Bring Out Yer Dead -

[kyburg]

TRW Swap Meet today - and yeah, I know they're changing the name (likely have already) - but it's TRW to anyone who wants to know where the ham radio club holds their swap meet, and they do it every month. Last Saturday, in case you were wondering. Which this is. *ahem*

It holds the distinction of being the best example of Where Electronics and Weird Shit Goes to Die.

Like the fireman's turnouts from Riverside County Fire Department. The condemned ones - only fit for Halloween costumes, to be blunt - but there they were. In huge piles.

I also got to see my first disk pack server in twenty years. You know the ones - they stood as tall as your waist, and spun platters - which would hold about a meg or so on them. A big one held twenty of them, and they used to fill rooms with them - very clean, climate controlled rooms and the operators wore lab jackets - remember those?

Back in the day, these were the shit - and even worse?

I remember being so small I couldn't see over them - that's how long I've been around computers.

Yup. Have a piece of history - I don't know if you could use them as a planter, but if you gutted them, the cabinet might make an interesting decor piece.

Saw a old Olympia portable typewriter - and considered it seriously for a few moments. All you need is a light source, and you can type something other people can read. I remember spending days working at one of those - and typing final drafts with carbons so I'd have copies to give away.

My purchase today was a CD wallet that will hold 256 discs - actually, I got two of them. I give up trying to house CDs in jewel cases - I have too many discs, I'm not slowing down buying the silly things and I'm running out of legitimate space trying to house them. I'm stripping the cases and storing the discs and jacket art together and calling it a day. 512 discs I can take out of racks and shelve the wallets on the bookshelf like big volumes. Welcome to California Bungalow living. Yahoo.

--

It's catsonmars's birthday! Dude, I hope you flew through Reno - and got a foo-foo drink while you were there. Something.

--

I don't fall down rabbit holes too eagerly anymore - I found this at the bottom of one once.

Scaaaary.

Comments

[makeitepic.livejournal.com]

This calls for the Ichigo Freaks Out icon.
I just sat through that entire video...and damn near lost it when he was eating the fish.

There are no words.

[neintales.livejournal.com]

And yet.. I find myself always clicking on that link whenever it is posted by a friend...

It's insidious!

[secanth.livejournal.com]

*sigh* I'm worse off than you....I remember using punch cards during my first computing class in college. (We will not mention that I also remember 'pong' was *the* game out there....)

[neintales.livejournal.com]

The Catholic School that I was attending for early middle school years typing/computer science class used Radio Shack punchard machines. So I remember using them too!


... of course, this was in the mid 1990's.

[lesliepear.livejournal.com]

My first college classes were on punch cards also. You aren't alone!

(I am trying to figure out what Alan will think when we tell him, yes, there was life before the internet and computers!)

[(Anonymous)]

That was hilarious. I wonder when it was made.

[sputnik.livejournal.com]

That was me commenting while not logged in.

[kyburg.livejournal.com]

I believe back in the early '90's - when the boy was teh hottie overseas and Baywatch was in full swing.

ah...

[tomlemos.livejournal.com]

One of my jobs when I worked for Wells Fargo Bank was a Research Clerk. All I did all day was pair missing ATM deposits with their owners. I'd have to type up a deposit slip/receipt for the customer and mail it out. 8 hours a day, 7 days a week (we had a huge backlog) at an old Royal manual typewriter. They were beige and didn't weigh much, because they were almost all plastic and very cheap.

Heh. I wonder if I had a keyboard in a typewriter format (the stadium rows of keys). I wonder how fast I'd type on one of those compared to the relatively flat keyboard.

(as to the platters, we had a room full of them when we took over Crocker Bank and I worked in Network Operations. they were on their way out at the time, thank gawd.)

[rosminah.livejournal.com]

whoa, how much was that old typewriter? :)

[kyburg.livejournal.com]

I didn't get a chance to ask - but if it had been $20, I'd have been surprised.

[lesliepear.livejournal.com]

I remember the platter drives. I always thought they reminded me of cake platters and the drives of washing machines. I had seen some of the disks taken apart and made into mobiles!

Funny how a tiny USB "disk" holds more than those drives ever did.

But back then people wrote code to fit in memory. Now they just go buy more memory!

[doki.livejournal.com]

Some people still write compact code for the challenge.

[kyburg.livejournal.com]

It's a pity that skill is being relegated to places we reserve for SCA tournaments....

[doki.livejournal.com]

The Society for Creative Anachronism? I don't get it.

[kyburg.livejournal.com]

About the only place I know of that prizes the ability to cook an entire meal for more than 50 people over an open fire; basic woodworking, metalworking and the like.

Not that participate, mind - but I have to give props to people who do it.

[kyburg.livejournal.com]

And after saying that, let me add this - when was the last time you were encouraged to write efficient code outside of a competition?

[(Anonymous)]

Today was my birthday, too.

No love, man.

[digitaldraco.livejournal.com]

That was me.

[kyburg.livejournal.com]

Geez. You're kidding. I'm telling you - it's not on My LJ page (and I have to remember to check it) - I don't remember it.

Dude - we need to reconnect soon. I have games and only Jim to play them with. I also have caitlin, who would make a nice fourth person - but just the three of us wouldn't be nearly as nice.

Punchcards and TRW

[n6vfp.livejournal.com]

When I was in college punchcards were the rule for Fortran IV, I remember programs using 5000 cards and debugging was a pain. Haven't been to 'TRW' in years, yes, the 'graveyard' of electronics but also a place to find some innovative 'ham' gear. The donuts were always welcome in the cool morning air.

Re: Punchcards and TRW

[kyburg.livejournal.com]

Not to mention the hams themselves -

Fortran. *sighs*

[lolleeroberts.livejournal.com]

My dad went to work at IBM as a systems analyst when I was six months old. I grew up with clean rooms. I learned to write on sprocketfeed paper with green and white stripes. My dad would sometimes sit at home making pages full of "0"s and "1"s - writing code in binary. I learned to type on a Selectric with proportional spacing - backspacing was a bitch. When I worked for Western Union in the 80s we had the Honeywell disk pack servers. They were incredibly tempermental.

My first personal computer was a Trash 80 Model 1 with a tape drive (cassette) and an expansion module leading to 4 disk drives. This gave a whopping 64k of memory. Yes. I be an alchemist, have need of such as I?

[kyburg.livejournal.com]

The fact you ended up in nursing amuses me no end. In my family, it was the other way around!

[mdlbear]

The bottom of the disk pack makes a remarkably effective snack tray: the magnet holds the dip bowl very firmly.

[kyburg.livejournal.com]

Oh dude, the geekitude of that is simply hysterical.

[joggingguy.livejournal.com]

I also got to see my first disk pack server in twenty years. You know the ones - they stood as tall as your waist, and spun platters - which would hold about a meg or so on them. A big one held twenty of them, and they used to fill rooms with them - very clean, climate controlled rooms and the operators wore lab jackets - remember those?

They didn't need clean rooms when I worked on them in 1980-1986. They had sub-micron filters that had to be replaced regularly. Did that a lot back then. Data General Vulcan disks held 677 MB and had 18 platters on removeable packs. Back then, that was cool stuff.

My purchase today was a CD wallet that will hold 256 discs - actually, I got two of them. I give up trying to house CDs in jewel cases - I have too many discs, I'm not slowing down buying the silly things and I'm running out of legitimate space trying to house them. I'm stripping the cases and storing the discs and jacket art together and calling it a day. 512 discs I can take out of racks and shelve the wallets on the bookshelf like big volumes.

I did exactly this about 6 months ago, except I used smaller wallets so I could organize better. For example, I have one where I keep everything to load computers with. Top set of jackets holds all the OS CD's, and the bottom set holds all the driver and application CD's. I cut out any license or CD key and tape it to the jacket with the CD. All the jewel cases were trashed. It's wonderful now :-)

[kyburg.livejournal.com]

And I want you to be my neighbor, why again? *laughs*

[catsonmars.livejournal.com]

Actually I wound up staying in Boston because we couldn't find anything easy. :/ If I'd been in California, flight would've been cheaper. Meh.

Thanks!

[kyburg.livejournal.com]

In all honesty, I'm glad that's how it fell out.

Dude, the logistics on that one broke my brain and shook it out my ears. It's a real shame, but I didn't like any part of how the scheduling felt.

Tell me you got something stupid like a sake bomb or something.