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Thread ID: 28365	2002-12-17 10:54:00	Years of computing experience	rugila (214)	Press F1

Post ID	Timestamp	Content	User
106958	2002-12-17 10:54:00	I started my computing with an IBM 1620 in 1963. No monitor, no keyboard, input by punched cards and getting those right was interesting. Some flashing lights, all output by printer, card reader was bigger than than the processing part, multiplying large (100 by 50 etc)matrices took half an hour or so (my present machine does that within a very few seconds). Since then ...	rugila (214)
106959	2002-12-17 17:56:00	Hey My computing experience must've started around 1992 with MSDOS on an old computer (Can't remember the type it was as i was more interested in the games back then - Wolfenstien 3D). This MSDOS machine had a Menu sort of system on it.... Since then we evolved to Windows 3.11 (which I still have the installation disks for) which was a great leap fowards - yes - instead of having to type in the dos commands to start each game I could just click on a shortcut. 256 color I think... or was it less? From there, a radical change - Win95... With 16MB Ram and a 2GB HDD, this is where I found out mostly everything I know about Windows... A very big one is .DLL's are not unimportant, and there is no such game where you have to try and delete TWUNK32... Following that came NT.. With it's reasonably high security and ability to perform BSOD's it's a wonder all OS's after it weren't based on the NT Kernal... Speaking of that I got a BSOD on ME the other day... "Windows has performed an illegal operation in NTKRNL(01)...." After that I got ME which expanded my knowledge of the Microsoft operating system, preparing me for bigger and better things... Now to save my money up for XP.... CyberChuck	cyberchuck (173)
106960	2002-12-17 19:43:00	For the number of years that I've had a computer -- over eight -- I'm embarrassed that I still don't really know much about them. :-( Must be cos I'm too busy talking instead of fiddling. :p zips up flame protection suit	Susan B (19)
106961	2002-12-17 20:20:00	Susan B you are too modest, and didn't tel us yr exp . I did a course in COBOL in 1987 at what was then ATI in Auckland . It was for a NZ Cert . in computer Science . I thought programming was a hoot until I went on work exp . as part of the course right near the end and got stuck in a beige basement cubicle with a terminal, pen and paper and rack of manuals . What a life . :O So I chucked it in . No contact for years until couple of yrs ago and the Net . I knocked up a webiste in html for the exercise and am now fiddling with c . Never owned my own comp . so minimal fiddling but do help friends/others with comp . problems while trying to convince them that "No, I'm not an exoert . " When you fix it they don't believe you when you don't they do . :D Keep up the Good Work folks and merry xmas . . . . mark :) c	mark c (247)
106962	2002-12-17 20:23:00	I must have begun back in about '91 with the good old C64's, playing Giana sista's and other games like that that I actually really miss, in all their simplicity! Programmed my first game in early '93 I think it must have been, on the C64, and that was fun! We moved onto an old 80286 with a whopping 20 Megabyte HDD, and it was absolutely amazing running it doublespaced. A WHOLE 40 MEGS! HUGE! I always managed to fill it up though, but it was easy enough, delete on game and load on another. I'd play 20 games on a saturday morning, good thing registries werent around then! We used Toybox 2 as the OS (Shareware available for free online) but used GeoWorks for other stuff... Actually had a graphical file browser which was a really foreign concept. I didnt like it. Moved onto a 486 with a CD-ROM which was absolutely amazing back then, a CD. The 486 had a 260MB HDD, which was HUGE, but ended up being doublespaced running 95, compressing it as much as possible. 95 seemed rather weird, Id used Win3.11 a bit, but using the right mouse button to make shortcuts (Who knew that something like that was so useful!) and folders was just out-of-it! 5 years ago, We musta bought a PC from the shop, it was a HP I think, ran 95, but was a 300Mhz with 64Megs RAM (Huge step up from a 486DX50 with 24MB RAM to a P2!). That got taken back coz the Hire Purchase was too much, but we were given a 486 100Mhz with 98 on it! 360Meg HDD and a fast as 4x CD-ROM drive. I began to program on that using klik and play. Time moved on and about 4 years ago we got a Pentium 233Mhz with 32MB RAM and i installed 98 on it when we got it... Formatted 2 days after buying a second hand PC wasnt a good impression left on the parents. Kept that PC up until about 5 months ago when it got shocked by power and then upgraded to the current 933Celeron. I'd upgraded it over the 3 1/2 years we had it so in the end it had 92 megs of ram (4 shared video ram). I began to program using MMF on this PC, also dabbling with Visual Basic, but VB didnt seem for me, being more database oriented in all the tutorials, expecting larger corporate users to be using it and not a 13 year old boy! Before the family 233Mhz got upgraded, I was given a laptop by my uncle, a 120Mhz that I used to fully explore as much of the OS as I could, even fully locking myself out of Win98 by making it give me a user list upon boot and require a password, only thing was, before rebooting it, Id removed the only account, administrator, so it was things like that which I gained a lot of experience from, partitioning using FDisk and Ranish Partition Manager :-) I made a P75 all on my own from parts given to me by a friend when upgrading their home PC. I tried out linux for the first time on a P75 with 64MB EDO RAM. It sucked :p I've since made my own PC 2x, one was a 233Mhz about 3 months ago, and that got sold. I also managed to get together a 300Mhz PC that I used for testig out .NET Server RC1 and RedHat Linux 8.0 (Which worked much better) More recently though is my current AMD Athlon XP 1700+ and Im using to install Lycoris Desktop/LX tonight (Partitioned using Norton Ghost last night, a long and waery proccess!) and if that dual boot with Win2K doesnt go through, then I'll put .NET Server RC2 on the Second partition. I am currently making chat software that will hopefully have a final build sometime soon. I have also worked at a cyber cafe in Te Atatu, doing network administration as well as customer servicing of PC's! Ive also spent a lot of time fixing friends/relatives PC's when they go broke, for the past 2-3 years, they've all realised that they can come to me for help, as there arent many PC-Fixit's out there that dont charge an arm and a leg to install AVG and remove a virus :p :D My life story, pretty long actually, but much experience with building PC's and trying to delve deeper than the basic usage of windows and soon to be linux too. Merry Christmas to all.	Chilling_Silence (9)
106963	2002-12-17 20:56:00	Christmas day 1991 I was in London on my OE (Part 1) and I went to a friend place for dinner. They's just bought there son a C64 and I was facinated. I bought an Acorn Electron (best ever game was Elite!), then got a 2nd hand ZX81. I bought an Amiga 500 in about 1988, Worked with TRS80s in 1987 (1st computer I had to repair with nobody around to ask advice from, number 8 fencing wire and chewing gum did the trick I think). Amiga 1200 in about 1993. I swapped that for a 486 in 1996. This started the cycle of upgrading and rebuilding to my current level. I've built a couple of dozen PCs for myself and friends. Only ever had smoke out of one ;) (a cockroach had crawled into a molex power cable which shorted when I reconnected and switched on (in Auckland, of course) Since then I always check for cockroaches when I Auckland! Spent last year at Massey studying PC Servicing.	crozier (2004)
106964	2002-12-17 22:12:00	1985 - my first access to a computer, a ZX81 (16k RAM) 1989 - first computer in our house ,a commodore 64 (64k RAM) 1991 - first access to an Intel PC, a 286-25Mhz (1MB Ram) 1993 - my first computer I paid for my self , 386-sx25 (4mb RAM) 1995 - start getting too many computer in the house :-) 2002 - currently own 8 computers (2 WinXP,1 Win98,3 Unix,2 other ) fastest system: athlon 1800xp+ slowest system: 1Mhz chalanger 1 (1980 design)	robsonde (120)
106965	2002-12-17 22:15:00	>Christmas day 1991 erm... that should read 1981	crozier (2004)
106966	2002-12-17 23:06:00	14th september 1996, got mah first computer EVER. it was an hp pavillion, posh for the time, i was ummmmmm 12 and i put it together and had a brilliant time learning about the HP registration process :P That next week it had a problem finding a file and couldn't load windows, back my father charged to Harvey Norman and got at new one :P Two months later the hard drive clapped out and then the cd rom door would always open as soon as you turned it on. It came wiht Sim City 2000 and i thought it was the bee knees :) Still use the same screen and keyboard today, cept with a pick-a-part-Dell :) Where would we be with out em eh? I've been teaching my eighty-year old grandfather and he loves it!! I'll always remember i recieved this fone call from my mother when i was at a friends house, asking "tones how do you turn on the screen" lol hehehe	tones_malones (611)
106967	2002-12-17 23:26:00	Hey. Thanks for response all. A lot of that is most interesting and I want to study it in detail. After IBM 1620 I was at Univ of NSW in Sydney where we allegedly had most powerful machine in Australia. This was an IBM 360 with 1200k of memory (I can't even say if it was RAM back then, and have no idea of the OS.) We programmed in Fortran (=formula translation), although I few other languages around then - one was SPS (= symbolic programming system). IBM was king then, and it was all closer to the days of Alan Turing than it is from now. I started PC computing with Apple 2e back around 1984, and stayed with Apple to about 1993. Job at the time caused change to Microsoft stuff and so-called "IBM compatible" (who invented such a monstrosity of a name?). My son thinks the dark side of the force took me over (sometimes I do too) and has been strongly encouraging me to change back ever since.	rugila (214)
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