Antiques
Working on redeploying some old machines.
Co Worker: How do we load programs into this machine?
me: I think we’re stuck with RS232.
Co worker: No flash drive? no USB?
me: I think we’re still stuck with RS 232.
Co worker: Wait, here’s an access cover! Oh.
Me: A floppy disk drive
Co worker: Nice. Welcome to 1988.
14 comments Og | Uncategorized
Kids. Some times they say the darnedest things
I remember moving paper tape NC programs for our plasma arc cutters to floppy back in 1989-90. We had hundreds of parts to move over.
There was a program I found that recorded keystrokes and made macros for them. Ctrl+R would get everything ready to read, run the tape, look for errors, Ctrl+S to save, name the file, then Ctr+R to start again. I did that for weeks. I don’t remember how many would fit on a floppy, but it was limited by DOS’s ability to address them. I think it was 100.
WE tore up the offices of one of my stations one night trying to find a 3.5″(!) disk to save some records from a recording oscilloscope. People will happily swap out a computers, but there’s something about hanging onto twenty-year old test equipment…
I have several bits that still require RS-232 and a terminal emulator to program.
MC
I saved my thesis to 3.5″ floppy. So it would be available for Posterity. but Posterity hasn’t asked for it on over 20 years so I think I am safe to discard it. That and having used several programs to write it that don’t exist anymore would probably guarantee it is already unusable either way.
If there was indeed any reason to read that thesis, Professor Hale, my bet would be that it could be read without much cost or effort. Your formatting may not survive intact, but the content would be usable.
We had a product that used, ” the best of Gemini and Apollo technology.”
I still see them in the field. The bastards won’t die.
Modern! :-) And I too remember loading paper tapes.
5.25 or 3.5?
Eight inch IMB word processor disks.
I haz rememberz ’em.
Jim
Sunk New Dawn
Galveston, TX
Back in the mid 90’s I was given the task of modifying a program written in 360 assembler (I was the only one in the office that knew it, took it in college). Had source code but there were no comments. Program read in a binary file and a data file, and spit out a report. Had no idea what the effing thing was doing, until I found a commented version of the program. The 360 assembler program was an emulator for IBM 1106 (state of the art 1950s), it was reading the object module (the binary file) and input file and running the 1108 code. I recommended to my manager that we re-write the report, since learning 1108 assembler, then dis-assembling the object module, just to modify a report was probably more effort than it was worth.
Oh, the modification? It was overflowing a field. I worked for an insurance company, and in the 1950s apparently nobody imagined one person could have over $99,999.99 in health insurance costs.
A walk down memory lane. Have used cassette tape to store and load programs.
Worked in a parts dempartment in the late 70’s that used a tape to code the parts.
Also remember using Hollerith cards for some physics experiments.
Course someday this will be old as well.
So much for the guy who told me in college every program ever needed had been written. So much for that.
Paul: I was told in college that I’d never make a living programming in Cobol. 30 years later, I’m programming in Cobol, making a decent living doing it, and were I willing to travel for work I’d be making a GREAT living doing it as an independent consultant.
When I was in Aerospace there was a secretary that used a word processing machine the size of a desk, and used floppy disks that were (I thought) 10″ square. There was also one program that we needed to use once that used punch cards.
I saved the 5 1/4″ drive from my brother’s computer, but I think finding a driver will be hard.
There’s a place in the San Fernando Valley in Los Angeles that specializes in recovering data from orphaned media and programs.
Well, Windy Wilson, I suspect that if you are willing to use Linux and have a drive that will work with that floppy, you could easily find a driver that would work:
http://askubuntu.com/questions/168597/how-do-i-use-a-floppy-drive-in-ubuntu