Registered: Nov 1999
Location: Redwood City CA
Posts: 472

And when I was 13 (in 1977), the only computer the school had was eight large, metal manhole covers we called "registers", with the word "yes" written on one side and "no" written on the other. We would write instructions to the operator (a slave captured in the Spanish-American War) on clay tablets, he would compile them mentally, and flip the registers to match our instructions. My high school project was to get it to spell the letter "A" in EBCIDIC.

But you tell the kids nowadays, and they don't believe you...

Registered: Oct 2000
Location:
Posts: 52

Wow, what great stories! It kinda makes me appreciate the stuff technology has allowed me to have right now.

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Pen-Pen siggie is constructifying itself later...

Registered: Jun 2000
Location: Pembroke,MA
Posts: 307

Hmmm... When I was 13 in 1975, my school was teaching us the hi-tech wave of the future. Does anybody even remember punch cards? Our exams consisted of a manual card puncher, and we have to "input" various data, like names, addresses... It would get graded by our school's "pride and joy" punch card reader, that was about a 4 foot cube. -amazing

Registered: Oct 1999
Location: Baltimore MD, USA
Posts: 717

quote:

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Originally posted by linguas
Well, it was 1970 when I was 13 so there wasn't much in the way of computers at all (at least none that weren't living-room sized!) that ought to make some of you feel younger!

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Registered: Feb 2000
Location:
Posts: 1571

quote:

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Originally posted by linguas


Yardie - where are you from? I too was raised in a "third world" country!

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The Land of Bob Marley, Reggae and Jerk Chicken

Registered: Jun 2000
Location: Pembroke,MA
Posts: 307

quote:

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Originally posted by yardie The Land of Bob Marley, Reggae and Jerk Chicken
[/B]

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Nice, my wife and I go there every year for our anniversary... It's a little crazy around Kingston, but the people are so cool... Still tryin' to get the patoi down, though. Love that Jerk Chicken.. and maybe a red stripe

Registered: Oct 1999
Location: Kansas City, MO
Posts: 295

Re: OFF TOPIC: To LanMan

Originally posted by VoxDei

I grew up in Independence (20 minutes from my front door to seats at Royals (Kaufman) Stadium!) before moving to Boston in '81 and NH in '85.

Sounds like you�re waxing nostalgic. Are you sure you don�t want to move back to good ole KC? The boys in blue look like they�ll have a good team next year. Especially with David Glass at the helm.

My physics class was at Truman HS - class of '76. Good old Mr Bowman, teaching us about "Ohm Laws."

I�m from the Raytown South class of �79 myself. Some of my arch rivals in debate were from Truman (I say shaking my fist).

I've been back for a couple of years since being out here (moved to a MO river town just one month before the flood of '93) but I'm back here to stay now.

That was bad timing on the move in �93. It was a bad year for a lot of people along the Mighty Mo.

Since it's November I'll say that I sure miss the Plaza Lights every year!

And yes, I�m looking forward to the Plaza lighting ceremony myself. The mayor�s Christmas tree just arrived in Crown Center yesterday, so the holiday season is officially gearing-up.

[Edited by LanMan on 11-03-2000 at 06:33 PM]

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Registered: Nov 1999
Location: Central Valley, CA
Posts: 17

You are all so young.

When I was thirteen we did not have handheld calculators, much less computers, we had slide rules. They only worked well if you could grasp the concept of "significant digits". I was 13 in '64. They say that if you can remember the sixties then you weren't from the sixties. I do remember that the TI calculator was not much longer or wider than a pda but it sure was thicker and heavier.

My first computer experience was in college. We used keypunch cards to "program" the computer to sort, add, or to access it's basic database application. The problem was doing the keypunching and then waiting till the next day to find that I made a typing error, then re-type it and wait another day for the results. Some programs took a week to de-bug.

Oh, and the first really fantastic computer game we had was "Pong".

John

Registered: Feb 2000
Location:
Posts: 1571

quote:

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Originally posted by LarryN

quote:

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Originally posted by yardie The Land of Bob Marley, Reggae and Jerk Chicken

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Nice, my wife and I go there every year for our anniversary... It's a little crazy around Kingston, but the people are so cool... Still tryin' to get the patoi down, though. Love that Jerk Chicken.. and maybe a red stripe [/B]

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