Nice people thread part 4 - sugar and spice and all things

neverdespairgirl

I think I'm one of the oldest group of people to have grown up wtih computers - my Dad was ahead of his time, and bought two Amstrad computers when I was about 6, one for Chambers, one for home. My sister and I were given a Spectrum 128K for Christmas that year, and when I was 12, I got an Amiga 500 as a Christmas present.

So all my GCSE coursework etc was word processed and printed.

neverdespairgirl

SingleSue wrote: »

It changes when they get older, I used to be able to rely on middle son being awake at 5am in the morning...now I need two alarm clocks!

N.B. Two in case one fails, I like to be prepared and make sure

I'd love not being able to rely on it. I'm so not a morning person (-:

neverdespairgirl

SingleSue wrote: »

Mine has not been replaced since 1998....and that one was second hand anyway, bought for £50 from the local paper.

I have only ever had one new kitchen, in 1989, and that was left over cabinets from a kitchen fitting (over ordered), cost us a tenner and that was for fitting the darn thing, when we left the flat (rented), the landlord gave us £200 for the kitchen units.

We're about to have our first new kitchen, although the one in the flat where we live at the moment was fairly new when we moved in.

My mother had her kitchen in London installed a few months after we moved into the house - in about 1994. It still looks fine now (but probably cost a packet, it's all solid wood and granite).

Spirit_2

As a Graduate Trainee in 1981 I was was considered something of a Computer Boffin.

I had some programming experience ( something called Cobol) and had written programmes on punch cards.

When a computer was installed in the Finance Department I was sent to explore it's potential and advise very senior people.

It was desk top, in a room of it's own , an air conditioning unit was installed to ensure its due care and it had one application.... Visicalc ( a prehistoric spreadsheet)

My early career was founded on being a whizz with this, growing on to a Hewlett Packard 123 package and finally Excel. I am now a bit of a dinosaur.....but I just wanted to say that I was up to date once upon a time.

lostinrates

Spirit wrote: »

As a Graduate Trainee in 1981 I was was considered something of a Computer Boffin..

can you tell me, was my exam in random letters or random numbers? Its bugging the dickens out of me now.

And I want to concentrate on horizon later to help me decide whether I'm good or evil....because I do wonder over that a fair bit.

Graham_Devon

michaels wrote: »

Does anyone else remember installing office professional from 33 floppy disks?

Windows 95 was even worse!

vivatifosi

michaels wrote: »

Does anyone else remember installing office professional from 33 floppy disks?

Newbie.

I remember thinking what progress it was moving from 8" floppies to 5 1/4" ones. For that matter, why did disks then get a hard case and not flop, but were still called floppies? It's one of life's great unsolved mysteries to me.

Davesnave

I remember BBC Acorn computers and installing programs from cassette tapes. A whole heap of messing around connecting wires, weird noises for ten minutes or so, and then, lo, two kids could play Connect 4! :rotfl:

LydiaJ

I don't remember 8" discs, although I remember 5 1/4" ones, and also cassette tapes - mostly ones we recorded our basic programs on when using the BBC micro - which was a dramatic upgrade from the ZX81s that the school computer room had previously had.

Best of all, I remember the calculating machine my dad had in his office when I was little. It was called a Monroe and its instruction manual was very proud of the fact that it could multiply all by itself. It was an electromechanical beast, rather larger than a manual typewriter, and had an array of 100 buttons - a row each of 10 of each digit. They were solid buttons that went down 1/4" or so when you pressed them, and stayed down with a click, only popping back up if you pressed a different one in that column. To put in a number you pressed down the button for the appropriate digit in each column and then pressed "enter". There was then a dramatic whirring and clicking, and the number you'd selected wound itself up into a register of little dials. Then you could enter another 10-digit number and press +, -, / or x. Multiplying or dividing was most fun, especially with long numbers with plenty of 8s and 9s. It did multiplication by repeated addition, winding the number up into the answer register lots of times, clicking along one place and doing it again, and so on until it had completed the whole operation. It could take 2 or 3 minutes to do it if you chose the right numbers. I loved it - when I went occasionally with my mum to pick my dad up from work, I always hoped he wouldn't be ready on time, so I could beg to be allowed to play on the calculating machine.

Edit - you never know what you can find until you try. Here's a picture of the kind of thing:

zagubov

Davesnave wrote: »

I remember BBC Acorn computers and installing programs from cassette tapes. A whole heap of messing around connecting wires, weird noises for ten minutes or so, and then, lo, two kids could play Connect 4! :rotfl:

They used to broadcast BBC Basic software on Radio 4 at night. It was labelled as a Takeaway from the Chip Shop.
You taped the warbling sounds on your casette and then attached them to your BBC acorn to load a simple game or other software.

It seems quite forward-looking now, but in a weird old-fashioned quaint way.
I also remember before the internet, you could dig out information/news etc from the BBC's teledata service, Ceefax.

ITV had a version called Teletext. Hardly any other countries had this.

Weren't we clever, once! :cool: