The computers of your life!

[gformicola]

Sorry as I find myself occasionally reminiscing over this or that old piece of computerware this website reminds me of all the pieces of silicon that have passed through my hands.

http://www.oldcomputers.net/

None of it is as sexy as the '68 GTO I let go before I knew any better, but......

Enjoy,

Gerry Formicola

[Jeff Wexler]

That's a pretty terrific site --- I love all the history (and even stuff that goes back before my time). I grew up in Chicago and my Uncle Robert was in the Math/Science/Computer world at the University of Chicago. When I was about 4 years old he took me in to see THE COMPUTER which must have been an early Univac. It was in a large room that despite the apparent fans and cooling devices was really hot and electrical smelling, most probably from all the vacuum tubes in use. It was a trip. As far as personal computers go, I think I have had them all: Osborn, Commodore 64, Radio Shack TRS-80, Kaypro, Apple I, II, IBM PC jr., XT clone I built myself (8088 processor and a HUGE 20mb hard drive card from Mountain), and then, of course, almost every Mac model ever released, starting with the original Mac 512.

Regards,  Jeff Wexler

[Guest repete86]

I still have an old C64 that still works.  I have an old Packard-Bell with an amazing 30 mb hard disk, and an old Mac Classic with I think a 20 mb hard drive.  It's amazing to see how this technology has progressed.  Ten years ago, my dad bought a top of the line Dell with a blazing 266 mhz processor, a massive 6 gig hard drive and an amazing 32 mb of RAM for about $4k.  Now it's worth more as a door stopper.

[Philip Perkins]

My first working computer of my own was a C64 that the band I was in had discarded after using as a video graphics machine. 

I had a decent word processor and graphics program for it--the guy that wrote those programs was a genius to have gotten that much out of that microscopically powered machine.  Of course, the computer that everyone is so worried about in "Apollo 13" was more like Vic-20 (20k memory), and they were running a spacecraft with it!  We have lived thru the era of no-personal computers/computers the size of buildings to personal computers/ubiquitous computing--will the next generation experience change of the same magnitude?  Here my imagination fails me, I can't see how it could be as great a change as what we've seen.

Philip Perkins

[David Terry]

On an IBM gig we filmed in Delta’s football field sized room full of IBM 360’s.  Each computer cost over $1 mil, and the thing that made them state of the art was that they had disk drives, not tape.

After a few drinks with dinner the client was expounding on how smart these machines were. (less so than the first IBM PC)  I mentioned that audio waveforms could be described with calculus, and asked him if the machines could do the “audio math” quickly enough to be a ”super audio recorder”?  Yes, he replied.  Of course the really smart guys were already way ahead of us.   

David Terry

[Michael P Clark]

This will show my age. The first computer I ever put my fingers on was an Apple IIe in the fifth grade. We were the first school in Milwaukee to get one, and only the 5th-6th grades were allowed to use it. At that age, we were required to pass a test of programming knowledge before we were allowed to touch it. A single "Floppy Disk" to store any programs you could create (ie. math formulas, "letter" banners, and a really "great" looking Oregon Trail game.) A friend of mine had that graphics program, and we, being juvenile boys, would create animations mom wouldn't have been proud of. Could you imagine if kids today had to learn programming language before they "touched" a computer?

Michael Clark

[gformicola]

Michael,

I walked in to my kids class the other day and there is her whole class of 8 and 9 year olds with Mac ibooks on their desks, far nicer than the one I have!

At this point I think most of us in the MID age group (43 myself) tend to appreciate technology now more than our kids will.  For them it is a given that this does the job or something or other will come along that will.

Many of my compadres go back, as do I, to 1/4" reel to reel tapes and film mag, and 2" tapes that would take a 30 second preroll to sync.

I go back to a trip a couple of weeks ago where I drove with my boss from LA to San Fran and we had very few appointments and no map.  But what we did have was a TOMTOM GPS, a Verizon wireless card for his laptop, and cellphones. 

It was great - where is Locations Sound?  Enter it in your on your way, off to Audio Specialites, make a call see if folks are available and away we go.

How did we get along before??

Gerry Formicola