Saturday, November 28, 2009

Once upon a time I could look under the hood of a car and recognize everything there.
So could Heidi.
While I was attending the Univ. of Illinois (in Champaign-Urbana)**, Heidi (who worked as a nurse at a local clinic) would drive our '59 Pontiac.
When the car stalled, she'd grab her screwdriver, open the hood, remove the distributor cap and adjust the timing.
(That really impressed her fellow nurses!)
These days, I can't recognize anything under the hood.

Once upon a time I could look under the cover of a PET computer, modify contents, burn EPROM memory chips, add sound with a chip and external speaker (since early personal PCs didn't have sound) etc. etc.

Programs that I'd write (in the Basic language) included tutorials and games and would reside on audio tape.
(See the tape deck in the picture, above?)

Today, I can't even change memory chips. Indeed, I have a problem recognizing anything under the hood.

Of course, once upon a time I was so much younger.

Once of these days I should really brush up on computer science.
It's been a long time since I programmed the five ton Illiac (fired up in 1952: 2800 vacuum tubes, a 64K magnetic drum memory and state-of-the-art paper tape input):


Indeed, I bought my first hand-held computer some thirty years ago: the remarkable, programmable HP 65.
At this moment, it sits by my PC:

At this moment, I have no idea how to program it.

**
Remember HAL?
The computer in the movie 2001: a Space Odyssey? He was "born" in Champaign-Urbana.



 

3 comments:

  1. I'm disappointed.

    No picture of a young 'Gummy' with his pocket protector and slide rule, lol.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I *still* have my K&E slide rule, from these days:

    http://www.gummy-stuff.org/autoBIO/1953.jpeg

    ReplyDelete
  3. You're the guy in the trench coat with the Hitler mustache?

    :->

    ReplyDelete