What Are Your Favorite Computing Memories?

aussersterne asks: "Every now and then while reading Slashdot comments, I realize that most people have no idea that -the network was the computer- for decades before Amazon.com and Google ever appeared, taking for granted the rather boring state of commodity computing that dominates the marketplace today. Unix and dial-up shell users remember bang-paths, 110 baud BBSing, 'luggable' computers, UUCP, DC600 OS media, VT100s connected to dumb terminals, and 1152x900 8-bit color web browsing before most PC users had even shelled out for their first copy of Windows 3.x and the free 'serial mouse' it included. Middle-aged geeks, what are your favorite recollections from from the '80s and '90s computing, network, and hardware world, as full of platforms and innovation as it was? Which computer system is still 'your baby' all these years later? Anybody still have a running Sun2? A running FHL UniQuad? Anybody still use KA9Q?"

Comments

Woof, Woof!

[dave-tx]

Fidonet! And to a lesser extent, the Fido and Opus BBS software.

I thought this was a very clever way to propagate messages between BBS's. I guess I graduated from Fidonet to Usenet around 1990...if one considers that graduating, and not simply moving in to The Project.

Sun2 ? ..feh

[L. VeGas]

I don't think a computer has been made that replicates the joy I had working with the Difference Engine.

Babbage was kind of a pain, though.

Memories

[CokeBear]

My favorite computer memories

My fondest memory...

[drakaan]

Doing this to all the PET's and CBM's in the computer lab (my syntax is a bit rusty, so forgive obvious bugs):

10 POKE 144,88
20 ? CHR((INT(RND(1))*255)+1)
30 GOTO 20

Good ol' "POKE 144,88" disables the "run stop" key on PET, CBM, VIC-20, C-64, and C-128 computers...not sure if it works on the various emulators out there.

Pr0n!

[linzeal]

My fondest memory of BBS was the upgrade from 2400 to 14.4 for me that made surfing 20-30k porn images of scanned magazines (this is before porn sites) 'real time' which meant I could view one Jpeg while downloading the other and switch between them without losing my er concentration.

Cutting class and getting credit...

[TopShelf]

It all started for me in 2nd grade, when our teacher (good ole Mr. Cunningham) would bring in his TRS-80 and let kids play with the computer, based on their in-class performance. If you did well on a test or quiz, you got a sticker which could be turned in for computer time, which was a real novelty at the time (1979).

One day, he had us type in a BASIC program out of a magazine (BYTE? Softside? can't recall) to display a digital clock on the screen - each kid would do a couple lines, then the next would take his turn as class continued on. When it came to my turn, I just kept on trucking, and the teacher didn't say anything. We broke for recess, and after coming back in, I went straight to the computer and kept chugging away, as the teacher resumed class. Once I finished the program, I tried to RUN it, but there were typo's which then proceeded to fix using the line editor (I had seen Mr. C do this before), until I got the thing working. It was probably one of the best school days I ever had, and it was all thanks to his "letting the line out" and giving me the room to explore.

At the next parent/teacher conference he told my parents about the experience, and that he hadn't seen a kid that age with that level of focus to finish and debug the program for such a long time (boy, has that changed over the years). My grandmother got me a computer for Xmas that year (Atari 400), and things pretty much changed forever from that point forward. It was a pivotal moment for me, and I'll always have to give credit to a great teacher (public school, btw) for providing that opportunity.

Re:ah, memories...

[Chemical Serenity]

Heh, okay, okay...

I used to hang out in this IRC channel. There was some girl I was trying to get with was and she was interested in it, so I will honestly say I was just in there to kill some time and see if I could get some play. THAT one turned out to be a spoiled little bratchild that needed to be kicked to the curb, but it just so happened my future wife was in the same channel. This was about the same time that netscape first came on the scene... gopher was still the search tool of choice, and Twinsock over windows 3.1 was the standard way of getting online for most peeps. She was plagued by a bad connection and surly tech support from her university, so I would help her out with problems.

We became friends. Nothing more though, as she lived in Nova Scotia and I was in Vancouver... and that's the way it stayed for a couple years. We talked regularly in between her studying for her masters in English.

Now, a small cadre of us became regulars in this channel, but 95% of us were from the west coast. My future wife was about the only one who was out east... so she got on a plane and came out to Vancouver (ostensibly to check out schools to finish her post-graduate studies, but mostly just to come party with some online friends). I had the use of a car and was relatively near by the airport, so I was tasked with a collection of 'virtual hugs' I was supposed to give her from a bunch of the other channel denizens when I met her. I had a list written down with "hugs from: xxxxx yyyyyy zzzzzz" ... and by the time we got through that list of hugs, we both knew that something more was going to happen, and pretty quick. ;)

So, she just came out west and sorta... stayed. We've lived happily ever after, our 10th 'anniversary' is this labour day (although we only got married 2 years ago). A few years back I moved with her and the kids back out to Nova Scotia, as all her family is out here.

The End. Romantic in a highly geeky way, huh? ;)