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bugnut

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Central Ohio
Bob, let me join the chorus wishing you and Liane a happy anniversary.

I really appreciated the reminder of having something recorded on my permanent record. Anecdotally I shared my education transcript with my children who were great students, they were appalled.

Should you find the transcription I would enjoy reading it!

Stay well and enjoy your shot, got my first yesterday!
 
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Bob Heine

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Oct 24, 2009
Messages
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Boca Raton, Florida
Congrats to you and your young bride for staying together for almost as long as i've been here above dirt!!!!

sorry to hear you have PC or Laptop issues and hope you get them resolved or like your bride says just buy a new one cause they at least are not a couple mortgage payments like they once were for 4 or 8 ram (waaaaay less memory than most cell phones now).

cheers
Drives, thanks for the congrats and for stopping by.

I have four PCs and three laptops (and one stupid smartphone). Last time I bought a new PC was 1995 and it was a Mac. I solved my current problem by buying a refurbished 5-year-old Dell system. I used to buy new components and build my own systems but today that is an expensive and risky solution. In the world of laptops and PCs there is a known failure pattern.
attachment.php

Manufacturing defects affect quite a few new laptops and PCs and it's called "Infant Mortality." Once past that early stage, most of the failures are random and all you can do is back up your stuff every once in a while. At some point the failures start to increase due to stuff wearing out. This is when the hard drives start to fail and it's time to replace them. It's also when stupid stuff like weak batteries cause the system to fail.
I read that to Steph, and then said I have sent all my teeth and 3 vertebrae. She said send more. Iove her.
Uncle Willie, I forgot about the teeth. The ones I've kept are hiding under crowns with bridges to hide the ones I sent over the wall. Do you have a good spine removal guy I could use? I think SWMBO softened up most of mine so it would be easy to remove and send to the other side.
Wow congrats Bob to the anniversary. Always hats off to those able to have these forever lasting soul mate situations.
Tomas, it surprises us more than anyone.
Bob,
Congrats to you and Liane on your anniversary!
Thank you Jon!
Bob, let me join the chorus wishing you and Liane a happy anniversary.

I really appreciated the reminder of having something recorded on my permanent record. Anecdotally I shared my education transcript with my children who were great students, they were appalled.

Should you find the transcription I would enjoy reading it!

Stay well and enjoy your shot, got my first yesterday!
Bugnut, thank you for the well wishes. I try not to take our relationship for granted. A dozen roses from Trader Joe's (for $6) helps, especially when it isn't expected and isn't a Hallmark event.

After we were married and after the train incident I attended night school for 10 years to earn a bachelor's degree. Graduated *** laude and pointed that out to my kids frequently. The report cards my mother kept have been locked in a self-destruct box because there are a lot of letter grades well down the list from the A. Adding a + to many of them would still be embarrassing.

Fortunately I printed out the transcription. Took it to Office Depot and had copies made to give to the relatives who cared. The diary is interesting for having a huge number of boring days punctuated by a few really terrifying ones.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

ALL: In the beginning we stayed married for spite because everyone said "it's not gonna last." The priest who married us told us "these teen marriages never last" and Liane wanted to piss on his grave. As the years passed, friends got divorced and fought over who got custody of the children. Neither of us wanted to deal with the children alone so we stayed together. Went to my 40th high school reunion and the few who were married had teen or younger children and ours were grown and on their own. I was already retired for the second time and we realized we loved being together. At my 50th reunion several of the few remaining couples had divorced when they retired and discovered they couldn't stand spending so much time together. Can't imagine what this pandemic has done to the remaining couples.
 

drivesitfar

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Pacific Northwest
funny you say that about your marriage even after 59 years cause we are at 33 and even though most days are pretty decent we still have more than few bumps in our road and probably a lot more to come by the way it sounds. i waited til 32 to get married to my dream girl that came out of a 13 year marriage divorced and with 2 boys (10 & 12). The following 3 years we had 3 more kids so it was hard to work out stuff most days with all that was going on, but we stuck with it.

best of luck with the new (used) computer and I'm sure you know much more about these things than I. Some friends thought i was rich when I had a 286 PC on both mine and my assistant's desk at my office in 1993. I wish they would have finished Windows 95 or stayed with Windows XP and kept updating them cause the other versions seemed to be more problems than they were good.

yep REBOOT seemed to be the main fix when computers first came out.

enjoy your day!!
 

Craptain

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Messages
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Location
Tampa Bay FL
I'm late again. But congratulations to Liane and yourself, mostly Liane. Some relationships last in spite of themselves. Mine could be one some days. Other days it's the most precious thing I have.
Up until last month we had spent every day and night together for about 15 months. Bearing in mind our professions this has been a real test. Typically one or other of us is often traveling. But we're both alive, vaccinated and likely to stay that way. Neither one of us wants to start anything new. And we both knew each other's parents and family who are no longer with us. That alone makes for a very special bond.

Sent from my ONEPLUS A6013 using Tapatalk
 

Lyndon

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Location
Sydney, Australia
Bob

I too am late, but things are only now starting to slow down. Congratulations on the 59th anniversary!

During our long marriage (32 years just passed) Irene always said that if we got divorced she'd take the cars and I'd have the kids...... Ain't happening.

Lyndon
 

pi_guy

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N/A
No it was completely erased. My dad has a computer repair company in TN. He said it was blank. Fortunately when it told me there was a critical update it said it may cause loss of data so I backed up all my files.

I would like to get a little more detail on this.
I was Compaq certified laptop top repair at one point, been working on PC's and OS's since 1984.
I am just curious and looking to learn.
 

mybigwarwagon

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Joined
Nov 4, 2009
Messages
4,428
Location
Vale, Nc
I would like to get a little more detail on this.
I was Compaq certified laptop top repair at one point, been working on PC's and OS's since 1984.
I am just curious and looking to learn.

All I can tell you is there was no operating system. I work with hammers and Sawzall. I don't speak computer.
 

pi_guy

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I am late to the party but congratulations on your years together.

I got married late real hard to maintain a relationship when you are away all the time. I dated my wife for ten years before I gave in. So my son just turned 16 so I think we have been married 19 years in July but it feels like 30.

The captains license means I can take 6 paid customers fishing or sunset cruising.
But I could take ten friends on the same boat if I don't charge money.

I have a ten year old laptop that I can't get it to upgrade the version of ubuntu on it.
My solution to many HD drive problems is pull them and put in USB drive housing. View it on other machine. This will often work when OS on drive is getting weird.
 

patlun

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Joined
Apr 12, 2015
Messages
244
Location
Värmland, Sweden
Amazing how fast a week flies by when you are having no fun. Today was our anniversary (59th) so we vacuumed the patio, and did chores. I'm making curried shrimp for dinner.

Congratulations! That seems like the perfect way to celebrate the anniversary, some cleaning and chores. And some shrimps after that.

And you don't fool me! You have so much fun that you almost don't have any time to play with the cars :) And a "new" computer with SSD to play with too. It is nice to be able to just copy the files and install some programs and then be up and running. Backups makes me sleep better, both professionally and personally :)
 

pi_guy

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On a Captains license you can get rated for larger boats. Example being the one stuck in Suez Canal is a captain on the hot seat.
But I like small boats that can be handled by a crew of one and have a draft of two feet. Plus I have all the electronics of big boats radar, sonar, forward scanning sonar, AIS press a button on screen and I can call that boat. I have more processing power on the boat than the AT computer.
 
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Bob Heine

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Oct 24, 2009
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Boca Raton, Florida
So the ornery in me has to ask, did she? If she did, kudos to her for being a woman of her word:beer:
Kirk, she was ready, willing and able but all we knew was the location of the cemetery and it was a good day's drive away. That "Ah-$hit" wiped out a bunch of my "Attaboys" when I talked her out of it.
funny you say that about your marriage even after 59 years cause we are at 33 and even though most days are pretty decent we still have more than few bumps in our road and probably a lot more to come by the way it sounds. i waited til 32 to get married to my dream girl that came out of a 13 year marriage divorced and with 2 boys (10 & 12). The following 3 years we had 3 more kids so it was hard to work out stuff most days with all that was going on, but we stuck with it.

best of luck with the new (used) computer and I'm sure you know much more about these things than I. Some friends thought i was rich when I had a 286 PC on both mine and my assistant's desk at my office in 1993. I wish they would have finished Windows 95 or stayed with Windows XP and kept updating them cause the other versions seemed to be more problems than they were good.

yep REBOOT seemed to be the main fix when computers first came out.

enjoy your day!!
Drives, I don't know if it's true but some say couples who are different from each other have a better chance at a long relationship. My patience, which Liane claims is saintly, is a big help because Liane has none as in ZERO. "Why do you bother sanding the stains off that wood? Just cover it with some varnish!"

I understand where you are coming from on the Windows evolution. Sometimes we forget how quickly a Windows 95 system fragmented the data on a hard drive. If you were still using that old Windows 95 system, the boot process would take half a day. The other half of the day would be taken up with Microsoft Word trying to open a file.
I'm late again. But congratulations to Liane and yourself, mostly Liane. Some relationships last in spite of themselves. Mine could be one some days. Other days it's the most precious thing I have.
Up until last month we had spent every day and night together for about 15 months. Bearing in mind our professions this has been a real test. Typically one or other of us is often traveling. But we're both alive, vaccinated and likely to stay that way. Neither one of us wants to start anything new. And we both knew each other's parents and family who are no longer with us. That alone makes for a very special bond.

Sent from my ONEPLUS A6013 using Tapatalk
Andrew, I know it's not the original meaning but "Wedlock" sounds about right. Not sure what tool is needed to break it open but seems like 50% of us have used one a time or two.
Bob

I too am late, but things are only now starting to slow down. Congratulations on the 59th anniversary!

During our long marriage (32 years just passed) Irene always said that if we got divorced she'd take the cars and I'd have the kids...... Ain't happening.

Lyndon
Lyndon and everyone else, you're still ahead of our daughter. It appears politics is more toxic than ever and I'll leave it at that.

I know for a fact that I'd get two of the cars and neither is a good place to live.
What a threat! No wonder you're still together.
Mat, I suspect it's worse than you think. Lyndon didn't mention the garage comes with the cars and the house comes with the garage. Lyndon would have to hope one of his daughters has a spare room and is willing to put up with his wining (both kinds).
I would like to get a little more detail on this.
I was Compaq certified laptop top repair at one point, been working on PC's and OS's since 1984.
I am just curious and looking to learn.
Michael, I vaguely remember a damaged root directory causing that kind of failure.
All I can tell you is there was no operating system. I work with hammers and Sawzall. I don't speak computer.
Uncle Willie, I'm with Rian [grizz1963]: "If you can't fix it with a hammer, you've got an electrical problem mate."
I am late to the party but congratulations on your years together.

I got married late real hard to maintain a relationship when you are away all the time. I dated my wife for ten years before I gave in. So my son just turned 16 so I think we have been married 19 years in July but it feels like 30.

The captains license means I can take 6 paid customers fishing or sunset cruising.
But I could take ten friends on the same boat if I don't charge money.

I have a ten year old laptop that I can't get it to upgrade the version of ubuntu on it.
My solution to many HD drive problems is pull them and put in USB drive housing. View it on other machine. This will often work when OS on drive is getting weird.
Michael, my parents married in their late twenties and my uncle married when he was 38. Being settled in their professions helped but both joined the military in WWII. When both my father and his brother died in their mid-50s I was 24 and my cousins were 17, 14, 12 and 10. Had I died at their age, my children would have been 37 and 36.

A friend of ours had a son who was a free spirit and rather than get a desk job, worked as a deck hand on a charter fishing boat in the '70s. He earned his captain's license and bought a small sport fisherman to take rich people over to the waters around the Bahamas. He knew the waters like the back of his hand and was approached by a very nice Latino man who offered him $20K to steer a small freighter into an island cove. He never touched the cargo or asked what it was but it was always a very late night job. Got himself a much larger and fancier sport fisherman in no time at all.

I too have a collection of hard drives I need to scour.
attachment.php


I have used a couple of external USB drive readers with some success. I'm locked out of a fair number of files but these are fairly small drives by today's standards. Might try transferring stuff to a terrabyte disk or two.
attachment.php

Congratulations! That seems like the perfect way to celebrate the anniversary, some cleaning and chores. And some shrimps after that.

And you don't fool me! You have so much fun that you almost don't have any time to play with the cars :) And a "new" computer with SSD to play with too. It is nice to be able to just copy the files and install some programs and then be up and running. Backups makes me sleep better, both professionally and personally :)
Patrik, we've done a fair number of fancier anniversary celebrations, including one that included a whole Club Med.
attachment.php


You're right about the toys. I have the garage full of toys, workshop full of toys and office full of toys. Might even be a few in the attic that I've forgotten about (there's a bunch of H-O stuff stored away up there). I will run out of time long before I run out of toys but I'm an amateur in the "He Who Dies with the Most Toys Wins" club.

My only problem with backups has been remembering where they are. I have two 1TB network drives and three 1TB USB and eSATA external drives I used to back up to but now I'm afraid to over-write the older backups. I guess at $46 a new HDD drive might solve the problem. Or go for broke and get a SDD drive for around twice that.
On a Captains license you can get rated for larger boats. Example being the one stuck in Suez Canal is a captain on the hot seat.
But I like small boats that can be handled by a crew of one and have a draft of two feet. Plus I have all the electronics of big boats radar, sonar, forward scanning sonar, AIS press a button on screen and I can call that boat. I have more processing power on the boat than the AT computer.
Michael, that's what our friend did. Haven't seen him in a couple of decades but I'm guessing he's still on the sunny side of the steel bars. During one of the fuel scares he downsized his boat but upgraded to diesel power.
 

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bj383ss

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Joined
Sep 29, 2011
Messages
3,166
Location
TX
Bob you won't regret an SDD drive. I have a 2011 IBM pc that has had the motherboard, and power supply replaced. And now recently I maxed out the RAM and a new SDD to put windows on. It is way faster than it ever was new. I can't believe its 10 years old now but really all that is left is the processor.

Bret
 

pi_guy

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Messages
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I understand the root getting corrupted but that is hard to happen on the internet with a browser. As normally the browser session goes to hell.
With a laptop the line voltage is charging the battery so if the line voltage goes wonky it is operating off the battery anyway.
Downloading files should not corrupt root unless file is designed as malicious.
 

mybigwarwagon

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Nov 4, 2009
Messages
4,428
Location
Vale, Nc
I understand the root getting corrupted but that is hard to happen on the internet with a browser. As normally the browser session goes to hell.
With a laptop the line voltage is charging the battery so if the line voltage goes wonky it is operating off the battery anyway.
Downloading files should not corrupt root unless file is designed as malicious.

I can't tell you how, I can only tell you what. The whole county lost power, I lost my OS.
 

casmurbax

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Joined
Sep 25, 2012
Messages
2,761
Location
Wilton, NY
I also have a shelf of hard drives. Man, seeing that Maxtor drives brings back a lot of memories.... The money I spent on those hard drives in the 80's, wholly ****. To think a 100mb or even a 260mb hard drive was going to be plenty for you to get by in those days.
 
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gilr

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Richmond, VA
If you remember back to the IBM XT, it came first with a 5 MB hard drive, I remember thinking then, what would ever fill that up! I was an IBM VAD and always had the latest new PC, things have come a long way! The best bang for your buck today for an aging PC is to upgrade to an SSD. The desktop machine I have now (Intel core i5) used to take 2 to 3 minutes to boot up and become usable, now it takes maybe 15 seconds. Did the same on my laptop (Intel core i7) that I was ready to toss as it took more than 3 minutes to boot and it was just slow to run almost anything, now it is as fast as my new laptop, well worth the cost to upgrade.

Gil
 

pi_guy

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If you remember back to the IBM XT, it came first with a 5 MB hard drive, I remember thinking then, what would ever fill that up! I was an IBM VAD and always had the latest new PC, things have come a long way! The best bang for your buck today for an aging PC is to upgrade to an SSD. The desktop machine I have now (Intel core i5) used to take 2 to 3 minutes to boot up and become usable, now it takes maybe 15 seconds. Did the same on my laptop (Intel core i7) that I was ready to toss as it took more than 3 minutes to boot and it was just slow to run almost anything, now it is as fast as my new laptop, well worth the cost to upgrade.

Gil

It was a double drive bay sized unit.
Now I have memory sticks in 256gb size.
We all wondered how you were going to fill a 5mb hard drive. Then windblows bloat versions took care of any extra space.
I was running a race shop then and I used the PC with 2 360k floppies to do my invoicing, operating system and wordperfect program on one 360 disk.
 

gilr

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Yep, had those original PCs with 2 floppy drives, 8" units. I remember the floppy for Word Perfect, seems like forever ago! I also remember when a home PC had 512K ram too. I also had one of the original IBM "Portable" PCs. I remember lugging that beast through airports, your arm would end up 2" longer after going from one end of O'Hare to the other. This could go on for hours!

Gil
 

pi_guy

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Had a Compaq Portable. In the family we had the first Toshiba laptop since I was the assigned technician I lived with two PHD chemists. Remember Paradox, I made so much money on managing mailing lists for two rock n roll places on St Marks. Many times I asked what did you do often the response was a smokey haze.
Then I moved on to Access bloat central. Played with Oracle for a bit.

I was one of the first in amateur semi-pro racing to have a laptop at pit wall, two 720 floppies 640k a screamer.

Technology has been a lot of fun.
 

mybigwarwagon

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Nov 4, 2009
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Vale, Nc
Back in the 80s my dad had a guy trade him 2 Rolex watches for memory upgrades in his computers. He held on to them til just a few years back and sold them for a lot of money. Hard to believe that computer stuff used to be that expensive.
 

pi_guy

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Back in the 80s my dad had a guy trade him 2 Rolex watches for memory upgrades in his computers. He held on to them til just a few years back and sold them for a lot of money. Hard to believe that computer stuff used to be that expensive.

Some of it still is. Price out Marine electronics.

I used to sell Pi data acquisition systems with all the bells and whistles 50k for club racing systems 100k for Indy car systems
 

mybigwarwagon

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Some of it still is. Price out Marine electronics.

I used to sell Pi data acquisition systems with all the bells and whistles 50k for club racing systems 100k for Indy car systems

When things get over gas station hot dog money I have problems spending.
 

Dan in Pasadena

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Joined
Feb 18, 2009
Messages
13,163
Location
Pasadena, CA
When things get over gas station hot dog money I have problems spending.

Which reminds me that I went to the Dollar Tree store near our new place and had a good time for only $8.65.:rocker:

Got:

-1 Plastic gallon bucket
- Roll of shelf liner I will use on the bottom of a wood tool box
- 2 wire racks to hang paint brushes
- A sharpening stone of questionable value
- AND Spray bottles of Windex, Awesome cleaner, & off brand CLR stuff.
 
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Bob Heine

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Bob you won't regret an SDD drive. I have a 2011 IBM pc that has had the motherboard, and power supply replaced. And now recently I maxed out the RAM and a new SDD to put windows on. It is way faster than it ever was new. I can't believe its 10 years old now but really all that is left is the processor.

Bret
Bret, the Dell system starts up and runs so much faster than the HP system it replaces. The 32GB of memory helps but mostly it's the SSD that makes it fast. Programs start faster, as does the browser so I'm enjoying the new machine immensely.
I understand the root getting corrupted but that is hard to happen on the internet with a browser. As normally the browser session goes to hell.
With a laptop the line voltage is charging the battery so if the line voltage goes wonky it is operating off the battery anyway.
Downloading files should not corrupt root unless file is designed as malicious.
Michael, I'm just relating foggy old memories of days gone by.
I can't tell you how, I can only tell you what. The whole county lost power, I lost my OS.
My comments were not directed at you.
:dunno:

:dunno:
I also have a shelf of hard drives. Man, seeing that Maxtor drives brings back a lot of memories.... The money I spent on those hard drives in the 80's, wholly ****. To think a 100mb or even a 260mb hard drive was going to be plenty for you to get by in those days.
John, I'm with you on the money spent. Back when $499 was a big deal to me, that's what a used 10Mb drive cost me (it was $3,500 new). Getting it running in the PC was a big deal, needing a ST506 adapter card and cables and giving up the second 5.25" floppy drive. Technology came to the rescue with the dual-diskette drive that fit in the single drive bay while housing both 5.25" and 3.5" drives.
attachment.php

If you remember back to the IBM XT, it came first with a 5 MB hard drive, I remember thinking then, what would ever fill that up! I was an IBM VAD and always had the latest new PC, things have come a long way! The best bang for your buck today for an aging PC is to upgrade to an SSD. The desktop machine I have now (Intel core i5) used to take 2 to 3 minutes to boot up and become usable, now it takes maybe 15 seconds. Did the same on my laptop (Intel core i7) that I was ready to toss as it took more than 3 minutes to boot and it was just slow to run almost anything, now it is as fast as my new laptop, well worth the cost to upgrade.

Gil
Gil, my first PC was a surplus machine that IBM made available to employees. The motherboard was limited to 64KB memory but the engineers put out a cheat sheet showing how to solder a jumper on the motherboard to allow 256KB to be plugged in. Once you put a hard drive in the original PC you had no room for the big adapter cards so I got my hands on a scrap Expansion Unit and put my hacked motherboard in it.

For years I've kept the three latest model desktop PCs in my office connected to a 4-system switch so I have one keyboard, three or four mice and two monitors to run them all, including one laptop. All three desktop systems are now Intel i7 processor machines with 16GB, 20GB and 32GB memory. The oldest machine is a no-name case with everything replaced or up graded from the original homemade system I built back in the '90s. I keep it because it is a mini-tower and I can stack two under the desk. Very soon I will sneak some new SSD drives into the two machines that still have HDD primary and secondary drives.

It was a double drive bay sized unit.
Now I have memory sticks in 256gb size.
We all wondered how you were going to fill a 5mb hard drive. Then windblows bloat versions took care of any extra space.
I was running a race shop then and I used the PC with 2 360k floppies to do my invoicing, operating system and wordperfect program on one 360 disk.
Michael, bad as microsoft's the bloatware is, my systems have gigabytes full of digital photos sucking up tons of space. I think my first digital camera took one-point-something megapixel photos. The little Canon point-and-shoot is 20 megapixels with a 40X digital zoom.
Yep, had those original PCs with 2 floppy drives, 8" units. I remember the floppy for Word Perfect, seems like forever ago! I also remember when a home PC had 512K ram too. I also had one of the original IBM "Portable" PCs. I remember lugging that beast through airports, your arm would end up 2" longer after going from one end of O'Hare to the other. This could go on for hours!

Gil
Gil, there were a bunch of oddball machines back in the day. While IBM and Compaq offered "Portable" PCs, the first IBM "Laptop" was the Convertible, with two of the new 3.5" diskette drives. Gigantic leap from the 1.2MB floppy to the 1.44MB diskette. We even offered a little portable printer to go with it.
attachment.php


Just before I retired at the end of 1994, IBM came out with the "Butterfly" keyboard Thinkpad 701c. It was too expensive for me so I settled for a surplus Portable P75 "Suitcase," at the time it was a screamer of a machine with a 486 processor, 200MB hard drive, built-in monochrome VGA screen and keyboard. Add a mouse and a hand cart and you were ready to travel. I dragged that thing all over the world for a couple of years.
attachment.php

(By Uscleo - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=94862554)


As a former employee, I was eventually able to buy a 701c Butterfly keyboard laptop and it was great to use on the tiny seat back trays on my many flights between home and work. Now my laptops have to have at least a 15" screen for me to see anything on them.

Had a Compaq Portable. In the family we had the first Toshiba laptop since I was the assigned technician I lived with two PHD chemists. Remember Paradox, I made so much money on managing mailing lists for two rock n roll places on St Marks. Many times I asked what did you do often the response was a smokey haze.
Then I moved on to Access bloat central. Played with Oracle for a bit.

I was one of the first in amateur semi-pro racing to have a laptop at pit wall, two 720 floppies 640k a screamer.

Technology has been a lot of fun.
Michael, those first portables were also called luggables because you needed a hand truck and bungee cords to get them to your destination. The first time I used a database and spreadsheet was an auto event. A 256K, two 360KB floppies (program on one, data on other) worked fine until the database got bigger than 1,000 entries. I took naps while the sorts ran. My car stayed in the parking paddock and I stayed in the timing tower. Friends threw food and drink into my room.
Back in the 80s my dad had a guy trade him 2 Rolex watches for memory upgrades in his computers. He held on to them til just a few years back and sold them for a lot of money. Hard to believe that computer stuff used to be that expensive.
Uncle Willie, by the time you paid for a PC, Monitor, Keyboard, Mouse and some software, you could have bought a brand new 1981 Camaro.
Some of it still is. Price out Marine electronics.

I used to sell Pi data acquisition systems with all the bells and whistles 50k for club racing systems 100k for Indy car systems
:pimpflash
Yeah, or price out aircraft Avioncs!

Gil
:pimpflash:pimpflash
When things get over gas station hot dog money I have problems spending.
Uncle Willie, I'm with you but some of those gas station hot dogs are expensive -- like $14 in Alaska!
Which reminds me that I went to the Dollar Tree store near our new place and had a good time for only $8.65.:rocker:

Got:

-1 Plastic gallon bucket
- Roll of shelf liner I will use on the bottom of a wood tool box
- 2 wire racks to hang paint brushes
- A sharpening stone of questionable value
- AND Spray bottles of Windex, Awesome cleaner, & off brand CLR stuff.
Dan, I only recently discovered LA's Awesome cleaner/degreaser. Stuff is amazing especially at $1 a bottle.
I don't eat hotdogs....
I eat everything that fits in my mouth.
Don't worry, I eat enough to cover for you.
Mrs. Knowitall says I can't eat hot dogs.
 

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pi_guy

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Joined
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Messages
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N/A
Bret,

Michael, I'm just relating foggy old memories of days gone by.

I was having connectivity issues with a client and AOL.

So I called support.

Tech said bring up a MSdos box this is how you do it,

Response Ok it is up.

Tech Now type this and hit enter twice fast.

cd\

Format C: /s

enter enter

Response You low life rat ******* and so on....

Tech Click

Of course I did not do it I always wrote down what they wanted, but I was not dumb enough not to know the format command.

I bitched at AOL but was told since I didn't know the last name there was nothing to be done.

Other time I was transferred to India call center but that version of NT server was not exported so they could not help me.

Went to see my boat today was supposed to do sea trial but electronics were not ready. I picked up the manuals, the boat uses a joystick for engine control and AutoPilot. More fun electronics.

Tonight's dinner will be baked little neck clams, braised scallops with shallots and chips, making my son Fried Cod and chips
 

rharman

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Joined
Apr 22, 2012
Messages
8,905
Location
SoCal
< snip >
Technology came to the rescue with the dual-diskette drive that fit in the single drive bay while housing both 5.25" and 3.5" drives.
attachment.php

< /snip >

I still have one of those drives! I can see it in the storage box next to my desk!

I have so much old code (C, xBase, COBOL, etc.) that I wrote back in the day on floppies. A lot of old MultiMate and WordPerfect docs as well. Maybe one of these days I'll figure out how to connect it up and reminisce.
 

casmurbax

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Joined
Sep 25, 2012
Messages
2,761
Location
Wilton, NY
I remember those dual drives. I remember getting my first CD writer. A HP scanner that needed a scsi cable.

I recall installing C++ using around 15 or so diskettes. I was towards the end of the stack of diskettes and I hit the power button instead of the eject button, I was not a happy camper.

Yea the memory was super expensive back in the days.
 

shopnut

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Joined
Feb 22, 2006
Messages
4,237
Location
Florida
Bob - your pictures of "portable" computers got me thinking about the early computers they had at work for traveling with... the Compaq "Portable". They were monsters (bigger than today's desktops), but look at that tiny screen!

Compaq_portable.jpg
 

OutlawDrifter

Well-known member
Joined
Jan 20, 2015
Messages
3,898
Location
KS
Bob - your pictures of "portable" computers got me thinking about the early computers they had at work for traveling with... the Compaq "Portable". They were monsters (bigger than today's desktops), but look at that tiny screen!

Compaq_portable.jpg

I can hear that keyboard :lol:
 

gilr

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Joined
Jul 26, 2008
Messages
300
Location
Richmond, VA
I had the IBM equivalent of that Compaq machine, try carrying it through the terminals at O'Hare for any length of time and your arm either falls off or grows longer! Glad to not see them anymore!

Gil
 
OP
B

Bob Heine

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Joined
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Messages
10,708
Location
Boca Raton, Florida
I was having connectivity issues with a client and AOL.

So I called support.

Tech said bring up a MSdos box this is how you do it,

Response Ok it is up.

Tech Now type this and hit enter twice fast.

cd\

Format C: /s

enter enter

Response You low life rat ******* and so on....

Tech Click

Of course I did not do it I always wrote down what they wanted, but I was not dumb enough not to know the format command.

I bitched at AOL but was told since I didn't know the last name there was nothing to be done.

Other time I was transferred to India call center but that version of NT server was not exported so they could not help me.

Went to see my boat today was supposed to do sea trial but electronics were not ready. I picked up the manuals, the boat uses a joystick for engine control and AutoPilot. More fun electronics.

Tonight's dinner will be baked little neck clams, braised scallops with shallots and chips, making my son Fried Cod and chips
Michael, in July 1996, a year into my time with AOL I was asked to go to India with my boss to arrange some offshore software development. At the same time, we discussed establishing a call center or two. Back then the Indian government balked at the cost of high-speed connections to make those call centers possible. I'm happy to say my trip didn't solve the problem so all those Indian call centers are on someone else. As soon as I get one on the phone I ask if they are in Bangalore -- 90% of the time the answer is yes.

I also know there were a fair number of incompetent people at the call centers and they were always on the edge of being let go. On their way out, screwing people over was a common result.

I still have one of those drives! I can see it in the storage box next to my desk!

I have so much old code (C, xBase, COBOL, etc.) that I wrote back in the day on floppies. A lot of old MultiMate and WordPerfect docs as well. Maybe one of these days I'll figure out how to connect it up and reminisce.
Roger, mine is around here somewhere. I need to consolidate all the **** in one place instead of scattered everywhere. Those diskette drives got a lot of use back in 80s and early 90s. I think I still have a foot-high stack of diskettes for installing CorelDraw 6.0. Now I just have a couple of binders full of CDs, including a couple of Microsoft Developer Network binder boxes.

I have held on to some diskettes that have proprietary text format files. I can't remember the name of the software but the output was for fancy fonts printed on matrix printers.
Amazing how the world is, and has moved on in this arena.


That’s still a handsome machine.
Rian, I was always impressed with the designs they came up with.
I remember those dual drives. I remember getting my first CD writer. A HP scanner that needed a scsi cable.

I recall installing C++ using around 15 or so diskettes. I was towards the end of the stack of diskettes and I hit the power button instead of the eject button, I was not a happy camper.

Yea the memory was super expensive back in the days.
John, my first CD reader was an external drive with a giant SCSI cable. Same with my giant HP Scanjet scanner. It required a full size slot in my Model 70 PS/2 and the Microchannel architecture card was stupid expensive. That machine had three slots so I couldn't use the CD drive at the same time as the scanner.

I just read the jacket on the OS/2 box and it required 1.5 MB of memory for OS/2 but 2.0MB if you wanted to also run DOS. The help system one of my teams developed for OS/2 used 50K in the operating system.
Bob - your pictures of "portable" computers got me thinking about the early computers they had at work for traveling with... the Compaq "Portable". They were monsters (bigger than today's desktops), but look at that tiny screen!
Mark, not only were the screens tiny, they were monochrome character mode only. Even the much larger screen on my P75 luggable had a VGA monochrome (orange!) screen.
I had the IBM equivalent of that Compaq machine, try carrying it through the terminals at O'Hare for any length of time and your arm either falls off or grows longer! Glad to not see them anymore!

Gil
Gil, I carried my luggable by its handle once with a garment bag over my shoulder and saw someone with a wheeled carry-on while in the airport. Bought a carry-on without even looking at the price. With the machine onboard, I had room for toiletries, a pair of khakis, two dress shirts, three pair of socks and five boxer shorts. On some trips one shirt was at the cleaners while the other was on my back. At AOL I left several pair of jeans and four dress shirts at the cleaners and picked them up a week later on my return.
I can hear that keyboard :lol:
Marc, IBM had a typewriter division and they spent decades evolving a keyboard with just the right touch and that little click. It became an industry standard and the flat odd-size keys on laptops still drive me crazy. I can touch-type one-handed without looking at an IBM keyboard but am completely lost on a laptop (don't get me started on the phone thing!!! I'm afraid to use a phone unless I'm sitting down with the phone on a surface. I feel like a an impala grazing in a pride of lions when I'm standing and staring down at the thing.
 
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