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Oct. 24th, 2005 08:23 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
plonqA co-worker just dumped a stack of about 200 unused, virgin computer cards on my desk. Wow, that takes me back a few years. I haven't a clue what I will do with these - I'm sure we don't have room for a card reader in our den at home.
You learned to be careful typing on a keypunch, because a typo meant that the whole card was scrap. You'd have to advance the card, insert a new one, copy the old card to the point where you made the mistake and then keep typing. No backspace in those days. We didn't have advanced editing tools like the one I use today (Notepad).
The best part about punching cards was saving up the little punch bits until you had enough to work some evil. They did wonders when they were poured down the windshield defroster vent in a car...
You learned to be careful typing on a keypunch, because a typo meant that the whole card was scrap. You'd have to advance the card, insert a new one, copy the old card to the point where you made the mistake and then keep typing. No backspace in those days. We didn't have advanced editing tools like the one I use today (Notepad).
The best part about punching cards was saving up the little punch bits until you had enough to work some evil. They did wonders when they were poured down the windshield defroster vent in a car...
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Date: 2005-10-24 02:39 pm (UTC)And thanks for the laugh.
Don't know what to do with them?
Date: 2005-10-24 04:21 pm (UTC)(Well, some of them, anyways)
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Date: 2005-10-24 07:04 pm (UTC)wait, I never used punch cards, my first programming languaje was my Commodore's Basic interpreter =P
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Date: 2005-10-24 08:08 pm (UTC)My first programming language was the ZX Spectrum Basic(Timex Sinclair 2000 or something in the USA)
You still got the machine?
And know how to program on it?
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Date: 2005-10-24 08:18 pm (UTC)I never had any advanced skills or anything on it, mostly I did animations of cars racing each other, or game loaders for my mum not to have to remmeber what to type in order to get to her favorite games (and included non smoking screens too that she always ignored =P), nothing really big or interesting.
The Commodore monitor is half-dead, but you can use it on a TV in C64 and 128 low res mode
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Date: 2005-10-24 09:16 pm (UTC)Myself, I have about a ton of computers here...
Anyway, heard about Erastosthenes Sieve?
If so, you may want to check this forum: http://www.totallytrygve.com/phpBB2/
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Date: 2005-10-24 09:39 pm (UTC)Seriously.. I don't have many rarities or cool stuff. I have one of those old IBM PCs, I think it's a PS/2, one of those that had the CPU and monitor in the same place and just used an external keyboard.
I have a few 286 and 386 motherboards (that came with the processor soldered in) and tiny B&W monitors from that era...
Oh! And I have a board from a Russian (actually eastern German) computer. I actually had like 7 of those, but only one made it home, sadly You can look at it here. From the layout of the chips I'd guess it's memory, which reminds me I also have a base memory extension card by Intel, that's here
And... that's about it =P
Just a note...
Date: 2005-10-24 09:43 pm (UTC)