I was blowing up resistors by plugging them into electrical outlets long
before that!
(don't try this one at home) Heck I learned electronics on radios and TV's
with Tubes in them. I remember the hum when I fired those babies up. I used
to take those giant speakers out of the radios and hook them together and
rock the house. (yeah I was a mobile Disk Jockey for abut 10 years also). I
still have all the old records.
I started working on computers on Digital PDP11's. The drives in those
things were wack. If they went bad the springs and mechanisms would explode
out every direction. I also was manager of a Radio Shack store when the
first PC's came out. Model 1, 2, 3's, and Color Computer and finally the
Tandy 1000 PC. Right in the thick of things...I could tell some stories.
Jim
*Nick Smith <>* wrote:
Pah!
Just remembered that my first computer (As opposed to Mum's) was one we
built as a science project. Soldered the switches on, had little metal
copper plates running as circuits, and small laboratory light-bulbs to give
feedback to the user.
The switches were binary ones and we had two rows of four I think.
This enabled us to flick switches to 0 or 1 and then the logic of the
circuits was such that the lights lit up to show the addition of the two
rows.
I presume we could only add to 30 altogether.
So in terms of the Yorkshireman competition;
No RAM
No External Storage
No Machine code
No silicon whatsoever
And a CPU (OK bundle of badly-wired switches) that was about 2 feet by 6
inches.
Beat tha', you Southern p*nsies.
Probably 78 or 79.
Nick
*From:* David Finch [mailto:david.finch@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx]
*Sent:* 23 June 2006 12:15
*To:* thin@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
*Subject:* [THIN] Re: OT: Microsoft Certified Architect Program
OK, with my pedantic hat on, the certification is only given "Unlike other
IT certifications, this credential was built and is granted by industry
architects, as candidates must pass a rigorous review board with previously
certified architects."
So how did the FIRST architect get certified?
J
And to enter the "Four Yorkshiremen" competition
Lookshury!
My first system was a Microbee (Australian) Z80 with 32K RAM and a
cassette tape….that was about 1983 I think….It had BASIC, but I used it to
teach myself Assembler programming
The first system I actually worked on with a Hard Drive had a 5Meg Disk
Platter that was nearly 2 foot across, and used tapes for long term storage.
That was in about 1986.
And my mum and dad used to dance on our graves and sing Hallelujah!
But tell that to the kids of today and they won't believe you
