The Technology Vent and Rant Thread

[Comfy.n]

farthest I can remember is loading games from a cassette player (true story)

I had this TRS-80 Color Computer 2 clone

[Renate]

Put me down as a punched card kid.

I did write a program once for PC that generated audio like on a cassette to reprogram an industrial timer control that would have used tape.

[BetterRed]

Paper tape for me too, not the fancy fanfold stuff, reels for input, mylar for 'code', laundry baskets for output. Ferranti Sirius with mercury delay line memory (watch the bits flip)… decimal arithmetic. Here 'tis ==>> https://collections.museumsvictoria.com.au/items/407668

[Quoth]

Originally Posted by DNSB

Hmmm.... my first computers ran programs loaded from punched tape. I later ran CP/M from dual 8" floppy disks. Fond memories of the joys of saving a couple of bytes so a program would fit into available memory.

My first programs (QUBAL) were handwritten on coding sheets and we got the printout a week later. No idea if intermediate was paper tape or cards (cards are actually older, but teletypes used tape in 1928). In college you could punch your own cards, if trusted, and beat the backlog of handwritten submissions (Fortran).

I too had 8" drives, but the CP/M was running on a Z80 card with 80 column card on an Apple II. The Apple II was complete waste compared to a more expensive S100 computer, because it cost more in the end to upgrade. The reality distortion around Steve Jobs was strong even then.

[Solitaire1]

Originally Posted by Comfy.n

farthest I can remember is loading games from a cassette player (true story)

I had this TRS-80 Color Computer 2 clone

I had an Atari 400 computer with a cassette drive, and purchased a game in that format. The drive was slow but reliable.

[Comfy.n]

Originally Posted by Solitaire1

I had an Atari 400 computer with a cassette drive, and purchased a game in that format. The drive was slow but reliable.

Never seen before the Atari 400 but I had this great similar console called Odyssey 2. At that time while most people in my country were gaming on Atari 2600, I would love the Odyssey and playing hockey with my cousin. Only years later I got a second-hand Atari (loved Enduro and Decathlon). The Odyssey joysticks felt much better to me! It used some sort of cartridge instead, but I remember having another console that would also load games from cassette players, probably the MSX Expert.

(and nowadays people complain about more than a few seconds to load anything on computers, lol.)

[Solitaire1]

Originally Posted by Comfy.n

Never seen before the Atari 400 but I had this great similar console called Odyssey 2. At that time while most people in my country were gaming on Atari 2600, I would love the Odyssey and playing hockey with my cousin. Only years later I got a second-hand Atari (loved Enduro and Decathlon). The Odyssey joysticks felt much better to me! It used some sort of cartridge instead, but I remember having another console that would also load games from cassette players, probably the MSX Expert.

(and nowadays people complain about more than a few seconds to load anything on computers, lol.)

Concerning the Atari 400 Home Computer, when they released the Atari 5200 it was basically an Atari 400 Home Computer without a keyboard. As an example, the version of Pacman for the 5200 was identical to the version for the Atari 400 .

[Quoth]

One UK magazine distributed SW on floppy 45 rpm disk. Connect cassette port to the record player.
The Sinclair QL had a custom cassette drive that pretended to be a floppy disk. Serpentine tape loop.

[Renate]

I remember seeing some magazine back then that had software in some sort of printed barcode. A program took a page.

[pdurrant]

In the 1980s, the BBC broadcast some programs as sound, to be recorded on a cassette tape and played back to load into your computer.

[Solitaire1]

Originally Posted by Renate

I remember seeing some magazine back then that had software in some sort of printed barcode. A program took a page.

There were some magazines that had printed programs in BASIC. In those days BASIC was the closest thing to a program that worked against all platforms.

[DNSB]

And some magazines printed machine code that you scanned with a hand scanner. Not to most reliable method but it was fun building your own scanner.

[JSWolf]

When I was using a laptop with Windows 8.1, I found a third party program to give me start menu. The program is Classic Start Menu. It made Windows 8.1 usable.

http://www.classicshell.net

[Solitaire1]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

When I was using a laptop with Windows 8.1, I found a third party program to give me start menu. The program is Classic Start Menu. It made Windows 8.1 usable.

http://www.classicshell.net

I didn't have much trouble with Windows 8 and 8.1 once I got used to it. However, the problem with them was that they just made a massive change to accommodate everyone with a touch screen...and no one else. As an example, what was wrong with the "X" in the corner to close a program? This is something that has been part of Windows since the days of Windows 3.1 (if not earlier) and yet they just toss it?

[MickiTee]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

When I was using a laptop with Windows 8.1, I found a third party program to give me start menu. The program is Classic Start Menu. It made Windows 8.1 usable.

http://www.classicshell.net

Classic Shell hasn't been maintained since 2017. It has been replaced by Open Shell - https://open-shell.github.io/Open-Shell-Menu/. Identical as Classic Shell.