Well, I never knew that....

[DallasDad]

For the nippers out there.
Once upon a time in a galaxy far away long before the internet you know today there was the original Arc system that was initially going to be called 'Internet'.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WBH642ZEkHM

And I just remembered during boot the 8xxx range of Datapoint Processors used to boot up with a croaking sound and they continued to go rivet, rivet, until the network was found that sound really was exactly like a frog!

[DallasDad]

Don't shoot me but....

I worked for Datapoint between 1989 and 1993.
My office was in Goswell Road EC1
The head office was just off the North Circular in Neasdon.

Datapoint introduced several then ground breaking technologies including Arcnet for example.
I think DOS had some Datapoint heritage as well.
They also were early adopters of line of sight "colour" teleconferencing.

During my time the business was predominately Motor trade systems Ford DARTS for example running on networked clusters of 8600 processors and using an NCR 286 PC as central storage.

Datapoint were leaders in Call Routing, Datapoint ACDs were in most BT switch rooms, e.g. for the 192 service.
Later Power Dialers came along which I guess was the dawn of today's cold calling call (scam)centres, sorry about that

[NigelJK]

<geek>It was actually a 8008 cpu, the same kind found in one armed bandits of the era.</geek>

[Paddy]

I have still got one of these:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osborne-1

Paid £1500 for it when new.

[Euro-commuter]

I'd like to complain about people who write fricken or sheesh or goddam.

Quite. And if Nanny won't let you say what you want, that's a load of goddamn ******* tulip.

[Bagpuss]

I'd like to complain about the level of 'get-a-life' posts appearing on this board.

It's as if people seem to forget that they are on a frickin' website, probably sat in a frickin' office, waiting for another frickin' weekend before they come back to charge The Man more than he pays a permie.

Come on guys, chill. So the Lizard likes his chips. There's worse on the web.

*gets off high horse and goes back to .net programming*

I'd like to complain about people who write fricken or sheesh or goddam.

[milanbenes]

are you missing the daily commute to the xerox plant at mitcheldean ?

Milan.

[xoggoth]

I think I have left it much too late in life to get a life. I always meant to.

Still, at least when not staring at the wall, I complain about more fashionable geeky things. Like VB.net. I HATE it!!! The only good thing is that string slicing has at last caught up with ZX81 BASIC.

[milanbenes]

Zorba,

my apologies, with the greatest of respect to Zeitghost, it was 100% tongue in cheek banter

would you prefer less banter on this forum ?

Milan.

[Zorba]

I'd like to complain about the level of 'get-a-life' posts appearing on this board.

It's as if people seem to forget that they are on a frickin' website, probably sat in a frickin' office, waiting for another frickin' weekend before they come back to charge The Man more than he pays a permie.

Come on guys, chill. So the Lizard likes his chips. There's worse on the web.

*gets off high horse and goes back to .net programming*

[milanbenes]

Zeitghost,

with the greatest of respect I think you could do with getting out and meeting people.

Perhaps take a leaf out of the social life book of the student who copies all the assignments.

Milan.

[zeitghost]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Datapoint_2200

This almighty pile of crud termed the 80x86 is based on a programmable terminal designed in 1969... who'd have thunk it?