Tell that to the kids of today, and they won't believe you

[original PM]

My Mum who is also 85 came to stay. She brought her iPad, Galaxy S6 and Kindle. She didn't move off the sofa all weekend.

Tch worse than a teenager.!!!

[Lockhouse]

My Mum who is also 85 came to stay. She brought her iPad, Galaxy S6 and Kindle. She didn't move off the sofa all weekend.

[NickFitz]

They're everywhere!

https://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/0...the_new_black/

From TFA: "It’s true enough that most folks in their 80s rarely use the Web - it became popular after many of them retired from full time work."

True as a generalisation, but my Dad's 85 and uses the Web every day. He used computers before he ever had to at work (I helped him learn how to use the BBC Micro on which he wrote several books), and I was inordinately proud of him when he asked if I wanted his PC's old 80286 motherboard, as he'd recently replaced it with a 486 DX2 - as in, took the PC apart and installed the new motherboard himself

[BigRed]

Can we change the forum name to PensionersUK ?

[Lockhouse]

Learning to code on coding sheets that were sent away to be punched. Hand punching cards when they came back wrong. Keying my JCL cards on a Sperry Univac jukebox. Snipping tape headers when they were too worn out to go through the tape machine. 8" floppy disk drives. The entire floor coming to point at the new fangled Commodore computer that actually fitted on a single desk. Vacuuming out the line printer and changing to the lower case print belt. Taping together boxes of one part so the printer wouldn't run out when I went to the pub on a night shift. Having three pints and a pie every lunchtime on my first contract. Sitting at the console for hours on end with the little dot matrix duplicating the display. Changing the disk packs on a washing machine drive. Being caught in the computer room when the Halon gas went off. That was the only place you couldn't smoke....

[northernladyuk]

The old man is still a fruit.

[vetran]

....using primitive editing tools, no doubt....

Taken!!!!!

[greenlake]

When I was fourteen or so I decorated my bedroom at Christmas with streamers made of punched paper tape containing development versions of a load of matrix manipulation programs I'd written on the school's PDP-8/e

....using primitive editing tools, no doubt....

[MrMarkyMark]

When I was fourteen or so I decorated my bedroom at Christmas with streamers made of punched paper tape containing development versions of a load of matrix manipulation programs I'd written on the school's PDP-8/e

And......

Look how far you have come

[RSoles]

Terminals? Keyboards?
Luxury.....

http://oldcomputers.net/pics/Altair_8800.jpg

[zeitghost]

Doing stats on one of these:

https://i.ytimg.com/vi/aDN4s8ElxqE/maxresdefault.jpg

Entering code on one of these:

http://www.bytecollector.com/images/asr-33_vcf_02.jpg

Writing in basic on one of these:

http://oldcomputers.net/pics/pet2001-black.jpg

Toggling bootstraps and writing FORTRAN IV/66 on one of these:

http://www.dvq.com/oldcomp/ga/large/spc16-1.jpg

Punching cards on one of these:

https://www.technikum29.de/shared/ph...univac1710.jpg

Verifying said card deck on one of these:

https://www.technikum29.de/shared/ph...ation-m200.jpg

Printing out Fairchild 4000 tester programs on one of these:

https://ub.fnwi.uva.nl/computermuseu...writer2201.gif

Punching mylar tape on one of these: (it's not the right one but similar):

http://www.cryptomuseum.com/telex/sa...2/001/full.jpg

Hard drives using 5440 cartridges:

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-tt8Jd97U-Z...0/IMG_1940.JPG

and these:

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikiped...sk_2009_G1.jpg

All of which being replaced with

https://i.ytimg.com/vi/9-RyvZxKufo/hqdefault.jpg

and, alarmingly:

http://thumbs1.ebaystatic.com/d/l225...g-gwecv9vw.jpg

As you say, kids just wouldn't believe it.

One of the strangest things was the inability to read back punched tapes, so if one got damaged you were royally screwed if the source file didn't exist. Much typing would ensue of 60 character records that told the Fairchild 4000 tester what to test and how to test it.

This being a Fairchild 4000:

https://www.chiphistory.org/product_...1960_intro.jpg

[NickFitz]

When I was fourteen or so I decorated my bedroom at Christmas with streamers made of punched paper tape containing development versions of a load of matrix manipulation programs I'd written on the school's PDP-8/e

[vetran]

Ah yes, the good old days....

Actually that would make a great advert.


Indeed and the swearing & casual sexism. Plus the drinking at lunchtime.

Good thing we kept the incompetence & politics.

[greenlake]

Ah yes, the good old days....

[Major Hassle]

When I started work Daisy Wheels were top of the range printers, we had one green screen vdu to share, we used to have to hand write our programs on Coding sheets, a punch card machine had just been decommissioned and was sitting in the corridor, people used to smoke at their desks, the internet did not exist and Apple was still a fruit.