The "Back in my day" Thread

Ted said:
I never hosted a BBS, but we did get a second phone line at some point. I want to say it was somewhere in the late 90s where the use increased, so my mom finally gave up on a single phone line.

Oh, the single phone line. We had call waiting, which disconected the internet whenever someone called. I eventually figured out the phone number prefix to disable it for the call, which annoyed my mom since people would call and get a busy signal (at that time, we got more actual phone calls than spam, unlike now). I think that's what convinced her to give up and pay for a second phone line.

But I do then also remember that phone line getting used for multiplayer games via dial-up. Unreal Tournament and Warcraft 2 come to mind, those were the main games I played with friends. Unlike today where you just end up having that work through your existing internet connection, in those days it was dialing up the other computer and having a direct connection. At least, that's how we did it.

I also remember my school's computer lab - when I was in kindergarten it was all Apple IIEs, which were later replaced with Mac LCIIs. We bought an LCII as my first computer with a blazing 16 MHz Motorola 68030 processor, 4 MB RAM, and an 80 MB HD. Fun fact: I later worked on a turbine engine that had a 68040 as the processor on the FADEC. They're still flying today - when I was at the company we had to do a lifetime buy on however many we expected to need as Motorola was finally going to permanently close down the production line. This was somewhere in the first half of the 2010s.

Anyway, in the computer lab we had a serial network on all the computers, which was primarily so we could use a networked printer. Standard 4-wire phone lines daisy chained between all the computers. But sometimes the computer teacher would let us all play a group game of Warcraft 2 on Fridays or before holidays.

I remember thinking it was pretty cool when I got an orange 5.25" floppy for the old Apple IIEs.
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"Ethos and Dan22 are the same person!"

"That's impossible. They both have been online at the same time."

"But... it's rumored he has two modems!"

Yeah I miss those days. I actually paid money to join a popular local BBS with several phone lines. I think it ran Citadel.
 
Being able to fly a minimally controllable gas powered model plane (RC being a gross overstatement of its capabilities), or Estes rockets without anyone calling the authorities . . ..
 
Ted said:
. . . . I also remember my school's computer lab - when I was in kindergarten it was all Apple IIEs, which were later replaced with Mac LCIIs. We bought an LCII as my first computer with a blazing 16 MHz Motorola 68030 processor, 4 MB RAM, and an 80 MB HD. Fun fact: I later worked on a turbine engine that had a 68040 as the processor on the FADEC. They're still flying today - when I was at the company we had to do a lifetime buy on however many we expected to need as Motorola was finally going to permanently close down the production line. This was somewhere in the first half of the 2010s.

Anyway, in the computer lab we had a serial network on all the computers, which was primarily so we could use a networked printer. Standard 4-wire phone lines daisy chained between all the computers. But sometimes the computer teacher would let us all play a group game of Warcraft 2 on Fridays or before holidays.

I remember thinking it was pretty cool when I got an orange 5.25" floppy for the old Apple IIEs.
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My high school had a vacuum tube computer that used a punch card interface. Then, after a stint in the Army, my university opened a computer lab with PCs . . . in my junior year. Before that there were tiny typewriter cubes in the library.
 
hollerith card.gif
Now, why was it called a "FORTRAN" statement? Since were in the way-back machine, I have actually punched Hollerith cards in my time. Anyone want a chad?
 
Barrett50 said:
why was it called a "FORTRAN" statement?
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Because that is the field on the card where the actual FORTRAN code went - between column 7and 72 (iirc). 1-5 was for statement numbers, 6 was for continuation? 73-80 you could use to number the cards so the deck could be sorted if you dropped it. Forget how you made a card a comment card. Perhaps a specific character in column 6?

It's been a while.
 
Capt. Geoffrey Thorpe said:
Because that is the field on the card where the actual FORTRAN code went - between column 7and 72 (iirc). 1-5 was for statement numbers, 6 was for continuation? 73-80 you could use to number the cards so the deck could be sorted if you dropped it. Forget how you made a card a comment card. Perhaps a specific character in column 6?

It's been a while.
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I used to where everything went on the card, had tests on the subject. Used to be pretty good at JCL, and was pretty knowledgeable on RACF as well. Those weren’t the days…
 
Capt. Geoffrey Thorpe said:
Because that is the field on the card where the actual FORTRAN code went - between column 7and 72 (iirc). 1-5 was for statement numbers, 6 was for continuation? 73-80 you could use to number the cards so the deck could be sorted if you dropped it. Forget how you made a card a comment card. Perhaps a specific character in column 6?

It's been a while.
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OK, had to look it up. Comment card - first character was a C. Got the rest right. Amazing the worthless stupid **** you remember. But something you need to know? HAH! No way!
 
My brothers. :cheerswine: Did you ever drop a card stack? I never did, but I've seen one dropped. About 6-7 hours to resolve.
 
Baked Potato said:
Hey, I'm glad it's not just me!
What's your go-to brand nowadays?
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Recently I've been using the Feit Electric ones with the slider on the side of the base that lets you change the color temperature. Previously, I've had some bulbs where the color temp changes over time, so a bulb installed today would be bright white while a bulb installed a year ago would be more of a warm white, and when you have a few identical light fixtures next to each other that doesn't look so good.

Haven't had any problems with them yet, nor with the Feit smart bulbs that I bought on the cheap ($10 for a pair). I'm not exactly comfortable making a glowing recommendation yet, but they've done well so far. I buy them at the local Meijer.

www.feit.com

8.8W (60W Replacement) Selectable Color A19 E26 Base LED Bulb (6-Pack)

Enjoy all the benefits of advanced LED energy-saving technology with Feit Electric A19 60-watt equivalent LED light bulbs. LED bulbs feature high color rendering index light with superior light quality and rich vivid color. These selectable color temperature bulbs feature 5 white light options...
www.feit.com www.feit.com
 
flyingcheesehead said:
Recently I've been using the Feit Electric ones with the slider on the side of the base that lets you change the color temperature.

www.feit.com

8.8W (60W Replacement) Selectable Color A19 E26 Base LED Bulb (6-Pack)

Enjoy all the benefits of advanced LED energy-saving technology with Feit Electric A19 60-watt equivalent LED light bulbs. LED bulbs feature high color rendering index light with superior light quality and rich vivid color. These selectable color temperature bulbs feature 5 white light options...
www.feit.com www.feit.com
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I haven't seen those. That's pretty cool.
 
CJones said:
When he wasn't using the line, I hosted a Wildcat BBS. With full-bore ANSI graphics splash screen. I think I called it 'The Throne'... no idea where that name came from.
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I ran Wildcat! as well. WizardNet, one 2400 modem on its own line. Good times.
 
Barrett50 said:
My brothers. :cheerswine: Did you ever drop a card stack? I never did, but I've seen one dropped. About 6-7 hours to resolve.
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Ah, FORTRAN IV. Type the program onto hundreds of cards, drop the stack off to be run overnight, pick up the printout in the morning to find there was an error on the second card and "SEVERITY OF ERRORS WILL PREVENT COMPILATION". And yeah, I dropped a stack... once... but it wasn't that huge, only took an hour or so to fix.

A few years after that, I remember accessing local Fidonet boards before being introduced to Compuserve.
 
Hey, Don’t knock Fortran :). To quote a friend “I can wright Fortran in any language “ Besides, most weather models are written in Fortran.
 
I just can’t believe these kids don’t know how to manually retard and advance the spark nowadays! Don’t get me started about automatic chokes! I mean, what idiots they are! And while we’re on the subject, what’s the crap about antibiotics anyway? Back in my day, you lived or didn’t. We were tough back then, I tell you, none of the namby-pamby crap nowadays. And what’s with women surviving childbirth…
 
Hey, I still have a car with manual spark advance, and another with 3 on the tree, and we didn’t uses antibiotics when I was a kid but there was a darn big bottle of iodine tincture for cuts and scrapes. That stuff made kids tough, when the “cure” hurt worse than the skinned up knee or cut you learned fast to jump back up and say your fine instead of crying and making a fuss lol.
 
JackL-3J said:
Being able to fly a minimally controllable gas powered model plane (RC being a gross overstatement of its capabilities), or Estes rockets without anyone calling the authorities . . ..
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Used to keep my Cox powered model on a string:

1732321395473.png
 
Flatiowa said:
Hey, I still have a car with manual spark advance, and another with 3 on the tree, and we didn’t uses antibiotics when I was a kid but there was a darn big bottle of iodine tincture for cuts and scrapes. That stuff made kids tough, when the “cure” hurt worse than the skinned up knee or cut you learned fast to jump back up and say your fine instead of crying and making a fuss lol.
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My grandma was a big fan of this stuff, and yeah, it was far worse than the cut or scrape itself.

1732321961105.jpeg
 
Back in the 59-62 timeframe I played football for a very small rural high school, which didn't bother to wash the grubby uniforms except maybe on a monthly basis (one of the players actually died from a septic infection after a cut). Many of us got jock itch. There was a cure for it that was extremely painful, like pouring gasoline on one's tender regions and lighting a match. Even worse than Mercurochrome. Any of you senior citizens and patriots remember what that was called? It always worked, by the way.
 
Mercurochrome, methylate, and the real nuclear bomb, Potassium Permanganate. It came as a coffin shaped dark object, with skull and crossbones impressed in it. I think that may have been the cure for jock itch.

Nail clear through the forward part of my foot, about 5 yo, playing barefoot. 1938 or 9.

Mom boiled a pan of water, scrubbed the foot and ankle, then dissolved the dark lozenge of PP, and swabbed top and bottom of my foot, repeatedly. That produced a dark orange/purple color to my skin. A thin pad of cotton top and bottom, gauze an inch wide several times around, and no more outdoor play for a few days.

No sign of infection, more of that liquid, and band aids, shoes and socks, good to go.
 
Recording? Nah, when we called collect, you got an operator and our phone numbers began with two letters. Ours were AL2-XXXX.

Gas was $027.9 when I worked at the ENCO (Exxon) Station. Blue boxes were too expensive, But 2600.....

In High School, we shared time on a terminal connected to Stanford University and punched IBM cards with FORTRAN 4 (pre-76).

You could walk to the bowling alley and buy cigarettes out of a vending machine. You could walk to the bowling alley without Child Protective Services visiting your Mom.

My brother's brand new Volkswagen cost $1648.00.

I learned to fly in a C-150 for $5 wet and $5/hr for a CFI.

JFK was still alive.
 
Piperonca said:
Back in the 59-62 timeframe I played football for a very small rural high school, which didn't bother to wash the grubby uniforms except maybe on a monthly basis (one of the players actually died from a septic infection after a cut). Many of us got jock itch. There was a cure for it that was extremely painful, like pouring gasoline on one's tender regions and lighting a match. Even worse than Mercurochrome. Any of you senior citizens and patriots remember what that was called? It always worked, by the way.
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You’re thinking of the ultimate anti-fungal, I think.

Gentian Violet.

Turned the skin bright purple for a week or so.
 
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