Re: [ubuntu-uk] memory lane, was: Please can someone look at this and try to help

2007-11-14 Thread Rob Beard
Paul Tansom wrote: > ** Rob Beard <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> [2007-11-12 20:04]: >> James Grabham wrote: >>> You're all really old, I cant remember before my familys 486 with DOS >>> 6.22 and win 3.11 for workgroups (I was born in 1992!!) lol I know >>> my Mum had a computer before that, but I cant reme

Re: [ubuntu-uk] memory lane, was: Please can someone look at this and try to help

2007-11-14 Thread Andrew Turner
> I most certainly do. I was in Microland on the day they opened and on > the day they closed. On the opening day I bought Jetpac and on the > closing day I picked up a few bits for my Amiga - a genlock, some video > editing software which they threw in for free and a BBC BASIC package > iirc. I re

Re: [ubuntu-uk] memory lane, was: Please can someone look at this and try to help

2007-11-13 Thread Paul Tansom
** Andrew Turner <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> [2007-11-13 09:21]: > Paul Tansom wrote: <> > Do you remember Microland in Waterlooville precinct, Paul? And upstairs at > the Baytree Bookshop? Ah, those were the days... > > I started out on a BBC Micro. We had the Graphics Extension ROM, as well > as the wor

Re: [ubuntu-uk] memory lane, was: Please can someone look at this and try to help

2007-11-13 Thread London School of Puppetry
On 13/11/2007, David Restall - System Administrator <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > Hi, > > lots of interesting stuff on this subject but I have to disagree with > Norman (I think) the best terminal EVER was the DEC VT100 closely > followed by the wonderful VT220. DEC lost it after that :-( Best e

Re: [ubuntu-uk] memory lane, was: Please can someone look at this and try to help

2007-11-13 Thread Alan Pope
On Tue, 2007-11-13 at 15:54 +, Neil Greenwood wrote: > On 12/11/2007, Alan Pope <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > Speaking of sabotage, at UDS someone walked out of a room and left their > > laptop unlocked with a root propt open. I took it upon myself to type:- > > > > # rm -rf * > > > > And ope

Re: [ubuntu-uk] memory lane, was: Please can someone look at this and try to help

2007-11-13 Thread Neil Greenwood
On 12/11/2007, Gaurav Patel <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > On 12/11/2007, Sean Miller <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > > That said, no programmer should have been denied the privilege to program > > for 80x22 vt220 green screens... amazing how much wasted space there is > > these days... we used every

Re: [ubuntu-uk] memory lane, was: Please can someone look at this and try to help

2007-11-13 Thread Neil Greenwood
On 12/11/2007, Alan Pope <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Speaking of sabotage, at UDS someone walked out of a room and left their > laptop unlocked with a root propt open. I took it upon myself to type:- > > # rm -rf * > > And open a text editor and put the following text in it:- > > "Lesson learned?"

Re: [ubuntu-uk] memory lane, was: Please can someone look at this and try to help

2007-11-13 Thread Steve Flynn
On Nov 12, 2007 6:50 PM, norman <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > What a collection of wonderful memories. One of the many things I have > puzzled over is the way the size of software has increased over the > years. Ain't that the truth. > I had a theory that as RAM became cheaper and cheaper programm

Re: [ubuntu-uk] memory lane, was: Please can someone look at this and try to help

2007-11-13 Thread Andrew Turner
Paul Tansom wrote: > I took a lot of stick when the Amstrad CPC464 came out and I bought one > to replace my Spectrum. I started with a ZX81, then Spectrum, but the > Amstrad really got me into using computers seriously. Before that it was > just games and programming. I used the Amstrad with a ROM

Re: [ubuntu-uk] memory lane, was: Please can someone look at this and try to help

2007-11-13 Thread David Restall - System Administrator
Hi, lots of interesting stuff on this subject but I have to disagree with Norman (I think) the best terminal EVER was the DEC VT100 closely followed by the wonderful VT220. DEC lost it after that :-( Best ever printer was the DECWriter III. I've seen cars with smaller starter motors than that p

Re: [ubuntu-uk] memory lane, was: Please can someone look at this and try to help

2007-11-13 Thread norman
> Oh, and I also lived in a cardboard box in the middle of the motorway > and had to lick the road clean every morning! But you try telling the > kids of today that and they won't believe you:-) It is good to hear from you. Why, only the other day there was a news item about a person who had live

Re: [ubuntu-uk] memory lane, was: Please can someone look at this and try to help

2007-11-12 Thread Paul Tansom
** Rob Beard <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> [2007-11-12 20:04]: > James Grabham wrote: > > You're all really old, I cant remember before my familys 486 with DOS > > 6.22 and win 3.11 for workgroups (I was born in 1992!!) lol I know > > my Mum had a computer before that, but I cant remember it - I found > >

Re: [ubuntu-uk] memory lane, was: Please can someone look at this and try to help

2007-11-12 Thread Tony Arnold
Rob Beard wrote: > Kris Douglas wrote: >> I was born in '92 but I know that they had a ZX81 with the 16K ram >> upgrade (fancy :D)... and a BBC. Then they went straight over to a 286 >> DOS machine, which they then put 3.11wg on. (That 500mb drive still >> boots, as does windows and Qbasic and

Re: [ubuntu-uk] memory lane, was: Please can someone look at this and try to help

2007-11-12 Thread Alan Pope
Hi Ronnie, On Mon, 2007-11-12 at 21:06 +, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > Running in to Dixons/Comet, going to the C64's and doing the old: > 10 PRINT "DIXONS SUCK!" > 20 GO TO 10 Heh. Yeah, I used to do that too. On the spectrums I'd do RANDOMIZE USR 1331 Which gives nice pretty blue and purp

Re: [ubuntu-uk] memory lane, was: Please can someone look at this and try to help

2007-11-12 Thread Alan Pope
Hi Keith, On Mon, 2007-11-12 at 21:55 +, Keith Cleaver wrote: > James Grabham wrote: > > Where as these days we just shove ubuntu live CDs in the PCs at PC > > world, reboot them, and laugh as people say "wow this Vista thing > > looks great" > > > LOL, I'm gonna try that next time I go in

Re: [ubuntu-uk] memory lane, was: Please can someone look at this and try to help

2007-11-12 Thread Keith Cleaver
James Grabham wrote: > Where as these days we just shove ubuntu live CDs in the PCs at PC > world, reboot them, and laugh as people say "wow this Vista thing > looks great" > LOL, I'm gonna try that next time I go in there... has anyone done that, and what was the reaction like? -- ubuntu-uk

Re: [ubuntu-uk] memory lane, was: Please can someone look at this and try to help

2007-11-12 Thread James Grabham
Where as these days we just shove ubuntu live CDs in the PCs at PC world, reboot them, and laugh as people say "wow this Vista thing looks great" On Nov 12, 2007 9:06 PM, <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > > Ahh... them were the days... > > Running in to Dixons/Comet, going to the C64's and doing the

Re: [ubuntu-uk] memory lane, was: Please can someone look at this and try to help

2007-11-12 Thread Sean Miller
On 11/12/07, [EMAIL PROTECTED] <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > Ahh... them were the days... > > Running in to Dixons/Comet, going to the C64's and doing the old: > 10 PRINT "DIXONS SUCK!" > 20 GO TO 10 > ... then bolt and watch the 'assistants' panic > ROFLMAO... ! Thanks, made my day ;-) Sea

Re: [ubuntu-uk] memory lane, was: Please can someone look at this and try to help

2007-11-12 Thread ronnie
Ahh... them were the days... Running in to Dixons/Comet, going to the C64's and doing the old: 10 PRINT "DIXONS SUCK!" 20 GO TO 10 ... then bolt and watch the 'assistants' panic. A few years ago the stock taker in my work still use an old ancient 'laptop' I use the term 'laptop' loosel

Re: [ubuntu-uk] memory lane, was: Please can someone look at this and try to help

2007-11-12 Thread Tony Travis
Sean Miller wrote: > BBC Micro was a great machine... the ZX81 was somewhat more limited... > don't get me wrong, it was my first home micro but it wasn't really up > to any great programming challenges... Hey, Sean! I beg to differ - I wrote a self-hosting 6502 Small-C compiler for the BBC Mi

Re: [ubuntu-uk] memory lane, was: Please can someone look at this and try to help

2007-11-12 Thread Robert Spanjaard
On Mon, 12 Nov 2007 18:50:30 +, norman wrote: > I had a theory that as RAM became cheaper and cheaper programmers became > lazier and lazier and did not need to strive to be economical with their > code. Which is true. The most obvious example for me was when I switched from Word 6.0 to Word

Re: [ubuntu-uk] memory lane, was: Please can someone look at this and try to help

2007-11-12 Thread Rob Beard
James Grabham wrote: > You're all really old, I cant remember before my familys 486 with DOS > 6.22 and win 3.11 for workgroups (I was born in 1992!!) lol I know > my Mum had a computer before that, but I cant remember it - I found > its dot matrix printer in the loft a while ago though. > Ahh

Re: [ubuntu-uk] memory lane, was: Please can someone look at this and try to help

2007-11-12 Thread Rob Beard
Kris Douglas wrote: > > I was born in '92 but I know that they had a ZX81 with the 16K ram > upgrade (fancy :D)... and a BBC. Then they went straight over to a 286 > DOS machine, which they then put 3.11wg on. (That 500mb drive still > boots, as does windows and Qbasic and SQL Anywhere) Then the

Re: [ubuntu-uk] memory lane, was: Please can someone look at this and try to help

2007-11-12 Thread Eddie Armstrong
Greg K Nicholson wrote: > 'ad to put t'index finger and t'middle finger into t'back > o' t'computer, and t'tongue into t'wall socket. > > So you are also claiming to have invented sockets programming? As for using your teeth on punch cards why do you think cogs were invented. Built -in teeth.

Re: [ubuntu-uk] memory lane, was: Please can someone look at this and try to help

2007-11-12 Thread ged byrom
You lot must have been seriously rich in them days to be able to afford all them computers. I'm still begging the hand me downs. " Spare a poor boy a broken computer missus ?" O. Twist. -- ubuntu-uk@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-uk https://wiki.kubuntu.org/

Re: [ubuntu-uk] memory lane, was: Please can someone look at this and try to help

2007-11-12 Thread norman
ust realised, my finger slipped with the date it was 1983 when the article appeared. After all, the Osborne appeared in 1981. Norman -- ubuntu-uk@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-uk https://wiki.kubuntu.org/UKTeam/

Re: [ubuntu-uk] memory lane, was: Please can someone look at this and try to help

2007-11-12 Thread Eddie Armstrong
Chris Rowson wrote: sold my patent to a chap called William for a couple of hundred dollars. Ah that must be William Portals II; his son (who has a different cognomen) is credited with inventing a form of *software *(ha ha - how ridiculous, it'll never catch on) - except maybe in one of them

Re: [ubuntu-uk] memory lane, was: Please can someone look at this and try to help

2007-11-12 Thread Greg K Nicholson
Chris Rowson: > Meh lightweights > > My first forage into computing in the 1800's was much more hardcore. > You don't know you're born! > > I would often be called to the analytical machine late at night, > because a tiny misalignment of a brass cog had caused it to render an > ascii image of

Re: [ubuntu-uk] memory lane, was: Please can someone look at this and try to help

2007-11-12 Thread norman
What a collection of wonderful memories. One of the many things I have puzzled over is the way the size of software has increased over the years. For example, I used to use Wordstar 1.8 which did all the basic things one needed to produce documents very similar to the present day office programmes.

Re: [ubuntu-uk] memory lane, was: Please can someone look at this and try to help

2007-11-12 Thread Ian Pascoe
ailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of Chris Rowson Sent: 12 November 2007 17:53 To: British Ubuntu Talk Subject: Re: [ubuntu-uk] memory lane,was: Please can someone look at this and try to help > Ian Pascoe wrote: > > Well I cut my teeth on a Model B and the first major enhancement I did

Re: [ubuntu-uk] memory lane, was: Please can someone look at this and try to help

2007-11-12 Thread Chris Rowson
> Weren't you the bloke who invented Microcogs in his carriage house? > Just think if it weren't for silicon and a few million other discoveries > you could have been the world's richest man - it's enough to make you > slip your cogs thinking about it. > :-) > > Eddie Don't remind me about it. I m

Re: [ubuntu-uk] memory lane, was: Please can someone look at this and try to help

2007-11-12 Thread Jim Kissel
Tony Arnold wrote: > Jim Kissel wrote: >> Sean Miller wrote: You're all really old, I cant remember before my familys 486 with DOS 6.22 and win 3.11 for workgroups (I was born in 1992!!) lol I know my Mum had a computer before that, but I cant remember it - I found its dot m

Re: [ubuntu-uk] memory lane, was: Please can someone look at this and try to help

2007-11-12 Thread Eddie Armstrong
Chris Rowson wrote: > Meh lightweights > > My first forage into computing in the 1800' Weren't you the bloke who invented Microcogs in his carriage house? Just think if it weren't for silicon and a few million other discoveries you could have been the world's richest man - it's enough to make

Re: [ubuntu-uk] memory lane, was: Please can someone look at this and try to help

2007-11-12 Thread Chris Rowson
> Ian Pascoe wrote: > > Well I cut my teeth on a Model B and the first major enhancement I did to it > > was to add a 5.25" floppy drive. > Mmm, not sure I should confess to this in a public forum but: > I also started on a Beeb, had to install the floppy-disc interface one > chip at a time an

Re: [ubuntu-uk] memory lane, was: Please can someone look at this and try to help

2007-11-12 Thread Eddie Armstrong
Ian Pascoe wrote: > Well I cut my teeth on a Model B and the first major enhancement I did to it > was to add a 5.25" floppy drive. Mmm, not sure I should confess to this in a public forum but: I also started on a Beeb, had to install the floppy-disc interface one chip at a time and installe

Re: [ubuntu-uk] memory lane, was: Please can someone look at this and try to help

2007-11-12 Thread Ian Pascoe
nterWord for my Beeb - that showed them! E -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of Jim Kissel Sent: 12 November 2007 17:14 To: British Ubuntu Talk Subject: Re: [ubuntu-uk] memory lane, was: Please can someone look at this and try to help Sean Miller

Re: [ubuntu-uk] memory lane, was: Please can someone look at this and try to help

2007-11-12 Thread Tony Arnold
Jim Kissel wrote: > > Sean Miller wrote: >>> You're all really old, I cant remember before my familys 486 with DOS >>> 6.22 and win 3.11 for workgroups (I was born in 1992!!) lol I know >>> my Mum had a computer before that, but I cant remember it - I found >>> its dot matrix printer in the loft

Re: [ubuntu-uk] memory lane, was: Please can someone look at this and try to help

2007-11-12 Thread Jim Kissel
Sean Miller wrote: >> You're all really old, I cant remember before my familys 486 with DOS >> 6.22 and win 3.11 for workgroups (I was born in 1992!!) lol I know >> my Mum had a computer before that, but I cant remember it - I found >> its dot matrix printer in the loft a while ago though. > >

Re: [ubuntu-uk] memory lane, was: Please can someone look at this and try to help

2007-11-12 Thread Sean Miller
BBC Micro was a great machine... the ZX81 was somewhat more limited... don't get me wrong, it was my first home micro but it wasn't really up to any great programming challenges... the BBC was a class act, whatever Sir Clive might tell you. Some of my programming adventures on the BBC might still

Re: [ubuntu-uk] memory lane, was: Please can someone look at this and try to help

2007-11-12 Thread Kris Douglas
On 12/11/2007, Sean Miller <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > You're all really old, I cant remember before my familys 486 with DOS > > 6.22 and win 3.11 for workgroups (I was born in 1992!!) lol I know > > my Mum had a computer before that, but I cant remember it - I found > > its dot matrix printer

Re: [ubuntu-uk] memory lane, was: Please can someone look at this and try to help

2007-11-12 Thread Gaurav Patel
On 12/11/2007, Sean Miller <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > That said, no programmer should have been denied the privilege to program > for 80x22 vt220 green screens... amazing how much wasted space there is > these days... we used every single inch of those screens... > > Sean More like every single

Re: [ubuntu-uk] memory lane, was: Please can someone look at this and try to help

2007-11-12 Thread Sean Miller
> > You're all really old, I cant remember before my familys 486 with DOS > 6.22 and win 3.11 for workgroups (I was born in 1992!!) lol I know > my Mum had a computer before that, but I cant remember it - I found > its dot matrix printer in the loft a while ago though. My daughter was born in 1

Re: [ubuntu-uk] memory lane, was: Please can someone look at this and try to help

2007-11-12 Thread James Grabham
You're all really old, I cant remember before my familys 486 with DOS 6.22 and win 3.11 for workgroups (I was born in 1992!!) lol I know my Mum had a computer before that, but I cant remember it - I found its dot matrix printer in the loft a while ago though. On Nov 12, 2007 3:16 PM, Greg K Nich

Re: [ubuntu-uk] memory lane, was: Please can someone look at this and try to help

2007-11-12 Thread Greg K Nicholson
norman: > I remember > trying to get to grips with programming in Basic and the difficulty I > had in accepting that you could have a line which read 'Let n = 2' and > then, a little further on,'Let n = 10'. In algebra if I wrote n = 2 then > that was that, it didn't change half way through solving

Re: [ubuntu-uk] memory lane, was: Please can someone look at this and try to help

2007-11-12 Thread norman
> > These youngsters, eh? When I started in IT greenscreen was cutting > > edge, lol ;-) > > > > My first PC had a mono green text only MDA "video card". I had to > _upgrade_ to a Hercules graphics card. > > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monochrome_Display_Adapter > http://en.wikipedia.org/wik

[ubuntu-uk] memory lane, was: Please can someone look at this and try to help

2007-11-12 Thread Alan Pope
On Mon, 2007-11-12 at 13:36 +, Sean Miller wrote: > These youngsters, eh? When I started in IT greenscreen was cutting > edge, lol ;-) > My first PC had a mono green text only MDA "video card". I had to _upgrade_ to a Hercules graphics card. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monochrome_Disp