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My first machine was a TRS-80. I was 9 years old, and I remember having
to rewind the cassette tape (drive?) to play "star trek" (it was the
only game I had; I'm not a Trekkie/er). I was stoked when at age 12 my
Dad got an IBM XT (Xtended Technology baby!). It had TURBO mode that
bumped it from 4.77Mhz to 8 Mhz. I remember mastering WordStar at age
13. I think I was the only kid in Jr. High that turned in "printed"
homework. In fact, I think that a few teachers even rejected it (but
it's been a while). Anyway, I'm pushing 30 now, so I'm feeling a bit
old. The new BBS Documentary that just came out isn't helping matters any.
Sorry if this post makes anyone feel bad - it isn't intended to. I just
wanted to add my history to 'history'.
Kind regards,
CB
James P. Kinney III wrote:
>Ol' fart ;)
>On Thu, 2005-05-26 at 22:26 -0400, Mark Wright wrote:
>
>
>>I have worked on 6262's. Didn't know anything about them but usually
>>got them running.
>>
>>The most bodacious (thats the only word that comes to mind) printer I
>>have ever worked on was an STK 5000. It was not a dot matrix but a
>>band printer. It was the biggest and baddest impact printer in the
>>land. It could print 5000 132 character lines in one minute. It was
>>huge. Imagine a continuos tractor fed sheet of paper two feet wide
>>flying through this huge machine as it is pounded by a row of hammers
>>132 characters wide. The noise of five or six servo controlled motors
>>big enough to power a golf cart going full blast was incredible alone,
>>then the hammers printing...
>>
>>There used to be four of these in the windowless State archive building
>>downtown that printed all the tag and title forms for the state. They
>>were still in use last time I was there about 1999.
>>
>>I took a Fortran class using punch cards, a card reader to input
>>program and data and output from a line printer. We didn't even have
>>console with a tube an keyboard. The card reader and printer we
>>connected using IBM SNA (systems network architecture) and a T1 to GA
>>Tech's mainframe.
>>
>>I the late 80's I installed a computer for AT&T that cost 4 million
>>without any disk or tape subsystems. They bought the disk, tape and
>>network stuff from other companies. This computer and the connected
>>devices would just sit idle in the case another computer on the other
>>side of the data center had a failure. These computers routed 800
>>calls. AT&T lost about 100 million in business because that first
>>computer went down once. (anyone remember a 800 number and cell phone
>>issue in the late 80's in New York?) Hence the approximately 6 million
>>dollar hot spare.
>>
>>I love stuff like this. I have more stories. I better shut up. Once
>>a Space Shuttle launch was put off because we asked for time to apply
>>patches to a System at AT&T. Ok Ok, I'm stopping
>>
>>Oh wait! The console processor on the Mainframes I worked on used
>>UNIX! (Is that close to having a Linux topic?)
>>
>>Mark
>>
>>
>>On May 26, 2005, at 2:36 PM, Matt Magee wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>>>Not old enough to have worked with a 1403, but one place I worked at
>>>had a pair of 6262s which apparently operate in a similar manner. The
>>>6262s will induce hearing loss if you leave the doors open!
>>>
>>>People would ask why we used these huge twinax connected monsters.
>>>The reply was always "because it works!"
>>>
>>>Ben Coleman wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>>-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
>>>>Hash: SHA1
>>>>
>>>>Brian J. Dowd wrote:
>>>>| My first home computer (1975) ran a Teletype ASR33...
>>>>| Now that was a kick. Stood on an attached stand and was shipped to
>>>>| me bolted to a wooden palette. Sounded just like a newsroom at 110
>>>>baud :-)
>>>>| Is anyone else ancient on this list or are the other geezers still
>>>>| running DOS or Windows?
>>>>
>>>>I'm ancient enough to remember the IBM 1403 line printers from the
>>>>same
>>>>era. Talk about loud! I remember one where if you had several lines
>>>>of
>>>>asterisks (typical for the header and trailer pages), it sounded as
>>>>though someone was hitting it with a hammer. Fast, though!
>>>>
>>>>Ben
>>>>-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
>>>>Version: GnuPG v1.2.3-nr1 (Windows 2000)
>>>>Comment: Using GnuPG with Thunderbird - <a rel="nofollow" href="http://enigmail.mozdev.org";>http://enigmail.mozdev.org</a>
>>>>
>>>>iD8DBQFClgK+QBcsLKrSBE8RAhqSAJ457PGS1L2D8d2boAJ+qHsvaqbKvACgxJOI
>>>>wnzDJWpsQuUfRHuOtESfwow=
>>>>=4V83
>>>>-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
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>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
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>>>
>>>
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</pre>
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<li><strong><a name="00974" href="msg00974.html">[ale] Need Tractor Feed Dot Matrix printer</a></strong>
<ul><li><em>From:</em> mpwright at speedfactory.net (Mark Wright)</li></ul></li>
<li><strong><a name="00993" href="msg00993.html">[ale] Need Tractor Feed Dot Matrix printer</a></strong>
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<li><strong><a name="00953" href="msg00953.html">[ale] Need Tractor Feed Dot Matrix printer</a></strong>
<ul><li><em>From:</em> mattslistmail at earthlink.net (Matt Magee)</li></ul></li>
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<li><strong><a name="00967" href="msg00967.html">[ale] Need Tractor Feed Dot Matrix printer</a></strong>
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