Re: Introductions and Current Status

Is that the same Bill Gates who got drunk, and stole a bulldozer in New
Mexico?

On 11/15/2011 11:35, Lee Reynolds wrote:
>
> Did Bill Gates chastise you for stealing that BASIC interpreter?
>
> Lee Reynolds
>
> Tech Support Analyst Sr
>
> ASU Advanced Computing Center
>
> a2c2.asu.edu <http://hpc.asu.edu/>
>
> GWC-178
>
> 480.965.9460 (Office)
>
> 480.458.7434 (Mobile)
>
> *From:*plug-discuss-bounces@lists.plug.phoenix.az.us
> [mailto:plug-discuss-bounces@lists.plug.phoenix.az.us] *On Behalf Of
> *Dazed_75
> *Sent:* Tuesday, November 15, 2011 11:27 AM
> *To:* Main PLUG discussion list
> *Subject:* Re: Introductions and Current Status
>
> ROFL !!!
>
> I got my start in High School when the National Science Foundation
> decided to start a revolutionary thing called Computer Math for
> secondary schools. We started by learning how to do math in binary
> and then progressed to binary logic. By the middle of the 1st year we
> were writing Fortran IV for the Univac (?) 1600 at the university. We
> wrote code on coding paper, our teacher would take it to the
> University where some poor schmuck would keypunch it into IBM cards
> while the teacher learned what to teach us the next week.
>
> It was maybe 7 years later I got my first computer. A Technical
> Design Labs Xitan Z80 kit with 8 KB memory and front panel switches
> and light for I/O. You would write little programs on paper and enter
> each byte into memory with the switches and HOPE you made no errors!
> It did come with BASIC on a paper tape, but you had to build the paper
> tape reader which I never did.
>
> I converted a TV into a monitor and bought a surplus keyboard. They
> announced a way to convert an audio cassette player/recorder into mass
> storage and you could get an assembler and BASIC on audio tapes. You
> had to enter an IPL program via the switches in order to load from the
> tape. But after that is was fun and mostly easy to write extensions
> to BIOS for the tape and burn a new BIOS EEPROM that understood how to
> use the tape.
>
> It was the cat's meow when I moved up to 64 KB of RAM and I thought I
> was in 7th heaven when I bought dual 8" double sided double density
> floppy drives for $2500. I tried to add a 10 MB hard drive a couple
> of years later, but never got it to work. I never did find out if the
> problem was the drive, the controller, or the BIOS extension I was
> writing.
>
> Now that all sounds very primitive to you all, but I did the billing
> for my employer on that system and that was around $1 million per
> month where the units of billing averaged one cent each (though a LOT
> of them). Some years later I bought the very first IBM AT to be
> delivered to Denver. I do not remember when I first tried Linux. I
> just remember it was a very early Red Hat and I spent maybe a month of
> evenings trying to get it to work.
>
> So believe me when I tell you that ALL distributions work well
> compared to those days!
> --
> Dazed_75 a.k.a. Larry
>
> The spirit of resistance to government is so valuable on certain
> occasions, that I wish it always to be kept alive.
> - Thomas Jefferson
>
>
>
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