Computer Support - Page 2

bahai-sojourner · #11 (**permalink**) 3rd December 2005, 03:36 AM

Anyone remember the wonderful old days of CP/M? That was my first OS.

SMKolins · #12 (**permalink**) 3rd December 2005, 04:53 AM

Well the directions for installing Gentoo 2005.1 didn't work out too well. Somewhere along the way they lost me and I wasn't able to recover. Strike one for Gentoo... Can't say I think too much of a 40 page installation manual (albeit it's mostly about alternative ways to do things.)

It feels really dumb typing in the commands they suggest - seems like they could script the whole thing as I really made very few choices, and those could be presented as choices in a GUI format.... And only near the end did it say that it would automatically pick up Mac OSX installations on other partitions....

Now in fairness there were plenty of times the directions on doing something on the Mac side didn't work either but they weren't so bad I just failed to install the OS, just in getting some server features running....

SMKolins · #13 (**permalink**) 4th December 2005, 03:22 PM

Running Seti@Home

SMKolins · #14 (**permalink**) 4th December 2005, 03:26 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by bahai-sojourner

Anyone remember the wonderful old days of CP/M? That was my first OS.

I've never used it but I heard of it of course.

Has anyone read the _Triumph of the Nerds_ history text on all this - or seen the documentary based on the book?

I think it is the definitive work and much much better than Pirates of Silicon Valley....

There used to be some online resources left from the _Triumph of the Nerds_.... sure - it's still there - http://www.pbs.org/nerds/

Luguber · #15 (**permalink**) 6th December 2005, 01:55 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by bahai-sojourner

Anyone remember the wonderful old days of CP/M? That was my first OS.

CP/M? I didn't like that newfangled stuff.

My first CP/M (on my third computer), as well as my first Windows, was just a runtime version. There were, however, some powerful WP software in those days. There were features of some of them that nothing that I'm aware of still matches, like having three views of one document open simultaneously, and I don't even remember all of the features of Lotus Manuscript.

bahai-sojourner · #16 (**permalink**) 6th December 2005, 03:33 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Luguber

There were, however, some powerful WP software in those days.

Right you are. My personal favorite aspect of WordStar was its ability to run in only 32K of RAM.

I think I still have a copy of Turbo Pascal for DOS lying around here somewhere...

Popeyesays · #17 (**permalink**) 7th December 2005, 06:21 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rev. Rex

As for the poll, I had to select earlier than 5.0 DOS...it was actually a TRS-80, and the programming was BASIC. When they came out with DOS finally, it wasn't a whole lot different than BASIC, so it wasn't too hard to learn.

My expertise is the opposite of SMK's...I recieved training for both Mac and PC, but with the number of people using both, most of my training was Windows, from Win 3.1 on. I became a technical engineer just before Win ME came out, and a senior engineer with the advent of XP. The funny thing is that I do not like Win 2000, NT 4, or NT 3, but I do like XP fairly well (except that it is a memory hog). Go figure...XP is NT 5.1, and Win 2000 is NT 5.0, so there isn't a heck of a lot of difference, so I couldn't tell you why I like XP so much more.

Anyway, I haven't had any Mac training since OS 9.0, and a MCSE doesn't do a whittle of good for Macs.

And before anyone asks me which I prefer, I'll say right now that it all depends on what you are doing. My opinion is that a PC is superior when it comes to word processing and number crunching, lists, and so forth, but can't hold a candle to a Mac when it comes to graphics, music, and that sort of thing. (Some day I may buy a Mac, just for my music compositions. I tried recording using my PC, and it was a dismal failure! That is, unless you like the sound of 2 cats fighting on a chalk board...'nuff said. LOL Of *course*, I blame the computer.

)

I started teaching myself BASIC on a Commodore VIC 20 - 3.5 k memory, CPM operating system. I still have the machine.

Regards,
Scott

SMKolins · #18 (**permalink**) 8th December 2005, 01:11 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by bahai-sojourner

Right you are. My personal favorite aspect of WordStar was its ability to run in only 32K of RAM.

I think I still have a copy of Turbo Pascal for DOS lying around here somewhere...

I do recall using WordStar and needing to code syntax for formating. And the big progress of Word Perfect! Boot on one floppy and use another.... then I got up to installing hd's....

bahai-sojourner · #19 (**permalink**) 8th December 2005, 02:50 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by SMKolins

I do recall using WordStar and needing to code syntax for formating.

Yeah. It was hard, especially when doing academic writing, with its requirements for footnotes, endnotes, bibliographies, etc. So I bought a copy of Turbo Pascal. Whenever I wrote academic papers, I simply put the endnotes, etc., right in the body of the paper. Endnotes were indicated by {}, bibliography entries by [], etc. Then I wrote a program in Pascal to read the WordStar file, extract the notes and replace them with numbers or letters, then write them to the end of the file. Voila! Academic writing standards achieved.

But the University of Alaska wouldn't let me count towards my degree requirements the 12 hours of programming classes I had to take to learn how to do it all: "Computers have no bearing on the humanities...."

SMKolins · #20 (**permalink**) 11th December 2005, 11:40 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by bahai-sojourner

But the University of Alaska wouldn't let me count towards my degree requirements the 12 hours of programming classes I had to take to learn how to do it all: "Computers have no bearing on the humanities...."

"Nobody really needs convincing these days that the computer is an innovation of more than ordinary magnitude, a one-in- several-centuries innovation and not a one-in-a-century innovation or a one-in-ten- years innovation or one of those instant revolutions that are announced every day in the papers or on television. It is an event of major magnitude. "-- Herbert Simon, in an address to a research conference on 'Computers in Education: Realizing the Potential', August 1983.

View Poll Results: What was your first Operating System?
DOS earlier than version 5	4	44.44%
DOS at or after version 5	0	0%
Windows earlier than Win95	1	11.11%
Windows at or after Win95	0	0%
Mac OS earlier than OS9	1	11.11%
Mac OS at or after 10.0 (aka X)	0	0%
Amiga	0	0%
Other	1	11.11%
While one was first, there have been so so many I've used!	2	22.22%
Voters: 9. You may not vote on this poll

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