Personal Computer Related Memories - I Remember:

[Tully]

I mentioned the "Skunk Works" at Lockheed Aviation in Long Beach Calif.
Please goto - A brief history of Lockheed Skunk Works aircraft (pictures) - CNET News

This is CNET Technic news about the "Skunk Works" Anniversary & how it got its' name.

Tully

 

[HippsieGypsie]

Thank you, Tully. Great and interesting read!

I was able to see a SR-71 Blackbird hanging at the Boeing Museum of Flight in Seattle when living there. " Breathtaking" is correct as the article described. Magnificent piece of engineering for it's day to say the least.

And now I know how Skunk Works got its name.

 

[Tully]

U2 Spy Plane

Another of my memories;

At Machine tool company I was working for, we had top security clearance from WWII, were asked, by Lockheed Aircraft to machine some honey comb stainless material. This was on a "Don't Ask Basis".

We tried everything, all the results were negative, just could not machine it. We tried filling it with wax etc. Needless to say, we found out that somebody did it with "Spark Erosion".

We also found out the process was used to machine the honeycomb core for the "Laminar Flow" wing that was used on the U2 Spy Plane.

The "Spark Erosion" process is now used all over the world to make the complicated moulds used in casting all types of materials.

A carbon shape is machined to the shape of the mould. It is then connected to a power source & the metal piece to be
machine is set on a grounded bed, fluid is used to wash away the eroded material & the spark between the carbon & metal ERODES the metal into the required cavity.

By the way the Lockheed "Skunk Works" built a jet plane & flew it long before the Germans did. The Army Air Force did not want it they just wanted more bombers. The original jet plane is n the Smithsonian.

As Jimmy Durante used to say "I've got a million of 'em"

By the way my "First flight" was in a "Tin Goose" (Ford Tri-motor, about 1938).

The "Old Fart"

Tully

 

[my2cents]

Hello all,

Now, sticking with the "I remember theme", my earliest remembrances of Personal Computers would most likely be trumped (or repeated) by many of the previous posters; however, I do have some fond memories of when I was part of a team that installed a leading-edge main frame computer system for a well-known corporation. Yep, that was my first job, right out of high school! So, they sent me to installation school for 9 months to bring me up to installation speed and then they sent me out to do "some" work. Now, I must clarify that I was by no means a lead installer initially but I ended up working my way through the ranks over a 35 year period and ended up as managing director of that same company.

Anyway, here's some of the awesome things that I specifically remember (circa 1968):

When I first arrived onsite, I saw a room filled with rows of empty framing. There were many rows and the entire floor plan was about 1/4th the size of an NFL football field. What I learned in school was that the main processor would be a single core (25Mhz) processor that would be capable of handling 5,000 instructions in about 5.5 milliseconds. Whoa Nellie! I also noticed these very large "refrigerator-sized" metal enclosures that had a giant electrical ball inside so I asked the lead installer what they were and he simply said "Those 4 enclosures contain the temporary memory for this mainframe computer system. Each enclosure will provide 8K of random access memory. This installation will have a leading-edge installation of 32K!" Still in awe, I heard this mechanical clanking, so I went over to where the noise was emanating from and here is this mechanical contraption moving up and down on a segmented pulley arrangement and this is where they were actually "copying the programs for the new installation." Hey, I knew that because I learned that in school (well sorta).

Anyway, they handed me a torque-wrench, pointed to the areas in need and said "OK kid, start boltin' things down." So I did, but I always tried to visit the lead installer, managing that gigantic diagnostic and installation monitoring mini-computer to see what else I could learn. Now, 35 years later the rest is history and now its playtime for me!

A few other observations I forgot to mention. This large mainframe used magnetized memory cards to store the permanent programming. All processing was done via reading simple 1s or 0s off each bit on each card by reading 44 bits (I think) at a time. The logic functions of this mainframe were all controlled by physical diode "and-or" gates, and since the manufacturing techniques were so new, nothing was small. In fact, you could only fit a minimal number of gates on each peripheral card so now you may understand why it had to have such a large footprint.

Anyway, I could go on and on but after 11 glorious years in retirement, I have most likely forgotten more than I can remember. In summary, I don't miss it a bit because the higher I progressed in the corporate structure the more difficult it became to continue. Anyway, my early days are what I enjoyed the most. Cheers!

 

[HippsieGypsie]

Thanks for posting your experiences and memories, my2cents. It's kind of you to share that. I think it important for the younger to read and grasp such things, not to say that you're old.

I saw a large room of mainframes such as you installed in the early 70's at an insurance company building that my buddy worked at. I was awe struck!

What's absolutely amazing to me is that here we are now carrying around devices in our pockets what used to fill those rooms.

 

[my2cents]

not to say that you're old

Well, if I was cranking a torque wrench circa 1968, that doesn't make me a spring chicken either!

I saw a large room of mainframes such as you installed in the early 70's at an insurance company building that my buddy worked at. I was awe struck!

Yes, I was quite impressed as well.

What's absolutely amazing to me is that here we are now carrying around devices in our pockets what used to fill those rooms.

Agreed!

 

[MrShowdown]

2003

• First saw computers, currently being used by my dad for video editing purposes.
• First time used computers, when asked by my dad to log in to my computer (took about 2 hours in welcome screen)

2004

• Broke my dad's printer by putting a pen on the paper slot.

2005

• Started to understand how to use computers.

2006

• My dad applied to a computer magazine subscription, thus i'm reading those magazines.
• Started messing around the Windows registry.

2007

• Finally, getting internet using Cable (used Dial-up before, expensive and slow).

2008

• Got the courage to open Control Panel (was forbidden by my dad).
• Messing around programs.

2009

• Got a new computer, since my dad's pentium 4 system died.
• Playing with Windows install CD/DVD's.

2010

• Bought Windows 7, installed by myself

2011

• Installed some games.
• Started to program using Visual Basic.

2012

• Got my very own laptop.
• Bought Windows 8.
• Starting to mess around partitions.

2013

• Disabled Facebook, Twitter, etc. accounts.
• Making forum posts.
• Messing around dual-boot.
• Trying linux.

 

[HippsieGypsie]

Thanks for posting, MrShowdown. Very well presented. :thumbup:

That's what I like to see. The younger ones posting here. You too have your memories. I think our memories help guide us to where we want to head in the future.

You younger ones are fortunate to be able to use PCs. There were none for us older members in our youth. Only mainframes. Geez. I'm trying to remember when I saw my first desktop PC.....Around the mid 80's I think. I was in my mid 30's.

 

[BunnyJ]

Thanks for posting, MrShowdown. Very well presented. :thumbup:

That's what I like to see. The younger ones posting here. You too have your memories. I think our memories help guide us to where we want to head in the future.

You younger ones are fortunate to be able to use PCs. There were none for us older members in our youth. Only mainframes. Geez. I'm trying to remember when I saw my first desktop PC.....Around the mid 80's I think. I was in my mid 30's.

I saw my first desktop PC in 1979 and it was a heath-kit. I was a senior in High School and the electronics dept was working on it.
At the same time I was using a HP2000E and coding in Time-share Basic. The next PC I used was in college.. a TSR80. The college dumped them after one semester and used the Digital PDP-11 instead.

From then on I used mainframes and only got to use PC's much later on.

 

[HippsieGypsie]

Thanks for posting, BunnyJ. You certainly have some great experiences there! :thumb:

I haven't heard of Heathkit in years. Upon further research I see they're reorganizing. One may read more about this in the FAQ section linked here: Heathkit

 

[BunnyJ]

That's good news. Oh and thanks. I've been programming computers since 1978. Yikes..

I attended the University of Texas, Austin. I received a degree in Computer Science.
I worked at, AT&T, General Dynamics, The Travelers Ins, and GE.

 

[Dragon Drop]

Born in 1949, I got into mainframes in the 60's and 70's. Then I got one of the first IBM PC's and spent years expanding it with every kind of 3rd-party hardware and software until it was a lovable monstrosity.

Just as the first version of Windows came out, I finally moved on from that glorious mega-toy to other things, and got a degree in Mathematics (the joy of my childhood) which has never been half as useful as my self-taught computer knowledge.

If I didn't need computers for any purpose except fun, I would want to go back to an IBM PC with Assembler Language and MS-DOS.

 

[Tully]

Ah yes! The TRASH 80 & the PDP 8E! You touched my heart!
The PDP was my first real computer for programming machine tools for the "Space Race" & the TRS 80 was my first home computer.
Still have the 5 1/4" "Floppies" for Scriplus, Visacalc, & DOS 4.1. & Version 3 of "Windpws"
Also have game "Strike Eagle F15". (see my PIC of TRS 80 on my page) All on 51/4 floppies.
If anyone is interested in these items, let me know & I will send them to you FREE!

Tully

 

[CountMike]

Born just after WW2 in completely ruined Yugoslavia that just split with USSR and Stalin and still shunned by west for being socialist/ Communist country there was not much left for us kids so I used to make my own toys and played with everything I could put my hands on including electrical stuff. At age 5 I already used to change fuses and fix lamps and some other stuff. In 3rd grade there was a hobby club for kids opened in my neighborhood and I promptly joined model plane and boat club but because of age had to sneak into radio club where we used to make those crystal (cat's whisker) radio receivers of which some got pretty sophisticated with movable coils and variable capacitors and thru those old magnetic headphones scavenged from a tank or airplane could catch quite an array of radio stations and even police etc. Remember having an electrical heater that had heating element in the middle of metal hemisphere and once after who knows which heating element change it started playing local radio station !!!
Anyway, as you can imagine time passed and I was still dubbing with electronics. Somewhere in junior high
a friend of mine and I tried making a robot of all the things. Some oil cans and motors and wheels from toys took care of some movement but "brain" had to be made in the same fashion programators and sequencers on clothe washing machines work. At that time we didn't even know how they worked, only later I found that out. As it was complicated beyond our teenage heads, filled to the brink with girls, rock and roll and motorcycles that got pushed into oblivion.
Somewhere in the meantime, a project of making a radio transmitter finished as fiasco. Without any schematics (it was below our standards to look at something somebody else already invented) we made it with tubes and assorted electronic parts including large transformer and lantern battery. After trying and tuning it close to home radio my friend left to walk away to see how far it would reach. He went pretty far without me loosing signal completely. After a while Morse signal got louder and than my friend showed at the door holding just the battery and transformer but clicks on the radio were even stronger that when he left. Than I found out that he was throwing parts out one by one to see which one was "extra" and they all were.
My first contact with computers was when my sister married a professor at an electronic institute where they were working on a first mainframe in Yugoslavia. As i was just about to finish high school he tried to convince me to study in that field but as soon as I've seen how much math was involved I hightailed to navy for compulsory military time and two beautiful years in patrol boats. Being still just a kid in my soul I took flying lessons thinking to enroll in military aeronautical academy (my father and few generations before were all soldiers with my grandfather being killed in WWI) but that got shot down because of relatively poor eyesight (nothing less than 20-20 was allowed at that time).
After few years of working as a traveling car mechanic and working as a technician and DJ in second discotheque opened in Belgrade, I decided to go to Canada and start new life there. That was 1974 already and I was 23, just right age to change continents.
Worked as security guard for a year and a half, I finally got to work as maintenance mechanic in factory and it was my main calling 'til 1997 when I returned to what is now Serbia.
In Toronto got involved in computers because of CnC machines started to be more and more computerized and it was my job to keep them running and modifying and even making from scratch. At home I started collecting game machines from Pong to Callico, Atari, Timex Sinclair ZX81, Commodore and than Atari ST (which is still my favorite and still have one in working condition). Didn't get any IBM compatible (that's what we called them) until 386 SX 16.
Remember seeing a Winchester HDD in a store when they were first introduced, used to go to store just to look at it, just had enough of poor 120 KB floppys which I accumulated in great heaps but as those 10MB HDDs used to cost like a small car I never managed to get one until I picked up couple of 20 MB MFM HDDs that got recycled from our company's server and connected them to my Atari 1024 ST. What a relief, I could store those few hundred of 720 KB 3.5" floppies.
After all of that I used to privately have every new generation of PC and their peripherals. Remember when CD drive for data came out. Cost me about 300 bucks than but I figured that it's a bargain because of it's 700+ MB and my HDD at that time was few times smaller. When in late '70s I seen first B&W monitor, I thought it a breakthrough because 'til than I was having quite red eyes from looking at TVs instead.
Despite acceleration of computer technology, it's getting less exciting, gone are the days of stuff like overclocking using soldering iron,switching wires around and modding video cards with more memory, making sound chips from keyboard drivers and other "high tech" pioneering stuff.
1976 I helped my uncle who just retired as electronic engineer at CGE to put together a Heathkit "computer" with 16 switches and 16 lights which he used to calculate (still enigma for me as to how) some stuff for acoustic he worked on as a hobby.

 

[JimJoe]

That's good news. Oh and thanks. I've been programming computers since 1978. Yikes..

I attended the University of Texas, Austin. I received a degree in Computer Science.
I worked at, AT&T, General Dynamics, The Travelers Ins, and GE.

In 1978 I was in theatrical design before changing to Computer Science in 1983. Lovely campus, name of UT-Austin. I worked on several plays, 'Mother Courage and her Children' being one of them. I was a student put in charge of the prop crew of that play.

 

[HippsieGypsie]

A great rags-to-riches history there, Count! Thanks for sharing. You must have great determination! Now we know how you obtained your great computer skills.

Hopefully BunnyJ will see this to connect alma maters of the same school, JimJoe. Thanks for sharing that.

 

[CountMike]

A great rags-to-riches history there, Count! Thanks for sharing. You must have great determination! Now we know how you obtained your great computer skills.

Hopefully BunnyJ will see this to connect alma maters of the same school, JimJoe. Thanks for sharing that.

Yeah, school of hard knocks but I don't mind. I guess I have a knack for things like that, most of the time I could not dissuade people that I was not a schooled engineer. I like doing things the "seat of the pants" and "I did it my way" way.
Developed and made almost all by myself a production line for re-manufacturing main brake cylinders, controlled by c20s and a 286 PC. When it was put into production along came main bosses from the corporation to see it. They wanted plans and schematics to duplicate it in our Texas plant. I told them they would have to wait till I make them because I didn't make any in advance. A while later, at the SEMA (Car spare parts manufacturers association ) show in Vegas, I was introduced to Lee Iacocca, than president of Chrysler corporation and his comment was: "Ah you're that guy that makes something first and than plans for it". My boss told me later that "In this business you couldn't fart without everybody knowing".
For disk brake pads and rotors I developed part numbering system that made it easy to find out which cars they fit without looking up in catalogs. Holland catalog corporation took it over and made cross reference to other manufacturers nomenclature and it's somewhat modified still in use. That made our company, although pretty small, reference for auto brake industry.
When somebody asks me how was my work age, all I can say is "it was fun".

 

[HippsieGypsie]

That's quite a career, Count! What an honor to have met Lee Iacocca and to be recognized by him! One of my idols in life. Another rags-to-riches story. Although he had an industrial engineering degree, he was most successful in sales, marketing, and business management. He backed and managed more teams in introducing the most automobile concepts, models, and trends in history. Most notably "America's 1st second car" the Mustang. Can you imagine then being fired by Henry Ford II and going on to bail out Chrysler Corp! Quite a career to say the least!

In researching I noticed he is approaching the age of 90. He also has a website of which I visit from time to time: Lee Iacocca

Frank Lloyd Wright, Bill Gates, and Princess Diane are amongst those I highly respect just to name some.

It's an honor to have met you, Count, even though it's via cyberspace! You're one of my favorite members. I like your style. Keep up the good work!

BTW, there is a fairly large Brake Parts Corporate plant in our town here. I think Echlin Corp bought it out. Although it's open, I don't see a lot of cars in the parking lot and a whole lot of activity for the size of the plant as in the past.

 

[CountMike]

That's quite a career and an honor to meet Lee Iacocca and to be recognized by him! One of my idols in life. Another rags-to-riches story. Although he had an industrial engineering degree, he was most successful in sales, marketing, and business management. He backed and managed more teams in introducing the most automobile concepts, models, and trends in history. Most notably "America's 1st second car" the Mustang. Can you imagine then being fired by Henry Ford II and going on to bail out Chrysler Corp! Quite a career to say the least!

In researching I noticed he is approaching the age of 90. He also has a website of which I visit from time to time: Lee Iacocca

Frank Lloyd Wright, Bill Gates, and Princess Diane are amongst those I highly respect just to name some.

It's an honor to have met you, Count, even though it's via cyberspace! You're one of my favorite members. I like your style. Keep up the good work!

BTW, there is a fairly large Brake Parts Corporate plant in our town here. I think Echlin Corp bought it out. Although it's open, I don't see a lot of cars in the parking lot and a whole lot of activity for the size of the plant as in the past.

My company at that time was "Universal Brake Parts"
I see we have some same people in mind. Yes Lee Iacocca is a legend. Despite being very high in the ranks as businessman he was very much a "hands on guy" which makes me respect him. There's reports of him coming down to production lines while at Ford and being able to do any job of any worker on the line. My thanks to him for making Mustang (my all time favorite car, had 2 of them and know old ones part by part) together with Carol Shelby in almost clandestine way without top Ford brass knowing till it rolled out of the factory. I guess there were some really red faces when money from sales started coming in.
Later he single handedly saved Chrysler from going the way of AMC. Sure, K-Car was a lousy car, Omny even worse but they were cheap and affordable and covered the costs of big, money loosing gas guzzlers Chrysler corp. with Dodge ad Plymuth made.
He also divided corporation in separate companies and sold out money loosers. One of those was Detroit Chemical plant that one of my former bosses (Mike Berry) bought out lock, stock and barrel, moved machines to Cuba, Missouri, (a Hee-Haw town of 3000 inhabitants and one traffic light). Nice people there, foothills of Rocky mountains and all to one real Hillbillies. I could write a novel about that time I was there.
There I worked off and on for a year to repair and rebuild those machines for making brake friction material. As soon as one line was finished, it was packed in containers and shipped to Hungary. He was Hungarian and had to flee during Hungarian uprising and made quite a carrier in Canada (and got rich in the process).
There I was first introduced to industrial robots and had a heck of a time figuring them out and putting to work. When they were dismantling machines, they never bothered to disconnect them properly but just cut cables and wires, some times with a torch !!! I don't have to tell you how many miles of wires I had to figure out and reconnect and how many sparks that produced. Most of those robots were controlled by IBM B960 U and K modules of which each was practically a full fledged computer on a board. Programs for them were on 5 1/4" diskettes, all (or almost all) packed in the cardboard boxes and were marked with crypticall markings and had been encrypted without any password in sight. Encryption was not too strong and took me a week to break few but when I noticed that all password started with "sex" with just few numbers after it, it went much easier. I'm still wandering about who did that, must have been somebody quite obsessed with it .
IBM office in St Louis helped me immensely, even lent me a portable computer (no laptops than) specialized for programing controllers and beautiful ladder schematic program to do it. Those were the days when programmable digital controllers were just taking over mechanical and RLC (Relay Logic Control) so there was beautiful relations to electric schematics. You could literary compare schematic on paper and looking at ladder diagram on the monitor program each input and output to do what it needs to. Making them work in unison was another story. There was a model 10 IBM Mini in the office but never got time than to get it to work. IT professionals at that time were getting over 100 bucks an hour and I was not at speaking terms with Unix at that time. It ended up at sister company in Toronto and they put it to work there so when I came back to work there (Champion Parts Rebuilders) I had some more interactions with it. It used triaxial cable for networking and was size of a large fridge. Often wandered where that "Mini" name came from.

 

[BongoKongo]

I remember when I was young I had to reinstall windows about 3-4 times every month for about a year..
I just jumped right in blindfolded with an axe & hacked away..Broke a lot, but learned a lot too.
Thankfully I learned pretty quickly that if something aint broke don't try to fix it.
Now I only reinstal when I upgrade the PC's Gizzards..