Historical computers...

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ian16th
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Re: Historical computers...

#61 Post by ian16th » Sun Jan 17, 2021 9:17 pm

We had devices in the Lincoln's at Lindholme that were called 'computers'.

There was a 'bomb sight computer' that was connected to the H2S and on the Gee-H the device with the 25c/s tuning fork oscillator was called a computer.
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Re: Historical computers...

#62 Post by G-CPTN » Sun Jan 17, 2021 10:17 pm

A retired schoolmaster colleague last year gave an illustrated talk to sixth-form students who were puzzled by his slide-projector - they had never before seen the like.

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Re: Historical computers...

#63 Post by Dushan » Mon Jan 18, 2021 3:02 am

k3k3 wrote:
Sun Jan 17, 2021 12:40 pm
The mere thought of the 640Kb limits brings on nightmares and headaches, just not sure in which order.
But, but, but...
Mr. Gates said no one would ever need more than 640k of memory.
Because they stand on the wall and say "nothing's gonna hurt you tonight, not on my watch".

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Re: Historical computers...

#64 Post by G-CPTN » Mon Jan 18, 2021 4:19 am

Which shows how profligate current programmers are.

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Re: Historical computers...

#65 Post by llondel » Mon Jan 18, 2021 5:57 am

That's because of all the frameworks and other stuff that gets used to save time. Even at the embedded level, I was designing something with a part with 16K memory and by the time the software guy had configured the standard tool, he'd used up 12K of that before even writing any of the real code. When done properly, the whole thing took less than 8K.

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Re: Historical computers...

#66 Post by ian16th » Mon Jan 18, 2021 1:04 pm

At 1401 school the 1st exercise was to write a program, in machine code, to reproduce cards.

It had to be punched into a single 80 column card.
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Re: Historical computers...

#67 Post by llondel » Mon Jan 18, 2021 6:55 pm

I did once write some DSP machine code. We had 1K of program words available and by the time I'd hand-optimised it, there was one word spare. I wish I'd kept a copy of it.

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Re: Historical computers...

#68 Post by Dushan » Tue Jan 19, 2021 12:19 am

A friend of mine was writing embedded code, in early 80s for gas (petrol) pumps to show quantity and cost. He had 1k of memory to work with.
Because they stand on the wall and say "nothing's gonna hurt you tonight, not on my watch".

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Re: Historical computers...

#69 Post by unifoxos » Tue Jan 19, 2021 8:40 am

A Greek restaurant perhaps...

Not sure this thread isn't becoming more like a Geek restaurant....
Sent from my tatty old Windoze PC.

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Re: Historical computers...

#70 Post by unifoxos » Tue Jan 19, 2021 8:49 am

The Small Scale Experimental; Machine, aka *Baby" had 32 words of 32 bits for storage. I once entered a competition to write a program for it (via PC emulator). I managed a working program (a multiply routine) but I was amazed at the skill of some of the entries that far exceeded mine.
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Re: Historical computers...

#71 Post by ricardian » Sun Apr 03, 2022 2:14 am

The slide rule museum site may cause some folk to spend a few hours perusing some interesting historical items
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Re: Historical computers...

#72 Post by ExSp33db1rd » Sun Apr 03, 2022 4:10 am

Have mentioned before ... I keep a small plastic ( ex-key ring gadget) circular slide rule in my wallet, to check, amongst other occasional uses, the unit price of goods at the Supermarket (before they moved to adding it to the ticket price ) Using it at the checkout one day recently, the weekend work experience teenager asked " What's that ?" A circular slide rule. "What's a slide rule ?"

One could weep.

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Re: Historical computers...

#73 Post by Woody » Sun Apr 03, 2022 7:42 am

Maybe the slide rule museum could lend some to BA :ymdevil:
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Re: Historical computers...

#74 Post by Boac » Sun Apr 03, 2022 7:50 am

ExSp33 wrote:a small plastic ( ex-key ring gadget) circular slide rule
In DanAir I flew with a Captain who always carried one in the top uniform shirt pocket. In the days of drift calculation etc out it would come, currency or fuel conversion, you name it!

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Re: Historical computers...

#75 Post by unifoxos » Sun Apr 03, 2022 9:16 am

Was once called into MD's office to discuss a business take-over he was engaged in. I remember in those days having a pocket calculator, LED display, by Commodore. I was somewhat surprised to see him produce a pocket slide rule for calculations of hundreds of thousands of pounds.
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Re: Historical computers...

#76 Post by Boac » Sun Apr 03, 2022 9:28 am

A while ago I showed my youngest grandson (8, and a bit of a maths whizz.....) my old Aristo slide-rule from Uni days as part of his education. He didn't ACTUALLY ask where the batteries went, but I had the distinct feeling he felt pity for me.. =))

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Re: Historical computers...

#77 Post by unifoxos » Sun Apr 03, 2022 2:50 pm

I sold my Aristo Hyperbolog on ebay a while back, got considerably more (in real terms, too) than the couple of quid I paid for it in the 60s.
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Re: Historical computers...

#78 Post by Boac » Sun Apr 03, 2022 2:52 pm

Mine was merely a poor man's Studio, worth not a lot.

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Re: Historical computers...

#79 Post by PHXPhlyer » Sun Apr 03, 2022 4:35 pm

Still have my Post Log Log somewhere, sill in its leather case, worn hanging from my belt on the way to engineering classes.
All the rich kids had HP 35/45 calculators.
Profs had to adjust tests to focus more on theory and less on shear number crunching.

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Re: Historical computers...

#80 Post by ExSp33db1rd » Mon Apr 04, 2022 1:18 am

..... a Captain who always carried one in the top uniform shirt pocket. .........
So did I !! My present mini. is post retirement but I still have my leather cased one in here on my desk .

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