Early Experiences - What turned you on?

[a9127]

Of course if I ever did travel back to 1968 I'd of course catch a ride with my friend Hugh Hefner in his private jet.

A converted DC-9, the "Big Bunny" flew from 1966-1975 when it was sold to Venezuela Airlines. It was used as a commercial airliner for Aeromexico until 2004.

Looks like fun!

[a9127]

Something different. Yugoslavian computer magazine covers of the 1980s-90's.

Don't remember "PC Magazine" ever having this risque of a cover when I was younger. Would have had to hide these from my mom.

Think my favorites would be "October 1994," "September 1992," and "October 1992."

(Wonder who alive today knows what a "386" or "486" is? Or ever owned one? Or has ever heard of "Lotus 1-2-3" or "Windows 3.1"? Wonder who "Bil Gejts" is? )

[ila]

Originally Posted by a9127

...(Wonder who alive today knows what a "386" or "486" is? Or ever owned one? Or has ever heard of "Lotus 1-2-3" or "Windows 3.1"? Wonder who "Bil Gejts" is? )

I started with a Commodore 64 and then moved on to DOS on an Atari. Lotus 1-2-3 was still a DOS program. dbIII+ was the pinnacle of databases. WordPerfect was the only word processor worth talking about and Harvard Graphics was the only presentation program that could do more than show bullet points. I remember when a 50 MHz processor was called a screamer. It took me a long time before I had anything faster than that. It's hard to believe that at one time sixteen colours on a monitor was not just cutting edge, but bleeding edge. I was a system administrator using a DOS based NOS. Shall I go on?

[a9127]

I started with a Commodore 64 as well. Did you have the cassette? I also had to hook it up to an old color TV. My Dad had a Compaq DeskPro 386 for work and a T1 line that GM paid for. So I was exposed to business and technology at a pretty early age. We had a Novell network at school and one of the teachers let me work with it. Under his supervision of course. I remember almost all of the original DOS based computers and the earliest versions of Windows. One of my professors in grad school had an old "CP/M" machine sitting in his office. It still worked. My first "real" computer was a "hand me down" IBM PC/AT that used 1.2 Mb floppies had a 20Mb hard drive and used a "286" processor running at 6Mhz.

My first "new" computer was a "Gateway 2000" 486 running at 25Mhz. It was the first to have "VGA" graphics so you could see "real" pictures.

During middle school through High school I probably owned over a dozen PC's including Mac's. In college I learned UNIX and became proficient at C++. My undergraduate was in Industrial Management which was Purdue's way of combining Business and Engineering. The last CRT monitor I owned was in 1999. It was a Dell and had a 19" screen. I got a workout carrying it around. Everything since then has been a flat screen. My current home display is 27". For most professional work I use an HDMI interface at our university and in my office. My current home desktop uses an AMD Ryzen with 32 Cores and has a 1Tb Solid State drive. Everything is wireless. I have a Linux machine in my office as well as many tablets and notebooks.

At my university they give us "Acers" running Windows 7 and Office 2013. Most of the students have better technology. The main classroom I teach in has six huge flat panel displays that I can control with my phone or iPad.

Sorry to go on and on. Long boring post...

(In 1988, one of the school administrators gave me this "certificate" after I helped him with an end of year project. 30 years ago! Notice the "border" of "floppies." No I wasn't very old. Surprised I still have it. He was one of my inspirations to go into teaching many years later. He is still alive and we correspond now and then. Of course, along the way I managed to add to my collection by earning a Bachelor's Degree, an MBA, and Doctorate. I'm chair of the Business Analytics Program at our university and I also own a market research company. I've done pretty well.)

[ila]

Originally Posted by a9127

I started with a Commodore 64 as well. Did you have the cassette? I also had to hook it up to an old color TV. My Dad had a Compaq DeskPro 386 for work and a T1 line that GM paid for. So I was exposed to business and technology at a pretty early age. We had a Novell network at school and one of the teachers let me work with it. Under his supervision of course. I remember almost all of the original DOS based computers and the earliest versions of Windows. One of my professors in grad school had an old "CP/M" machine sitting in his office. It still worked. My first "real" computer was a "hand me down" IBM PC/AT that used 1.2 Mb floppies had a 20Mb hard drive and used a "286" processor running at 6Mhz.

My first "new" computer was a "Gateway 2000" 486 running at 25Mhz. It was the first to have "VGA" graphics so you could see "real" pictures.

During middle school through High school I probably owned over a dozen PC's including Mac's. In college I learned UNIX and became proficient at C++. My undergraduate was in Industrial Management which was Purdue's way of combining Business and Engineering. The last CRT monitor I owned was in 1999. It was a Dell and had a 19" screen. I got a workout carrying it around. Everything since then has been a flat screen. My current home display is 27". For most professional work I use an HDMI interface at our university and in my office. My current home desktop uses an AMD Ryzen with 32 Cores and has a 1Tb Solid State drive. Everything is wireless. I have a Linux machine in my office as well as many tablets and notebooks.

At my university they give us "Acers" running Windows 7 and Office 2013. Most of the students have better technology. The main classroom I teach in has six huge flat panel displays that I can control with my phone or iPad.

Sorry to go on and on. Long boring post...

(In 1988, one of the school administrators gave me this "certificate" after I helped him with an end of year project. 30 years ago! Notice the "border" of "floppies." No I wasn't very old. Surprised I still have it. He was one of my inspirations to go into teaching many years later. He is still alive and we correspond now and then. Of course, along the way I managed to add to my collection by earning a Bachelor's Degree, an MBA, and Doctorate. I'm chair of the Business Analytics Program at our university and I also own a market research company. I've done pretty well.)

So as not to take this thread way off track I'll keep my answer short.

The Commodore 64 that I learned on belonged to my boss. He was modern for his times and had 2 drives both 5 14" floppies. The monitor was a tv. This the computer that I had to learn some Basic to operate.

The Atari I learned on belonged to an educational institution. DOS had progressed to the point where I didn't need to use any Basic programming.

The first computer that I ever bought was Gateway 2000 486 with a 33 MHz processor, a 5 1/4" floppy drive and a 3 1/2", but no CD ROM drive. It came with a huuuuge 14" monitor.

[a9127]

I'll try to get it back on track. I'm thinking of changing my desktop wallpaper. Which one should I pick?

(Somebody went to a lot of trouble to make a Windows 95 theme for Windows 10. Why? )

[ila]

Originally Posted by a9127

I'll try to get it back on track. I'm thinking of changing my desktop wallpaper. Which one should I pick? ...

The Windows 95 logo of course. What could be sexier?