"Carl's Lounge" (Off-Topic Discussion, Traditional Knife "Tales & Vignettes")

jc57 said:
First computer I ever had my hands on was a DEC PDP-8e that used real teletype terminals with the rolls of yellow paper, and if you wanted to save your program, you had the computer "type" the program to punched paper tape attached to the terminal. There was no storage. To load it back in, you fed the tape through and it actually typed it back in for you, like a player piano. This would have been maybe 1970 or so, I was in Jr high school and it was used for teaching. We learned original, line-numbered BASIC on that thing.
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Pretty interesting, John, since I learned to program the same way, Feb-Apr 1970, except I was a college freshman instead of a junior high guy. My college didn't actually have a computer on campus at the time; we had some sort of time-share set-up with a machine that was in Cleveland, I think. We'd punch out our tapes, roll them up, and put them in the box to be transmitted to, and run on, the remote computer sometime during the night, with results printed out locally to be picked up the next day. I think that having to wait 24 hours between different versions of a program I wrote made me a better programmer, or at least a much more careful one.

About 5 years ago, I had to move everything out of my office so it could be repainted and recarpeted. In a box behind the door, I found all of my old rolled-up paper tapes! Fun to rediscover, but then I got realistic and recycled them (along with files full of mimeograph masters, etc.). I think I still have a file somewhere with all of the output of my programs on the yellow paper.

- GT
 
BigBiscuit said:
My iMac crashed a couple years ago when I was required to upgrade my OS. I don't know anything about reimaging, but a guy that looked at it said I needed a new screen installed. I didn't want to spend close to $400 to fix it. I still have the machine in the hopes of fixing it, but that seems to be more and more unlikely these days.
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a new screen? arent iMacs all screen as it is? :O with the stuff built in of course. reimage is just a fancy term for restoring the system's os by removing everything and putting it back.
 
Yes, it is an all in one machine. But the screen itself can be replaced. I get squiggly lines running through it, or just the white screen of death. I was told that the screen itself is gone. It happened all at the same time I was upgrading the OS. :( I really liked that computer too.
 
Jolipapa said:
Le Tour started last saturday (from Germany!) and will last 3 full weeks. I'm less fond of bike races today (though the dark years seem to be far now) but it's always a fantastic opportunity to see thr country from the sky. (across Burgundy today) :)

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Jolipapa, I've never been one to watch much of TDF, but I have to say that I was super excited to see them pass through one of my favorite race tracks: Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps. Seeing the cyclists go through Eau Rouge and Raidillon was really special!
 
knarfeng said:
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not bad for an old IBM 360 model 40 mainframe operator who grew up using a slide rule.
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jc57 said:
Slide rules! We had to use those in my high school Physics and Chemistry classes. My Dad had an old one (he was a chemical engineer in his youth) that was just beautiful, that I used in those classes. Such an elegant instrument.
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scrteened porch said:
I never could learn to use a slide rule. I still keep meaning to someday, don't ask me why.
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Old Engineer said:
Used one every day until calculators came out . They are pretty slick . They could not add or subtract , but that is what they did .
Harry
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I used a slide rule, as John did, starting in high school chemistry and physics, so 11th and 12th grade, I think. Also used slide rule all through college. Finally bought my first calculator in summer of 1974, I think. $100 for a Texas Instruments SR-51-II, a scientific calculator with some additional statistical capabilities. Finally discarded the calculator in a recent office purge, but just found the manual in a desk drawer!

A few years ago, one of the local high school teachers with whom I worked gave me a classroom set of slide rules when she retired. She, of course, hadn't used them for decades. Each fall, when I supervise a new group of math student teachers in local high schools and middle schools, we have a 3-hour seminar one night each week. And I spend an hour of one of those meetings trying to help them learn how to do calculations using trig tables, log tables, and slide rules. Gives them some historical perspective, and raises some issues about how and why what we teach in mathematics changes over time.
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- GT
 
I read on facebook that Scott King has passed away.

Scott started iKnife collector

I met Scott at Blade Show years ago and he was a great guy and knife nut.

He also did a knife journal on line.

He will be missed by many, RIP Scott.
 
I used a slide rule when I was an Electrical Engineering student. I've still got it and occasionally I'll take it out and admire what a beautiful artifact it is. ;)
When Texas Instruments came out with their SR50 in 1974 I bought one. I think it set me back about 150.00, which was a lot of money at the time. I thought I'd died and gone to heaven.
We learned to program using APL (A Programming language). Getting time on the terminals at the Computer lab was a royal pain.
 
Jolipapa said:
Le Tour started last saturday (from Germany!) and will last 3 full weeks. I'm less fond of bike races today (though the dark years seem to be far now) but it's always a fantastic opportunity to see thr country from the sky. (across Burgundy today) :)
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I share your feelings on the dark years and hopes they are behind us, but I still love watching Le Tour every summer. I like watching the tactics unfold as they go past such beautiful countryside and amazing old buildings.

And, wow! What a finish today!
 
I remember someone here posting that they collected slide-rules some years back, and I picked one up for them, but then it seemed it was a pretty common slide rule, and maybe they were joking about collecting them anyway, so I still have it, must have been in my spare bedroom 5 years now! :D
 
Jolipapa said:
Today and sunday may be intense too!

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One advantage of buying a large screen Smart Telly is being able to watch the Tour as it unfolds, some fantastic shots from the crews in the helicopters, beautiful landscapes and the very real enthusiasm of the locals cheering on. Finishing in Nuits Saint Georges the other day, what wines from there! I don't know why I resisted getting a modern Telly for so long and had some 30 years old relic until last year, the difference for landscapes is remarkable. Most of the progs are not worthy of the technology though:rolleyes:

Should be exciting on Sunday, been to Chambery years ago as I had a French girlfriend who lived there;) The Tour is riveting to watch and three times I've seen it on the route, twice in France once in England, great atmosphere. As to the 'dark years' I think they've always been around, we demand so much of athletes and the money swirls round.... I remember about a dozen years ago in France trying to engage a rather morose hotel patron in conversation about the Tour. He told me in French that he detested it and that the riders were all junkies and ended up dead very early! He had a point...:D
 
Will Power said:
the riders were all junkies and ended up dead very early!
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He was not wrong, Anquetil, Fignon died prematurely of cancer, Tom Simpson's end was tragic, Mercks is now nearly obese, Thévenet, Ulrich, Riis, Landis, Contador, Armstrong were caught the hand in the bag (we say the hand in the jam jar) aso (and I won't mention the South African winning rugby team of 95 with so many victims of the Charcot's disease).
Nevertheless, the "Magic Doctors" exist no more or other drug mafia (some play in a movie these days - others are in jail). Detection is more efficient (certainly not total-new products arrive regularly) this partly explains why "traditional" nations (Belgium, France, Swiss, Spain, Italy) have less (if any) results.
I worked several times on the Tour, and from start to the end in 1991 (Indurrain). Before the event begins, you receive a kit including a roadbook, with schedules for everyday. There are 3 timetables : pessimistic, normal and optimistic. Every day, whatever the weather, under the sun or heavy rain (as when climbing the dreadful Alpe d'Huez) they arrived at least 1/4 hour before the most optimistic schedule! Arrivals where rarely after 4pm.
Today the overall average speed is now #10kmh less than 10-20 years ago and arrival is around 5pm or after.
Tomorrow will be exciting, from Jura to the Alpes, not far from my parent's house, somptuous roads (and lovely girls :thumbsup:).
 
Anyone remember the '70s movie Breaking Away? Charming little movie of how a handsome young local boy charms a beautiful student at the university in town by making himself out to be a foreign bicycle racer. As an avid bicyclist at the time, and in college to boot, I could relate.
 
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