How old are ya anyways? (in computer years)

[TennesseeTony]

Are ya old enough to remember this?

What other DC history fun-facts do you remember?

Such as...Folding@Home on the PS3, etc.

 

[Orange Kid]

Running SETI on a PentiumDX50 (was an "overdive" of a 486sx25). Blazing speed I tell ya.

 

[petrusbroder]

When we downloaded Seti-Queue in 2002 ...

 

[Dude111]

I started on a Commodore64 (I have an excellent term program)

 

[Ken g6]

I'll see your Find-a-drug (?) and raise you this:

 

[Black Octagon]

Are ya old enough to remember this?

What other DC history fun-facts do you remember?

Such as...Folding@Home on the PS3, etc.

Yes I an old enough to remember that. In fact, I'm so old I'm not even confident I know what you mean by "DC history"...

 

[TennesseeTony]

Hello Black Octagon and Dude111!

We don't get many fresh faces here in the basement friends. Please do stick around, dinner's at 5. Not sure which timezone though. :\

 

[kowalabearhugs]

Anyone remember the gamma flux project?

I just found this page that brought back a few memories : http://www.distributedcomputing.info/past.html

 

[TennesseeTony]

Oh wow, a treasure trove you've given us there kowalabearhugs!

 

[Freewolf]

http://stats.free-dc.org/stats.php?page=user&proj=sah&name=1621656
old enough to have been a part of this lol

 

[petrusbroder]

Good to see you, Freewolf!

 

[StitchExperimen]

I go back before basic time sharing.
I did tube electronics and fixed B&W TV's for my spending money buying them at garage sales and then reselling them.
My first computer CPU introduction was an 8080A programmed to simulate a stoplight intersection.

 

[Orange Kid]

If you looking to hear how I popped my cherry on computers. It was a Commodore64. Spent two hours programming so we could play a little pong

 

[Wellcky]

PackardBell 486sx, old

 

[Assimilator1]

When we downloaded Seti-Queue in 2002 ...

I remember running SETI commandline before the GUI version, IIRC it was fiddly! , started crunching in October '99 but didn't get SETIQ sorted til 2000 I think.

1st computer (my dads) was a BBC B micro, I think it's still at my dads place!
Afterwards it was onto my 1st PC in Jan 98! (Pentium 166 MMX, 48 MB RAM & a 3.2 GB HDD ), didn't get on the net til about August '99 (although I had used it before then).
By the time I was running SETI 2mths latter I had upgraded to a Celeron 366@550 MHz

Err other early DC memories .......... recruiting for new TA members in other forum sections & in other forums, before they had their own teams!
Races against MURC & later DPC.
Berkleley's net pipe being cut (or was it robbed?), cutting off new SETI WUs for nearly 2 weeks! (I just had enough WUs in SETIQ, only had a few hrs left )
Meeting up with Garry aka Confused & others at his (?) place for a LAN party with my then g/f, meeting another TA member from Canada over here, I've forgotten his name now :$ [edit] camper something?

Anyone remember the gamma flux project?

I just found this page that brought back a few memories : http://www.distributedcomputing.info/past.html

Yea I ran that briefly!
I wonder if their are any stat pages left anywhere for that? Couldn't find any , just old TA threads & our team page

Tony
This site might interest ya, some TA history .

 

[K7SN]

Using a AST-33 Teletype to login in to a Xerox Data Systems Sigma 7 computer over above ground wire telephone lines which when the wind was over 10 MPH the communication even at 110 baud was not possible; You logged in, load or wrote your code, modified your code and then printed your modified code while saving it to paper tape for the next time. You were on the computer about 5% of your programming time; the rest was writing (with pencil on paper) your code. The better the programmer; the ;less time you needed to be on the computer.

Later when you could code off line using a IBM punched Card scheme our code had to fit on 80 characters each represented by 0 to 6 square holes in your punched card (no lowercase letters) and longer code had to continue on the next card. That was a real improvement because you could submit your code and data in a box and let someone else run the program.

I loved FORTRAN but because of the ease of doing matrices in Dartmouth Beginner's All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code I was a fan of that language then. not the future's tiny Basic or Gee Whiz Basic subset of Dartmouth Basic and by 1976 when Professor Doctor Dijkstra noted "It is practically impossible to teach good programming to students that have had a prior exposure to BASIC". I had moved on to Fortran II and was flirting with a language Niklaus Wirth called Pascal which I used to write a compiler in graduate school, and then K&R C which I used to build a Pascal Compiler to a Harris Mainframe.

I guess I should be a fossil by now.

 

[TennesseeTony]

...Teletype ...110 baud ...saving it to paper tape for the next time. You were on the computer about 5% of your programming time; the rest was writing (with pencil on paper) your code....punched Card scheme...FORTRAN...BASIC...Dartmouth...Fortran II...Pascal...Mainframe.

I guess I should be a fossil by now.

D:D:D:

As blown as my mind is right now by that incredible reminder of computing's roots, my @$$ is still smart, so: "What, no climbing two flights of stairs to replace a blown vacuum tube?" Hee hee!

Thanks for sharing!

Tony.

 

[Orange Kid]

D:D:D:

As blown as my mind is right now by that incredible reminder of computing's roots, my @$$ is still smart, so: "What, no climbing two flights of stairs to replace a blown vacuum tube?" Hee hee!

Thanks for sharing!

Tony.

Hey, I remember going to the hardware store with my Dad to test the tubes from the TV to see which one was bad, get a a new one and then go home and put it back together just in time to watch Gunsmoke or was it Lawrence Welk.

 

[TennesseeTony]

Hey, I remember going to the hardware store with my Dad to test the tubes from the TV to see which one was bad, get a a new one and then go home and put it back together just in time to watch Gunsmoke or was it Lawrence Welk.

The TV repairman was a regular at my house growing up.

Gawd I hated when the folks wanted to change channels, I always got yelled at: "Turn it a little to the left! Too much! Back to the right a little bit! Hold it! Back to the left! ..."