On 12/19/2013 12:35 PM, Tony Hwang wrote:
The Daring Dufas wrote:
On 12/19/2013 10:30 AM, Jeff Liebermann wrote:
On Wed, 18 Dec 2013 22:59:04 -0600, The Daring Dufas
wrote:

When I was in college you could spot a nerd because he had a
pocket protector and a rectangular box of punch cards under
one arm. Pocket calculators came out later, cost around $400.00
and had nerds drooling over them. I was out of college when I
saw my first HP calculator but I still had boxes of punch
cards. ^_^

Yeah, that was the theory but it didn't quite work at Cal Poly
Pomona in the late 1960's. Among other divisions, Cal Poly had
an engineering skool and an ABM (agricultural business
management) skool. One would assume that the engineering students
carried slide rules and punched cards, and the ABM students
looked like TV cowboys. Nope. The engineering students wanted to
look like cowboys and wore boots, jeans, flannel, but not the
hat. The ABM students wore suits, ties, hats, and carried
briefcases. There was also a skool of environmental design,
which true to the stereotype, everyone looked like hippies. I
tried to make sense of it at the time, and gave up.

Incidentally, it took me about 10 years to work my way through
all the punched card decks I had accumulated and used mostly as
scratch paper. I didn't make the same mistake with paper tape,
which I converted to floppy and burned the tapes.

My first calculator was an analog computer that I built into a
brief case. There were several 10 turn pots to input the
numbers, and a big mirrored meter to read the output. Basically,
an electronic implementation of a slide rule.
https://groups.google.com/forum/#!original/scruz.general/Egv8cT2-JGY/SNVk9zi1ULQJ





When I graduated from college, I could throw everything I owned
into my pickup truck and drive off into the sunset (and actually
did that a few times). If I tried that today, it would take at
least two large moving vans and a project manager.

He who dies with the most toys, wins.


Here in Alabamastan we actually have a state college, The
University of Auburn, which is both the premier agricultural and
engineering school. I traveled to Auburn one year to visit some
friends and drove past "The Swine Research Unit". The smell could
gag a maggot but the pigs were happy. In the mid 1960's at The
University of Alabama, I started playing with and learning a tiny
bit of Basic and Fortran in order to play with the Univac which was
on its way out and the new IBM 360/50 RAX system which was
replacing it. Kids these days have no idea how user friendly
computers are now compared to what I started playing with like the
analog computer at my school but I really believe computers were
more fun all those years ago. Now they're tools, not so exclusive
anymore and any kids gaming computer has much more computing power
than what was considered a super computer at one time. ^_^

TDD
Hi, You guys are little bit behind me, when I was into it during and
after school, computers were called electronic calculator as such
containing vacuum tubes, mechanical relays.. from there transistors,
small scale IC all the way into nanotech which is now. I used to use
blank punch card with columms and rows all half pre-punched so we can
push the confetti out to make holes where we want to do Fortran
programming. If you drop the card deck by accident, you have to
resort one by one to make them in proper order before you can have it
read. Also remember 51 column card? Credit card receipts were 51
column card size which could be read after they are punched by key
punch operators(girls) reading the amount written and imprinted
account number. My Ham radio hobby was from the '50s, licensed in
'60. Hold Extra U.S., Advanced/Digital Canadian, First class Korean
licenses. Right now I am busy resetting up our HT system into 7.1
with new AV receiver and speakers. Better be done before X-mas.

We must pass our knowledge and skills on to a younger generation because
they are being lost. If our modern society crashed, most people would be
helpless because they have no idea how older simpler technology
works. Perhaps Boy Scouts could help people survive? o_O

TDD