchester. Why won't it work.....it even told me there were no BAD files
First ever service call, fix a carbon arc exposure frame. Used to make printing plates, you run high voltage through two carbon rods and create a gap between them, think sustained arc fault.

Second service call stuck shorting necklace on an RI motor. Ran an entire machine shop off a common line shaft and leather belts.

 

[JordanCClark]

I remember my first experience with a computer, the Commodore PET 2001.
The whole world seemed different to me after that!

I can still remember quite clearly my first computer (Commodore VIC20), complete with tape deck and 28159 bytes free! I spent that whole summer never seeing much sun!

Later on I got the C64 and could not believe the advancement! 64K RAM (but really only 38911 bytes free), a 1541 5.25 disk drive, and a 1200 baud modem (and man was that fast!)

I remember countless hours reading BASIC and 6502 Assembly programming books and magazines, trying to learn all I could about the cool and mysterious languages of my newest best friend.

Same story for me growing up. In addition to Tom Jenkins "eliminating the X", the VICs and C64s also had the 'abbreviated keywords'-- P-shift-E for PEEK, etc. Used a lot because it took less space than the full keyword!

Not sure what resurrected this, but I have to say I enjoyed the nostalgic look back.

 

[Ronnie Sullivan]

It's still happening today boys.

I had to alter an existing HMI program on a mitsubishi (beijers) E100.
It's only been in a few years but the memory was full.

64K full to the brim hehe.

I had to delete and alter many screens before I could fit my new bit in. And now it's full again.

 

[jdbrandt]

I remember my first experience with a computer, the ......

I do hope, that twenty five years from now, I get to think about today, just as I do now about yesterday. I just bet I will. I just bet we all will.

Regards,
Corbis

I live in the present. I only remember the past, and anticipate the future.
( Henry David Thoreau )

 

[TConnolly]

First service call involving a PDP11. Reloaded the program via winchester.

Winchester is positively modern for for a DEC PDP.

Why won't it work.....

You didn't use a pink hard rubber eraser to fix it, that's why.

 

[RussB]

I received a call this morning from a guy looking for someone who could make some changes to his GE Series 5 PLC and yesterday a request to purchase a replacement Series 1 IC610CPU101.
I know Automation Direct still sells a replacement for the IC610CPU105 or CPU106, but...

It is amazing that both of these products from the 1980's has worked without much fuss or bother.