[DUG] You say potatoe I say....

[Gary T. Benner]

[Reply]

Hi all,

Coming in late on this one after a tour of duty across the ditch, teaching .NET and SOA to Aussies.

My first introduction to programming was Cantran at Canterbury University - 1971- A modified version of Fortran. That's where I met John Bird .... carrying our card trays to the computer centre. The size of your tray was a status symbol, with a compile cycle of 24 hours (not the 1-10 seconds we now experience). Oh, and wearing a white coat was an even higher status symbol because it meant you were an operator ....

Then in 1978 I invested in a "Scientific Cambridge" single board computer with a National SC/AMP (8060 processor), which later got surpassed by the 8070 series ... built NZ's first ever electronic petrol pump with that. National left the market after that (bump) leaving us with Intel . Motorola..... the rest is history.  Colin I think followed in those steps too.

Somewhere in between we had CPM, Trash 80's, Pets and BBC computers. Oh and a love affair with a Sord. Nice but unique. Them 8086, 80186,80286,80386, 486,586 when the Pentium name stuck (1 .... 4) ... so PII etc and on.... 
What we have lost in all of this somehow, is the time between compiles, the time that technology has taken away, no time to breathe in between ....   excuse me while I go walk on the beach and enjoy the things you cannot extract from a monitor!!! <g>

Enjoy your's Colin!

kr

Gary





At 18:12 on 24/03/2006 you wrote 
>To  : delphi at ns3.123.co.nz
>CC  : >From: Colin/Mina, colmin at ihug.co.nz
>Content Type: text/plain
>Attached: >
>Kylie has since trumped me however :-
>
>  I also remember toggling switches on the PDP-8 to make it perform
>industrial control functions, but a long time before that I built another
>industrial controller for Formica Ltd. This was based on the use of
>'Dekatrons' (Vacuum tube 10 position counters) with 10 cathodes which would
>provide a voltage output depending upon where the gas discharge inside had
>been pulsed to. I think I used two tubes in series for a count of 100 (or
>maybe 20). These specific cathode voltages were combined using transistor
>'AND' gates and diode 'OR' gates together with series or parallel machine
>switches to turn on and off motors and air cylinders appropriate for the
>function required at that particular part of the machine cycle.
>
>  It worked exceedingly well, this device using a program counter and hard
>wired logic instead of software. I wish I'd thought to patent the basic
>process.
>
>If there's a prize for the oldest oldie, I received my first pension payment
>this week.
>
>Cheers
>
>   Colin
>
>C R Dillicar
>Colmin Associates
>Ph. +64 9 834-4040
>colmin at ihug.co.nz
>
>"Avast"  AV checked
>
>
>
>----- Original Message ----- >From: "Phil Scadden" <p.scadden at gns.cri.nz>
>To: "NZ Borland Developers Group - Delphi List" <delphi at ns3.123.co.nz>
>Sent: Friday, March 24, 2006 9:27 AM
>Subject: RE: [DUG] You say potatoe I say....
>
>
>> > Started PDP-8,
>>
>> Okay, You win. You are the oldest man here!
>>
>> Matthew - at some point I got a sharp EL5150. Its beside me still and
>> does all I want in a calculator.
>>
>> ----------------------------------------------------------
>> Phil Scadden, Institute of Geological and Nuclear Sciences
>> 764 Cumberland St, Private Bag 1930, Dunedin, New Zealand
>> Ph +64 3 4799663, fax +64 3 477 5232
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> Delphi mailing list
>> Delphi at ns3.123.co.nz
>> http://ns3.123.co.nz/mailman/listinfo/delphi
>>
>
>_______________________________________________
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