Days Gone By

[Phoenix]

So I was looking at some older Fortran code today of the old game "SkiFree" (Ex-Fortran coder here lol ) and this made me laugh:


c Calcualate terminal speed
subroutine speed(na)
parameter
1 io$_sensemode = '27'x,
1 tt$c_baud_2400 = '0B'x,
1 tt$c_baud_4800 = '0D'x,
1 tt$c_baud_9600 = '0F'x
character*(*) na
logical*1 stats(8),modes(8)
common /logterm/ ltt
call sys$qiow(,%val(ltt),%val(io$_sensemode),stats,,,modes,%val(8),,,,)
i=stats(3)
if (i .gt. tt$c_baud_9600) then
na='very fast'
else if (i .gt. tt$c_baud_4800) then
na='fast'
else if (i .gt. tt$c_baud_2400) then
na='4800 baud'
else
na='slow'
end if
return
end

c Another name for SLOW
subroutine fred
call slow
return
end

 

[Sarge]

So I was looking at some older Fortran code today of the old game "SkiFree" (Ex-Fortran coder here lol ) and this made me laugh:


c Calcualate terminal speed
subroutine speed(na)
parameter
1 io$_sensemode = '27'x,
1 tt$c_baud_2400 = '0B'x,
1 tt$c_baud_4800 = '0D'x,
1 tt$c_baud_9600 = '0F'x
character*(*) na
logical*1 stats(8),modes(8)
common /logterm/ ltt
call sys$qiow(,%val(ltt),%val(io$_sensemode),stats,,,modes,%val(8),,,,)
i=stats(3)
if (i .gt. tt$c_baud_9600) then
na='very fast'
else if (i .gt. tt$c_baud_4800) then
na='fast'
else if (i .gt. tt$c_baud_2400) then
na='4800 baud'
else
na='slow'
end if
return
end

c Another name for SLOW
subroutine fred
call slow
return
end

This post gave me a headache.

 

[Cajuncowboy]

So I was looking at some older Fortran code today of the old game "SkiFree" (Ex-Fortran coder here lol ) and this made me laugh:


c Calcualate terminal speed
subroutine speed(na)
parameter
1 io$_sensemode = '27'x,
1 tt$c_baud_2400 = '0B'x,
1 tt$c_baud_4800 = '0D'x,
1 tt$c_baud_9600 = '0F'x
character*(*) na
logical*1 stats(8),modes(8)
common /logterm/ ltt
call sys$qiow(,%val(ltt),%val(io$_sensemode),stats,,,modes,%val(8),,,,)
i=stats(3)
if (i .gt. tt$c_baud_9600) then
na='very fast'
else if (i .gt. tt$c_baud_4800) then
na='fast'
else if (i .gt. tt$c_baud_2400) then
na='4800 baud'
else
na='slow'
end if
return
end

c Another name for SLOW
subroutine fred
call slow
return
end

OMG that's funny.

 

[rkell87]

OMG that's funny.

you got me

 

[Phoenix]

Wow.

Ya see kiddies, back before this here "internet" thingy? We had BBS's and dial up modems? And 9600 baud was ROCKIN'! USENET groups access at 9600 baud? Are you kidding me? Sign me up!

 

[Jammer]

I was the first one on my "block" that had a 28.8 modem and a 1 gig HD on my BBS. I was in high demand. My wife thought I was crazy spending so much money on that.

It's amazing how much I spent on a 1G HD and how I thought I had unlimited storage space, because I had upgraded from a 50M HD (which was ahead of its time when I got it then).

 

[YosemiteSam]

Wow.

Ya see kiddies, back before this here "internet" thingy? We had BBS's and dial up modems? And 9600 baud was ROCKIN'! USENET groups access at 9600 baud? Are you kidding me? Sign me up!

You started with 9600? What the ****! My 1200 and 2400 baud is jealous!

Speaking of. I remember when the 33.6 WinModems came out. My 28.8 external Hayes smoked them. I used to kill my buddy left and right playing Quake on the Internet because my ping was always half of his. (he had the 33.6 WinModem and I had the 28.8 External Hayes "Zoom" modem)

 

[YosemiteSam]

I was the first one on my "block" that had a 28.8 modem and a 1 gig HD on my BBS. I was in high demand. My wife thought I was crazy spending so much money on that.

It's amazing how much I spent on a 1G HD and how I thought I had unlimited storage space, because I had upgraded from a 50M HD (which was ahead of its time when I got it then).

rofl. The first PC I bought with my own money was a Packard Bell Pentium 75Mhz. It had a 1.275GB hard drive. My buddy and I still say "1.275 gigbyte hard drive" as a joke because they expressed it in so precise a number. :laugh2:

I suppose it mattered, because the biggest hard drive we had before then was my mom's 386sx 12mhz with a 100mb hard drive. My dad had the better 386dx 16mhz, but his hd was only 80mbs.

10.275xgb was a big difference. :laugh2:

 

[SaltwaterServr]

You started with 9600? What the ****! My 1200 and 2400 baud is jealous!

Speaking of. I remember when the 33.6 WinModems came out. My 28.8 external Hayes smoked them. I used to kill my buddy left and right playing Quake on the Internet because my ping was always half of his. (he had the 33.6 WinModem and I had the 28.8 External Hayes "Zoom" modem)

I think my first PC at college had a modem. I think. Blazing 386mH with a 40mb hard drive. I had a programming major down the hall in the dorm who designed some animated desktop icons for Windows. Running more than a few of them slowed the entire computer down. Ah, the good old days.

The guy's father had a new computer he was building at home. I remember being confused when it wasn't a "X"86 speed.

 

[Tusan_Homichi]

I didn't get into this new-fangled internet deal until I got a computer with a 14.4 modem. That was blazin. I remember upgrading to a 33.6 USR Winmodem (remember those bad boys?) at one point. Then, there was a software update to USR's new 56k tech called X2. You had to figure out what your ISP supported back when 56k tech started hitting. There was USR's X2 technology and K56Flex (I think).

My first computer in general was a Compaq Presario with a 100 MHz Pentium processor in it. It had 4 MB of ram and a 1.2 GB HD.

 

[tupperware]

You started with 9600? What the ****! My 1200 and 2400 baud is jealous!

Speaking of. I remember when the 33.6 WinModems came out. My 28.8 external Hayes smoked them. I used to kill my buddy left and right playing Quake on the Internet because my ping was always half of his. (he had the 33.6 WinModem and I had the 28.8 External Hayes "Zoom" modem)

Hah I had a Winmodem. Back when CPUs weren't all that fast, it really did make a difference having a modem that didn't rely on the CPU. Funny that there is still a market for things like this:

http://www.tomshardware.com/news/bigfoot-networks-killer-nic-killer-2100-gaming,10388.html

I mean, it's the weakest link in the chain philosophy. I don't care how good your network 'card' is, the latency is the latency is the latency. Once that information is out of your domain, your card really has no say.

Perhaps it may shave a few MS off of a local network or something, but you're already talking about a few MS, anyway.

 

[tupperware]

I didn't get into this new-fangled internet deal until I got a computer with a 14.4 modem. That was blazin. I remember upgrading to a 33.6 USR Winmodem (remember those bad boys?) at one point. Then, there was a software update to USR's new 56k tech called X2. You had to figure out what your ISP supported back when 56k tech started hitting. There was USR's X2 technology and K56Flex (I think).

My first computer in general was a Compaq Presario with a 100 MHz Pentium processor in it. It had 4 MB of ram and a 1.2 GB HD.

Ahh yeah I remember that

Local provider around here still sells 56k access too, amazed people even bother. I remember wanting to get ADSL from Verizon and being a few hundred feet out of range for something like 1.5/384, sad sad times. I had a bunch of friends on @home with their 40 and 50 pings in Quake 1. Meanwhile, I was stuck on providers like Earthlink, Erols, etc.

 

[Tusan_Homichi]

I'm feeling very nerdy right now and was thinking about what else my first computer had in it. I believe it had an S3 Trio onboard video card. I remember hating how slow it was playing Aliens Online so I upgraded to a Matrox Millennium II.

I remember having that video card until that computer was retired and I got my next one which I built myself and put an Nvidia Riva TNT into. Good times. I believe that system was built during the heyday of the Celeron overclocking craze. It was 266 Mhz stock with no cache, but you could overclock it to somewhere around 400 Mhz. Then I swapped that one out for a Celeron 350A which had some L2 cache and could reach 450 Mhz pretty easily.

Oh man, memories.

 

[ShiningStar]

i remember before hard drives. u had to flip the "Dare i say" floppy. no not the bunny ears.

 

[Denim Chicken]

Could never get past the The Abominable Snow Man

 

[notherbob]

I first got started in the microcomputer business in 1980 selling 16K 40 column Apple II computers that used tape recorders for storage because a 13-sector 96K floppy cost $695. They could be upgraded to 64K with two floppies and an 80 column screen and a dot matrix printer.

When Visicalc came out (the predecessor to Lotus 123) I sold a small mountain of Apple II systems for around $6,000 each to businesses just to run visicalc and if you knew of a BBS somewhere you could get a DC Hayes audio-coupled 300 baud modem for only $295. When the 1200 baud modem came out it blew our minds as we also operated one of the first BBSs in the country.

Have you ever heard of the Apple III computer with up to 128K of raw power or the 512K Lisa that was the predecessor to the Macintosh with no color but graphics that would blow your mind?

I worked at one of the first small independent computer stores in the country, the KA Computer Store on Stemmons in Dallas. Our little store outsold most computer store chains back then. We were passed over when the IBM PC came out as they would only let major chain stores sell it and that led to our downfall.

I eventually went to work for Businessland and was always tops in sales and profitability but didn't always adhere closely enough to the diplomatic corps dress code they required and once I came to work in my darkblue pinstriped suit but failed to have matching pens in my shirt pocket - I was awarded a special black cross pen with an Apple logo on it by Apple Computer, Inc for sales achievements, that I foolishly wore in combination with a gold cross pencil and was fired on the spot for wearing non-matching pens by a very envious sales manager who was jealous that I consistently outsold him. I have hated IBM for their short-sightedness and snobishness ever since. In my last years in the business I wore black tasselled loafers instead of the preferred wingtip brogues. These days I refuse to even own a pair - I've always been a little bit of a rebel.

I've been fired for some pretty strange reasons even though I've always been a sales leader - I got fired by Motorola in 1972 for taking time off to attend my mother's funeral and settle her affairs(setting a poor example for newer employees) and I got fired from a small computer store in Denton in 1985 even though I was their most profitable salesman for "being the person you are". Funny, I thought she had hired me for being the person I was. She always fired her top sales people because she resented paying the bonuses she offerred as sales incentives. Carrot and stick management plan; offer them the carrot but if they ever get it, hit them with the stick.

Damn, I'm glad I'm retired, it's a tough world out there.

Thanks for jogging the memories.

 

[tupperware]

 

[Reality]

10 PRINT "HELLO WORLD!"
20 GOTO 10


As your first program .. fun for a few seconds before it hits you ..

#reality