How (and why) to Ramble on your goat sideways
10-09-2012, 09:34 PM
I'm Miserable!
Join Date: Jun 2010
Location: Okinawa Japan
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hahaha..
we use quick format.. haven't had an issue really. Then again, we aren't using 12 year old disks.
But not gonna lie, it's pretty awesome being a combat nerd. Go hit the ****, jump outta planes, helos, etc... and still bust out a toughbook that can function errwurr. I'll even bust out the SHARK and get on FB for the giggles while the other PJs, CCTs and SERE guys just meander in their roshambo, and ******* thai hooker stories to pass time.
we use quick format.. haven't had an issue really. Then again, we aren't using 12 year old disks.
But not gonna lie, it's pretty awesome being a combat nerd. Go hit the ****, jump outta planes, helos, etc... and still bust out a toughbook that can function errwurr. I'll even bust out the SHARK and get on FB for the giggles while the other PJs, CCTs and SERE guys just meander in their roshambo, and ******* thai hooker stories to pass time.
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10-09-2012, 10:08 PM
Boost Pope
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To be fair, I only needed the data to last long enough to transfer it from the Agilent logic analyzer to the one PC in the office that still has a floppy drive. (It runs DOS 6.22)
how about a nondegradeable punch card?
The only cards I still have lying around are of the traditional heavy paper variety. They have held up surprisingly well to the ravages of time. A hell of a lot better than most of the magnetic tape and disks of the same era.
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10-09-2012, 10:25 PM
Boost Pope
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Haha.
I work in the broadcast industry, mostly doing audio mixing consoles and routers for radio stations with a company called Harris. A lot of the equipment that we deal with is pretty ancient, or at least relies upon, shall we say, "mature" technologies. As an example, one of the consoles that we are still manufacturing to this day used a '486 processor (specifically an AMD Elan) as its controller and network interface until last year when the part was finally discontinued. (We switched to an Atmel ARM9 processor.) In fact, there are still a lot of analog mixing consoles, transmitters, tape machines, etc from the 70s and 80s in use today, though they are becoming less common. From time to time, we still encounter tubes.
The DOS PC is there because the 16MB (yes, MB) disk-on-chip (aka SSD) which the aforementioned '486 controller used requires the use of an expansion card for which Windows drivers were never written in order to debug / diagnose.
The rest of the crap (8" floppies, paper tape, punch cards) are just personal artifacts borne of a fondness for obsolete technology.
I work in the broadcast industry, mostly doing audio mixing consoles and routers for radio stations with a company called Harris. A lot of the equipment that we deal with is pretty ancient, or at least relies upon, shall we say, "mature" technologies. As an example, one of the consoles that we are still manufacturing to this day used a '486 processor (specifically an AMD Elan) as its controller and network interface until last year when the part was finally discontinued. (We switched to an Atmel ARM9 processor.) In fact, there are still a lot of analog mixing consoles, transmitters, tape machines, etc from the 70s and 80s in use today, though they are becoming less common. From time to time, we still encounter tubes.
The DOS PC is there because the 16MB (yes, MB) disk-on-chip (aka SSD) which the aforementioned '486 controller used requires the use of an expansion card for which Windows drivers were never written in order to debug / diagnose.
The rest of the crap (8" floppies, paper tape, punch cards) are just personal artifacts borne of a fondness for obsolete technology.
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10-09-2012, 10:36 PM
Boost Pope
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Well, the few '60s vintage Gates/Harris FMG-series transmitters which are still in use (along with their original exciters) will still be functioning. Not a semiconductor in the damn things- nothing but tubes and relays.
Of course, there will be no electricity to power them...
Of course, there will be no electricity to power them...
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10-10-2012, 12:44 PM
Boost Pope
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Kids today...
That TRS-80 is onna dem fancy, new-fangled Model 4s, what's got da 5.25" disk drives and da fancy 2 megeehertz processor. Y'alls needa Model II ta read a MAN'S disk:
Or a Tandy-10:
Or something properly old-school, like an IMSAI-8080, for which the disk drive was a rather costly external option:
Keyboard? We don't need no stinking keyboard!
That TRS-80 is onna dem fancy, new-fangled Model 4s, what's got da 5.25" disk drives and da fancy 2 megeehertz processor. Y'alls needa Model II ta read a MAN'S disk:
Or a Tandy-10:
Or something properly old-school, like an IMSAI-8080, for which the disk drive was a rather costly external option:
Keyboard? We don't need no stinking keyboard!
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10-10-2012, 01:07 PM
Boost Pope
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Sidebar:
Remember the Altair? The "original" PC? It is not commonly known, but an actual hard drive was available as an official MITS accessory, albeit in extremely limited quantities and at a price which was not affordable to most users.
It was called the DataKeeper, released just after the aquisition of MITS by Pertec in 1977. This unit held 10 megabytes on a single 14 inch platter, and was housed in a box roughly the same size as the Altair itself, using a drive of the sort commonly paired in clusters with large minicomputers. Power consumption: 1,100 watts startup, 400 watts average.
Here it is mounted in an Altair 300/55 "Business System" of roughly 1978 vintage:
The disk drive itself is at the top, below it is the disk controller, and at the bottom is the actual Altair CPU. This unit is the late-model Altair 8800bt, which eliminated the switches-and-lights front panel and instead included a terminal interface and a ROM which allowed the machine to boot itself automatically from a disk (this was considered pretty cutting-edge at the time.)
Systems such as the one above were typically sold as complete turnkey packages (you didn't have to assemble it yourself with a soldering iron) and were pre-loaded with software such as Peachtree Accounting and a non-Microsoft implementation of multiuser BASIC.
You can read an article about the DataKeeper in this issue of Computer Notes from Nov '77: http://www.classiccmp.org/altair32/pdf/cn1177.pdf
Remember the Altair? The "original" PC? It is not commonly known, but an actual hard drive was available as an official MITS accessory, albeit in extremely limited quantities and at a price which was not affordable to most users.
It was called the DataKeeper, released just after the aquisition of MITS by Pertec in 1977. This unit held 10 megabytes on a single 14 inch platter, and was housed in a box roughly the same size as the Altair itself, using a drive of the sort commonly paired in clusters with large minicomputers. Power consumption: 1,100 watts startup, 400 watts average.
Here it is mounted in an Altair 300/55 "Business System" of roughly 1978 vintage:
The disk drive itself is at the top, below it is the disk controller, and at the bottom is the actual Altair CPU. This unit is the late-model Altair 8800bt, which eliminated the switches-and-lights front panel and instead included a terminal interface and a ROM which allowed the machine to boot itself automatically from a disk (this was considered pretty cutting-edge at the time.)
Systems such as the one above were typically sold as complete turnkey packages (you didn't have to assemble it yourself with a soldering iron) and were pre-loaded with software such as Peachtree Accounting and a non-Microsoft implementation of multiuser BASIC.
You can read an article about the DataKeeper in this issue of Computer Notes from Nov '77: http://www.classiccmp.org/altair32/pdf/cn1177.pdf
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