V9 And Vista

[Steve G Griggs]

I remember windows 3.1, and the Amstrad 1512--GEM, DOS, and CPM. Way back when 5 1/4 inch floppy disks were really floppy. The days when you could run a computer with less than 1GB of RAM.
Remember the Sinclair ZX81 and the wobbly 64K ram pack, or the Spectrum with the nasty rubber keypad?

[pinbrook]

i learnt to code by writting on coding sheets, which were sent to a data entry agency to be converted to punch cards.

i became a dab hand at recreating punch cards to rectify my coding errors

i also learnt how to read paper tape

[Darren B]

i learnt to code by writting on coding sheets, which were sent to a data entry agency to be converted to punch cards.

i became a dab hand at recreating punch cards to rectify my coding errors

i also learnt how to read paper tape

I used paper tapes for programming cnc machines, miles of paper for some simple coords

[Mike Hughes]

Ah yes. I remember paper tapes for programming Plessey system-x exchanges. In my time they were really only kept on as a back-up for the few systems that hadn't been upgraded yet.

My first 'proper' programming was with punch cards for Vax pdp11's at university. As I remember it, they'd been given three of them by Midland Bank when no longer wanted and used 1, kept the other 2 for spares. Most of the times you'd submit a set of punch cards then come back and collect the results later, usually with the result saying 'compile error' (or something similar).

Before that I had one of the ZX spectrum's with the rubber keypads. They were awful, you had to keep trying to press the key to get it to register.

Mike

[Steve G Griggs]

Some genuine programmers.

[Duncan Rounding]

I still have a very well thumbed Zilog Z80 assembly programming reference book somewhere.
Those were the days when you really programmed the computer.

[pinbrook]

nostalgia aint what it used to be

[Chunkford]

http://www.worldofspectrum.org/

It will always have a place in my heart

[malbro]

Having used both a desktop and a laptop with Vista installed, personal experience says vista=slow. I can't comment on W7 as I have not tried it but all reports say it's faster than Vista. Wait for W7 I would say. Vista is not a good o/s.

I am running Win7 Evaluation copy and it is streets ahead of Vista and I am afraid to say XP SP3.

I have two similar machines, one a dual quad code with 4Gb Ram and Windows XP SP3 (full size tower) and one is a single quad core laptop with 8Gb Ram and W7 (64bit). The XP machine regularly struggles with Actinic whereas the Win7 machine that has half the processing power and is a laptop, so generally would expect to be slower, flies.

I am no fan of Microsoft but have already pre ordered copies of Win7 for the October release. Like Windows 3.11 they seem to have got the operating system working at last!!!!

[IanSaunders]

Hmmm the amstrad 1640 (newer version to the 1512) would you believe i actually still have it with additional maths co-processor, external 3 1/2" floppy plus all the other stuff you could buy as addons.

YEAR 1986
CPU Intel 8086
SPEED 8 mHz
RAM 640 KBV
RAM 256 KB
ROM 64 KB
TEXT MODES 40 x 25 / 80 x 25
GRAPHIC MODES All EGA graphic modes (maximum : 640 x 350)
Hercules mode for monochrome versions (maximum 720 by 350)COLORS 16 among 64
SOUND Beeper
I/O PORTS Four 8-bit ISA slots (one being reserved of the internal HD controller), Centronics, RS232c, Mouse port (proprietary)
BUILT IN MEDIA one or two 5.25'' disk-drives, 20 or 30 MB HD
DOS MS DOS 3.2
POWER SUPPLY PSU built-in
PERIPHERALS Most of the standard IBM/PC cards

Wow... Blast from the past. I learned DOS on that thing. And GWBasic.

If you wanted to use the mouse (lumpy 2 button thing), you had to run the drivers in dos first.

[Darren B]

yep i learnt dos from this system and this went on to writing boot disks for mates when they had problems with soundcards and cd drives those were the days

[IanSaunders]

haha! and having to park the drive heads before shutting the thing down

[Darren B]

i forgot about "park"