Winken, Blinken & Nod

OK, folks. I am sitting here writing on the keyboard of my Gateway desktop, which when we bought it was the "latest and greatest" with "gasp" SIX GIGS !!!!!!!! Upstairs is the laptop which I got for a combined b/day wedding anniv. present last year, and which has 40 GB, and about which (after I got it) PC World was decidely sniffy, saying it just wasn't powerful enough for serious gamers.

Well, I don't play games on my computer. I use it strictly for communication and research, and DH also uses it for household bookkeeping. Occasionally we find things which will not come up on the desktop, and if we REALLY want to see them , we will try the laptop.

Laugh if you like, but it works for me (so does AOL Dial-up).

Olwyn Mary in New Orleans.

Fun thread - my first computer. I was wavering between an Amiga, a Kaypro, and a Fat Mac. I went for the Mac and within 2 months had to upgrade it to a Mac Plus. Took me awhile to be able to afford an external floppy. Then a 20 mb external hard drive. Then a 1200 laser printer made specifically for the Mac. Then a 2400 baud modem. All of this was in the mid- to late-1990's. I loved that computer and it did what I needed for a long time but finally it was just too slow. And I needed to work with an IBM-type machine because that was what was used at work. Bye bye Mac...

Alison

DH built his own, years before I met him. I think he said it was 1976! He even started a company with colleagues building boards, but they were all a couple of years ahead of time. In fact some stuff he bought from young Bill gates, who was selling out of his dad's garage!!

When IBM came out with the PC and PCJr, he was able to buy one at half-price ( still 2 grand) , and the company he worked for, picked up the other half. He had to make reports to them regarding how he used it.

Gillian

Alis> Fun thread - my first computer. I was wavering between an Amiga, a

Shouldn't reply again. but since we are in the past I used a slide rule constantly at work, and we had a cylindrical slide rule that did the math on very small amounts. Now who remembers log tables??

Gillian

Alis> Fun thread - my first computer. I was wavering between an Amiga, a

Yep. Slide rules and log tables, and then my grandfather bought me a $100 calculator that did +, -, x and divide. No memory. No trig functions. No nuthin beyond the four basic functions. Good thing I didn't ditch the math book with the square and square root tables.

A year or two later, I bought a calculator that did square roots and trig for $70 -- which I'd earned tutoring math.

I remember when I was working as a Radioisotope technician back in the 60s that a slide rule was one of our main tool! I can still see the young salesman who came to the lab and demonstrated one of the first calculators! It was nothing special and only had the four basic functions but to us it was magic! I still have a slide rule kicking around but it might take awhile to remember how to use it! :)

Mavia

This reminds me of an old joke. When Noah go his ark to sea, he ordered all the animals to multiply. They all complied except for the adders. Finally, Noah gave the adders an untimatum; either multiply or be thrown overboard. When the adders failed to multiply, over the side they went. But Mrs. Noah felt sorry for them, so she found some bits of wood, for the adders to use so that they did not drown. Not long afterwards, Noah came upon the adders, and there were dozens of little adders swimming with their parents. "I thought you said you could not multiply" said Noah. The adders replied "Yes, but

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but you gave us logs!"

I do! and interpolation

Cheryl (who's first home was the original Mac, but started on a PDP-8)

As people might know I am a trivia buff. If you want to go way back in history, there were many devices to help with addition. However, multiplication was much more difficult. Napier, who invented logarithms, also invented a primitive device to do multiplication; a sort of precursor to the slide rule. It was called Napier's Bones, and a simple google search will lead anyone to details if they want to delve further.

Ok i winked and i blinked and i nodded now what ??? where do i push the threaded needle ? mirjam

GGGGRRROOOAAANNN!!!!!

Anne (> Gill Murray ( snipped-for-privacy@nowhere.net) writes:

We went to the moon with slide rules.