OT: Did you miss me?

Goodwill in Austin has a store for computers, with a Computer Museum in a back room. They cannibalize donated machines, and around the front room have bins of different parts, as well as monitors, keyboards, and what-have-you. Usually DH would take advantage of my week's absence when I traveled to take one computer apart and install a new whatsit that he got at Goodwill for $5 or $10, a fraction of the new price. He can browse happily there for hours, but not me. We have decided on a compromise. Next time he will drop me at the quilt shop, and we will both not care how long the other takes.

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Ye gods - that takes me back a few years, to a job I had in Central London for a grain brokers. I was going to be trained on all their brand new mainframe computers, but until the course started, I was given the responsibility of producing a daily currency exchange rate sheet - using a Spectrum ZX80, a tiny thermal printer that printed onto silver paper and a cassette recorder...

Suzie B

-- "From the internet connection under the pier" Southend, UK

I was just a TAD later than that - my first computer was a Spectrum ZX81 - wish I had kept the damn thing - would be worth something as a collectable (ho hum). And we got so excited when we finally upgraded to something with a floppy disc drive ... anyone here remember the BIG floppies - 8" - I think??? with a capacity of about 164kb ...

-- Cheers for now

a tiny thermal printer that printed

Yeah -- I remember -- Ed once put a hiking boot to the side of an IBM mainframe that we were trying to backup -- he was designing a new set of programs for a big car insurance company. Left a BIG dent in the side of that /#$#$%@#. He felt a lot better and doggone if it didn't settle down and run right

Remember 8" floppies!!!...we've got some in the downstairs computer room (aka DS's bedroom-he's been gone for several years) and old computer warehouse. DH also has a whole lot of vacuum tubes (remember those?) "Why dear, those will be worth something someday. I can't get rid of those." Donna in Bellevue, Washington USofA

Remember 8" floppies!!!...we've got some in the downstairs computer room (aka DS's bedroom-he's been gone for several years) and old computer warehouse. DH also has a whole lot of vacuum tubes (remember those?) "Why dear, those will be worth something someday. I can't get rid of those." Donna in Bellevue, Washington USofA

I started work in 1997 for a place that was still using one of those big floppy drive computers! It was a noisy, slow beast of a thing and was eventually replaced because the printer that was with it died and couldn't be fixed the computer itself still worked!