Need Help Burning CD's

[Bob Buchanan]

Didn't buy the floppies; was just making the comparison.

Were the floppies 5 1/4" or 8"? ?How much were diskettes per box? ? ??? ???

 

[Bob Buchanan]

Still looking for a good price on 2Gb flash, but they don't seem to have them for under $60 around here. If someone wanted to buy one for me at Fry's and send it, I would be ever so grateful!

Will keep my eyes open, Karl. Let me know it you find one there in the meantime. What is your top price?

 

[Bob Buchanan]

Well, floppies are collector's items.? You should have bought them and put 'em on Ebay, one at a time

I have 2 TRS-80 8-inch floppies. They are in my box of items I used in the "History of Data Processing" segment of one of my a seminars. Have some other neat items such as  wired control panel for a PCAM reproducing punch. The sad news is that I attended a school at IBM and programmed that same board (sigh). 

 

[Karl]

Bob,

Around $40 + shipping would be great!

The sad news is that I attended a school at IBM and programmed that same board (sigh).

Why is that sad? .... or didn't it work ;D Many of us go back that far. Heck, I even have a 1403 printer buffer card with CORE STORAGE on it. For those of you who don't know what that is, before memory chips, they used hundreds of thousands of tiny magnetic donuts with hair-thin wires running thru the center to store temporary data - all hand assembled. I'd be happy to show it to anyone interested next time in QZ.

 

[Bob Buchanan]

Bob,

Around $40 + shipping would be great!
Why is that sad? .... or didn't it work ;D Many of us go back that far. Heck, I even have a 1403 printer buffer card with CORE STORAGE on it. For those of you who don't know what that is, before memory chips, they used hundreds of thousands of tiny magnetic donuts with hair-thin wires running thru the center to store temporary data - all hand assembled. I'd be happy to show it to anyone interested next time in QZ.

Karl, I have some core storage in my box of history stuff as well. I never programmed the 1401 but had extensive experience on the IBM1620 with core storage. My programming began in assembly on the IBM 650 (vacuum tubes before transistors). Primary storage (RAM on a micro) was a revolving drum. Instructions were placed on the drum in optimum locations so the next one in sequence would be just getting to the read/write head as the preceeding one finished its execution. As those locations were used, less than optimum locations were used. This made the program run slower and slower as it neared its later routines.

But then Ned really goes back. I understand he went to high school with Herman Hollerith? 

 

[Ned]

I did program the 1401 as well as the 1620 but I was fortunate to NOT have to program the 650.? However, the assembler for the 650 was called SOAP, as I recall.? (Something) Optimal Assembler Program, I think.? It took care of the details of optimal placing of the instructions on the drum to minize the sequential access times.

I didn't go to school with Herman but I might have dated his sister

 

[Karl]

Fortunately, I never had to do 650 coding either, but was one of two people in the Milwaukee office to be trained on System/7's. What a PITA. Straight line coding, no tables or arrays, no subroutines (just conditional branches), and everything was entered through a TTY. No checkpoints, so debugging was long and tedious. My worst couple of years as an S.E. 

 

[Jim Godward]

I learned programming on the 650 in college and then progressed to a real time computer on the Navy Ships inertial system (ugh), then to the Minuteman missile computer and finally the IBM 1820 where I finally saw the light and quit programming and did more interesting things on day shifts.  VBG

Haven't done any since and continue to want to be an appliance operator.  G

 

[John From Detroit]

Ah the 1401... Remember it well, fondly? well, I'm sure you folks can figure that out, but well yes

The one at Kellogg Community College where I took programming (Fortran IV for Scientists and Engineers) had a great womping FOUR K of memory.  Yup 4 K  And of course a handy dandy punched card reader (So I learned keyhpunch)

Now..... Folks laughed at the VIC-20 cause it only had 5K ram... But I was used to clean tight code

Imagine how much better our programs would run if programmers were limited to 4K of ram today

 

[Pat]

If anybody wants Nero 7, let me know where to send it.  I don't need it with my new computer, and it interfered with Media Center's TV tuner in my old computer. 

--pat

 

[Alaskansnowbirds]

If anybody wants Nero 7, let me know where to send it.  I don't need it with my new computer, and it interfered with Media Center's TV tuner in my old computer. 

--pat

I'll take it. I'll send you my address by private message.

 

[Pat]

Don:  As noted, it'll be there Friday.  Nero 6 worked great with my old computer, but Nero 7 was a disappointment.  The new computer comes with Roxio software.


--pat