"garigue" wrote


Yepper the bum society rears its head again ...... over 400k words in
the
English language, or so I 've heard, and the universal sentence
enhancer is
always to be found .... pity ...


Tom,

I think it's just become fashionable to be a self-righteous bitcher
against "Them"!

Here in reality computing has advanced light years in just a couple of
decades. My first computer (a Heath H89) had an amazing 48KB of RAM
which I upgraded all the way to 64K for the princely sum of $129, dual
boot (HDOS or CPM), a single floppy drive, no hard drive, no CD drive,
no DVC drive and an upgrade to a 12" amber screen (none of those
primitive green CRT's for me!). Processor (Zilog Z80) speed was
measured in KHz. Total price for the whole thing was just under $2,500.
Software was scarce and expensive, and web crawlers, usenet, and email
were Buck Rogers stuff. Not available to me at home, but
forward-looking companies were willing to pay $2,500/mo for 9.6KHz DDS
connectivity!

My current 'hobby' computer came with a measly 512MB of RAM which I
upgraded to 1GB for $92. It still has only one floppy drive, but 120GB
hard drive, a DVD (r/w) drive, a CD (r/w) drive. Processor speed is
2.5GHz, I have fulltime broadband connectivity to the world-wide-web for
under $50/mo, and more choices of reasonably priced software than I can
count. All thanks to those assholes at Microsoft and Intel. Ain't it
just awful?

73, de Hans, K0HB

Tom,

I think it's just become fashionable to be a self-righteous bitcher
against "Them"!

Hans .... yes you are right ...it's easy to bitch at the fellows who for
what ever reason made things the way they are. If all the other systems
were that good then by golly we all would have them and their inherent
faults. I think it is base envy of those that brought what ever to the
unwashed masses that gets some upset and made a whole bunch of money in the
mean time. I was hooked when ever I saw those old "kits" back in the 60's
but couldn't afford the freight. The first computer I ever had a hand in
working with was a Burroghs (sp?) in 1965 which was used by the Port
Vue-Liberty school district for payroll. We managed to get to use the unit
with the guidence of the "special math" instructor. It used pins in sets of
3 per step in a program ...K-1-1 et al. and the problem was that the darn
exponent had "floated" and had to be reset within the program lest all was
lost. The Commodore units of the early 80's provided my impetus. Again
look what 2K $ got you then ... and now ...all at the expense of those
"greedy" risk takers.

Take care ...Tom Popovic KI3R Belle Vernon Pa

garigue wrote:

Tom,

I think it's just become fashionable to be a self-righteous bitcher
against "Them"!


Hans .... yes you are right ...it's easy to bitch at the fellows who for
what ever reason made things the way they are. If all the other systems
were that good then by golly we all would have them and their inherent
faults.

Not really Tom. My experience in computers has been that whatever gets
adopted as a "standard" is related to the golden rule. He who has the
gold makes the rules - and the standards.

- Mike KB3EIA -