Comments on: 40 over 40

By: Miss Cellania

Miss Cellania — Fri, 30 Nov 2007 02:28:06 +0000

They make it sound like 40 is old. I oughta do an article on bloggers over 80. I could easily come up with a couple of dozen interesting ones.

By: Stuart

Stuart — Wed, 28 Nov 2007 08:37:48 +0000

Ever since hitting “the dreaded three-oh” a few years back, I’ve been feeling ever more old and decrepit with each passing birthday.

But then I read about you guys punching tape in the days before I was even a sparkle in my daddy’s eyes, and I feel positively youthful!

Thanks guys!

By: The Ill Tempered Klavier

The Ill Tempered Klavier — Wed, 28 Nov 2007 04:08:10 +0000

Scrambling our names has got to be nearly the most irritating thing people unwittingly do to us. I swear half the reason my younger sister tossed her first OM’s shoes was she kept having to spell “Smith.”

I can’t go back quite as far as some old timers but I remember building my first computer, an S-100 bus thing, off a magazine article. My memory has gone a bit vague about just when that was. I was elated a year or so later when I put in Bill Godbout’s “econo-ram” package. I have some 1977 ham magazines with his ads in them($99 for a whopping 4k), so it must have been about then.

By: chris

chris — Tue, 27 Nov 2007 22:19:55 +0000

mabey you should change your name to philip J. fry. would work even better if your wife had one eye and your best bud was a beer drinkin robot. Top it off with gran dad, the old scenial scientists

By: Hairy Doctor Professor

Hairy Doctor Professor — Tue, 27 Nov 2007 14:41:12 +0000

Any of them have silhouettes of the Enterprise?

I actually had to stop and think a minute (geek alert), but, no, unfortunately, I don’t. Closest I have is some ASCII art on fan-fold line-printer paper from that era. (You want ASCII art, try http://www.ascii-art.de/ascii/ or http://www.chris.com/ascii/ — both have Enterprise pix, along with extensive libraries of other images, some of which I know is from the 1970s.)

By: Larry

Larry — Tue, 27 Nov 2007 05:39:08 +0000

” What is dirt dumped in a hole called?”

“Phil”

By: Ken B

Ken B — Tue, 27 Nov 2007 05:18:54 +0000

Johnny Vector:
> But I did write my first program on a PDP-11 and store it on
> paper tape. (The modern, fanfold type, not that old-fashioned
> kind that reeled up like movie film.)
We had the on-a-roll tape. However, the system did have the option of printing a program listing with an all-holes-punched column every 12 inches or so, allowing it to be fan-folded.

Hairy Doctor Professor:
> Got rid of my Teletype some years back, but I still
> have the paper tape and punch cards I cut in 1972/3.
Any of them have silhouettes of the Enterprise?