Old PC Technology

[ila]

Originally Posted by a9127

As I began my new position as Executive in Residence at my university last week, I started cleaning out my home office as well. This is the program I wrote way back in grade school with one of my teachers. It was called “Chart Analyst for Windows.” My dad got his attorney to write up a license agreement and also to keep the teacher from taking advantage. As he always said "trust nobody." The program was written in C++. I did most of the coding.

Thought this might be of interest here as it’s all pretty obsolete now. Especially the “modem settings” routine. 1994? 1994??? Christ! I guess it was what it was. I still have an external 3½ USB drive. May try “installing” it later tonight to see what happens?

Anyway it didn’t make me the next “Bill Gates” but I made enough money to buy a Corvette for my 16th birthday some years later. Invested the rest.

Eventually this venture became the basis for the market research consulting firm I now own.

Last picture. Black of course. Six speed manual. Z51 suspension. HUD. At my parent’s home in Michigan. Spring Break 2000. Would’ve taken Dove Cameron out but she was only 4.

The background information is very interesting. I especially like the modem settings. That brought back a lot of memories. I've still got my booklet on modems and baud rate (part of my trade and I had to know it all). I'll have to pull it out to see if I can find any little nuggets in there to pass on.

[a9127]

Maybe someone else had one of these antiques? In another post, I mistakenly told ila my “first PC” was a C64 like his. In fact he was way more advanced than me. Mine actually was a lowly “VIC-20” my mom picked up on sale at K-Mart or something. Today it resides in a landfill somewhere North of Detroit.

The VIC-20 manual. That kid would be at least a few years older than me. You know he’s saying: “Dad, let’s go back to the pictures you were looking at before Mom walked in.”

Looks like someone tried to bring one into the “21st Century.” Nice try but why isn’t anything showing up on the screen?

“Deceptive Advertising” and technology has been around since… well… forever! This was a “text based” game anyway. So there wasn’t even a poorly digitized version of her to beat off too… Today it’s called “clickbait.”

[a9127]

A few "relics" I found while cleaning up my office today. Some of this stuff I've had for years...

The first "CD" was for a review course on Oracle. But it says "CBT." A course on "CBT"? Wonder who teaches it? Chanel Santini? Angeles Cid? Sign me up!

Or do I just have a dirty mind...

The "AOL" disk is from 1999. God. This one really makes me feel old... Who remembers these? Did you ever use "AOL"? Were you even born? My students weren't.

The others are just "general interest." The best one was the CCNA "Virtual Lab."

The second pic is my membership card for the "Project Management Institute." I became a "Certified Project Manager" when I was still in Grad School. Speaking of which, I'm getting ready to teach it online again in the Spring. Here I'm "Dr. Andrew."

[ila]

The pictures above brought back memories of 2x CD ROM drives. It was top of the line back in '92. I almost bought a PC back then with one installed. The only reason I didn't was because I couldn't afford it.

[a9127]

Originally Posted by ila

The pictures above brought back memories of 2x CD ROM drives. It was top of the line back in '92.

You didn't miss anything really... There wasn't much around. This was from "Encarta '95." Considered to be state of the art "multimedia" and "the future of learning" during the 90's it left much to be desired...

This is the video for "Basketball."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z7o4wW4pUMQ


Like most guys I got my porn from "Usenet."

(Always wanted to know what the blonde in the pink top making a basket near the end looked like. Best part of the video. )

[ila]

A couple pictures I found today that have been turned into memes:

Cassette decks can't really be called computer technology, but at one time it was possible to save files to them. I wonder how many still have cassette players (I do ). That head cleaner sure was handy and it actually worked.

Who remembers clippy? I was sure glad that microsoft provided a way to turn off that annoyance.

[a9127]

Didn't think I could find these. First "event" like that I ever went to. May 31, 2001. A long time ago. Got "Office XP" for free. The "highlight" was a "livestream" conference with Bill Gates (you could ask him questions through a moderator) and a guy in a "Clippy" costume. For an otherwise impressive event, "Clippy" was poorly done. Somehow to me he looked more like the fourth picture...