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?

By: Paul

Paul — Tue, 27 Nov 2007 04:08:02 +0000

Yes, but do you blow at high dough?

By: Hairy Doctor Professor

Hairy Doctor Professor — Tue, 27 Nov 2007 02:41:40 +0000

Anyone else here remember ASR-33â€™s and paper tape?

Raises hand. Got rid of my Teletype some years back, but I still have the paper tape and punch cards I cut in 1972/3.

By: Bolo

Bolo — Tue, 27 Nov 2007 00:15:21 +0000

Yes, join the Meyers club! We’ve already got PZ–adding the Bad Astronomer would be great too! Note that we are not to be confused with the Myers, Meyer, or Mayer club. Inferior names that are either missing the first ‘e’ or the last ‘s’ and therefore don’t have the complete package. And don’t get me started with the ‘a’ in Mayer….

By: drbuzz0

drbuzz0 — Mon, 26 Nov 2007 22:48:22 +0000

So it’s pronounced like dinnerware right? Like the other way of saying “a flat dish usually made of ceramic but sometimes of other material.”

Anyways, are you 40 based on the official time of earth or based on your own time? Because I heard that you live life in the fast lane, which would make you younger I would think, relatively speaking that is…

By: Christian Burnham

Christian Burnham — Mon, 26 Nov 2007 22:31:29 +0000

Phil Plate is over 40?

By: Law Mom

Law Mom — Mon, 26 Nov 2007 22:22:12 +0000

I wrote my first BASIC program in 9th grade math class–back in 1979. It was a multiple choice quiz about who was the best math teacher. What a suck-up. No wonder I’m a lawyer and not a computer programmer.

My dad remembers when they added computers to some sort of research equipment he used to deal with (mass spectrometers, maybe). When they upgraded to 8K, everyone thought it was such a waste. No one could use all that space!

By: bassmanpete

bassmanpete — Mon, 26 Nov 2007 22:12:38 +0000

Anyone I knew in the UK with their surname spelt the same as yours pronounced it Plat. So for all the years that I received your (very irregular!) newsletter I thought of you as Phil Plat. It was only when you started your answering questions spot on YouTube that I realised you pronounced it Plate.

Also, if it’s nostalgia time, I recall in 1973 seeing Pong for the first time and thinking “WOW!” And it was double WOW when Space Invaders came out. Now I stay away from all video games because I know I’ll get sucked in and I already waste enough time reading blogs

By: Johnny Vector

Johnny Vector — Mon, 26 Nov 2007 21:39:44 +0000

Paper tape? We used to have to program with sheet metal and a drift punch. Right! And we had to boot up at ten o’clock at night, half an hour before we went to bed. And back in them days we didn’t have funny “back in them days” stories; we had to steal them from Monty Python!

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.)

I think I have more memory, disk storage, and processing power slung over my shoulder now than there was in the entire world at that time.

So yeah, kids today. Most of ‘em don’t even know what XYZZY does.

By: KaiYeves

KaiYeves — Mon, 26 Nov 2007 21:38:19 +0000

You are one of the hippest guys I’ve ever heard of. And this blog is the only one I regularly check.

By: Ken B

Ken B — Mon, 26 Nov 2007 21:26:12 +0000

Even harder to comprehend for some people — I’m 46 years old, and I have over 36 years of computer experience, and I’ve had my own internet access since before Windows 95 was called Chicago. (I finally convinced the company I worked for to get an internet account shortly afterwards — and it was batch mode only. Even ftp was batch! Upload the request, hang up. Call back later, download the result. It was still quite a few years before they got their own domain name.)

Sure, nowadays, nearly every 10-year-old has worked on computers, and many even have their own. (My 10-1/2-year-old son has had his own computer for over 9 years.) But back in 1971, it was almost unheard of. (I was recently talking to an old friend from high school, and we commented on how my internet access is now nearly 200,000 times faster than when I started using the school’s timeshared computers.)

Anyone else here remember ASR-33′s and paper tape?

By: PK

PK — Mon, 26 Nov 2007 21:02:28 +0000

I feel your pain, my name being “Pieter” with a silent “i” and living in England.

By: The Centipede

The Centipede — Mon, 26 Nov 2007 19:59:47 +0000

> I have the 3D perceptual skills of some theoretical 4D superentity!

Hello, Mr. Sphere. I am A. Square.

Anyhoo. You mean videogamer. Unfortunate, as I’m a second-generation tabletopper myself (never got into videogames too much, but I do like me some Bioshock. Mmmmm, Shock series… and overuse of italics tags).

By: Quiet_Desperation

Quiet_Desperation — Mon, 26 Nov 2007 19:39:31 +0000

*AND* I still have the reflexes. I am *totally* pwning Super Mario Galaxy. I have the 3D perceptual skills of some theoretical 4D superentity! Grrr!

By: The Centipede

The Centipede — Mon, 26 Nov 2007 19:39:24 +0000

Well, Doctor, you may as well apply for your AARP card. I’m just surprised it didn’t go “Check in on Fnord Burpleblatt’s blog to see if thereâ€™s a celestial event underway, or someone somewhere is even thinking about creationism in schools (or anywhere else, really), or some new bit of Dr. Who kitsch has come out…”

Speaking of kitsch, I’m planning on getting one of ThinkGeek’s “Expendable” t-shirts. You know. The red one. I think that’s mighty nifty, don’t you?

By: Quiet_Desperation

Quiet_Desperation — Mon, 26 Nov 2007 19:37:33 +0000

Try admitting you are in your 40s (or even 30s) on a gaming board. All the teenagers go into exploding head mode. They simply can’t comprehend the fact that I was gaming when they were just a vague idea in their father’s loins.

They have no sense of time. Must be getting educated in schools with heavy ID influence.

I played Super Star Trek, man! Them little punks should be kneeling before me! Now get off my lawn and all that.

By: Rebecca

Rebecca — Mon, 26 Nov 2007 19:28:19 +0000

Way to go, Fill! You’re the best old fogie blogger I know!

By: Ted D

Ted D — Mon, 26 Nov 2007 19:15:12 +0000

“Platt” means flat in Swedish, so it’s a double insult! It’s deliberate, I’m sure. *does his best conspiracy theorist impression*