For DUers Under 21: What is This?

[Yavin4]

[qnr]

1. hehehe sadly enough, I still use those :)

Look at the middle-right and top-right of the photo:


Edit: Changed to a smaller sized photo

[kentauros]

6. So, where are the Zip-disks and Jaz-drive disks?

:P

[qnr]

8. Actually, they're 1 column of blue-thingies over, along with the SyQuest SyJet carts :)

-- though TBH, the Jaz carts are long gone.

[kentauros]

9. That's cool

:)

I still have some Zip disks, and had to have a drive installed in this computer years ago because I was converting everything over.

I wish I still had the 8" floppies I had to use on the first CAD system I ever used. That was one weird computer system, too, but not as weird as the photo-typesetter machine where we used 12" floppies. I know the largest size is "supposed" to be 8", but I know they were at least 10" on that machine. They also had to keep it cool, so that meant working in a room kept at under 62F. I hated that part, but the work was fun :)

Here's the first CAD system my community college taught, and it's obscure enough that there's hardly any info on it online:

Bausch & Lomb CAD

[qnr]

17. Wow, that would have been interesting. I've come across comments on that

in my reading, but I've never seen one.

[qnr]

7. Self-delete, replied to myself accidently n/t

[hunter]

13. Atari !!!

My favorite machine ever.

I've still got my 600XL modded to 64K (factory 16K), my 800XL modified to 256K, dozens of program cartridges, and a drive like yours I modded for "high speed" (such as it was). Alas that drive's not working anymore because the secondhand eproms I used have failed.

Action! was a delicious programming language, very much like Pascal. Since I pretty much knew 6502 machine code by heart, and my way around the Atari ROMs, I could do most anything the machines were physically capable of.

I still play with atari stuff, but not so much on the actual hardware anymore. Most everything I did with the machine lives in emulation on my Linux desktop. If I feel like playing PENGO or something it's just a few clicks away from here.

[qnr]

16. Nice - yeah, I liked Action! a lot too - My preferred programming languages are

still Modula-2 and Oberon-2 (and variations) which are in the same vein as Pascal.

Hope you noted the TT/030 in the background :)

[hunter]

23. 68030 cpu, sweet.

By then I was already in x86 world, and couldn't afford the 16 and 32 bit Ataris. My IBM clone had cost me $170 to build from scratch and scraps which was a really inexpensive computer for the time.

But IBM made the computer world a much uglier place when they decided to use an 8088 microprocessor in a hideous architecture running Microsoft code. Even with their quirks and imperfections, the Ataris, Amigas, and Apples were much prettier machines.

[texanwitch]

2. Damn.

I still have some.

I still have the computer, an old Tandy.

[qnr]

3. Hold on to 'em - it's not easy getting those puppies any more n/t

[texanwitch]

4. Wow.

I have about 10 or so.

I just can't throw away the old Tandy, it was my first computer.

[qnr]

5. My first used those cassettes that are also in the photo n/t

[kentauros]

10. According to the

Lost Formats Preservation Society, it's a FloppyDisk (one word.)

FloppyDisk

Dimensions: 5.25 x 5.25 inch
Storage Capacity: up to 1.2 Mb
Manufacturer: Dysan Corp.

Introduced in 1976 as
replacement for IBM's 8 inch
FloppyDisk. Later has been
made redundant after a battle
between 2.0, 2.5, 2.8, 3.0, 3.5,
3.25, and 4.0" formats. The 3.5"
format won.

[armyowalgreens]

11. That is a 3.5 inch floppy disc.

[CatholicEdHead]

12. No, 5 1/4 in Floppy

I have not used one of those in a long time. I last used a 3.5in floppy in July of this year.

[Jeff In Milwaukee]

20. At the risk of turning this into a sex thread...

I use to have the 8" floppy -- if you know what I mean

[surrealAmerican]

27. The 3.5 floppies were the ones in the rigid case ...

... with the sliding "door".

[EastTennesseeDem]

14. Can I smoke it?

If not I'm not interested.

[Yavin4]

15. The Real Fun Was Installing A Program Written On Them

You'd have to go through a lot of floppys just to complete the install.

These kids today don't know about that with the internet, the downloading, the clicking, and the what not.

[krispos42]

18. I remember I used to have a manual hole-puncher in my desk...

...to write-protect those things.


Now get off my lawn!

[jmowreader]

21. Punching a hole was to write-protect an 8" floppy

5.25" floppies came with the hole and a little sheet of silver labels to cover the holes up--the covering was what write-protected 5.25" floppies.

If you had a 5.25" floppy puncher you probably also had an Apple. I remember we used to punch a hole in those so we could turn 'em over and use the back side too, because at five dollars for less than 200k of storage, those little bastards were expensive!

[krispos42]

22. Oh, that's right... I punched it to use the other side...

...if it worked!

Commodore 64, IBM 8086.


I had a rollof masking tape to cover the holes up. :-)

[Yavin4]

24. Then We'd Tie An Onion Around Our Belt

Because that was the style back then.

[jmowreader]

26. You're damn straight it was

Are you dissing the Fellowship of the Onion?

[valerief]

19. It's an old man's... I mean, a floppy. nt

[RFKHumphreyObama]

25. I still have and use those

Although not as often as in earlier times:hi: