On Tuesday 07 November 2006 08:13, Patrick Shanahan wrote:

* Matt T. [11-06-06 20:05]:

...

I think about the next - boxed - versions, and if I have to switch then it'll happen soon.

Why would you have to switch?

Well, Patrick, as explained before ... in other words, because there is a big "no more Microsoft" sign on my forehead ;-) I simply do not see where this MS - Novell deal is good for Novell, Linux, OSS, or me. As said before, if that was a genius marketing trick or similar from Novell I do not see it. All I see is MS here and there and patents all over. All I can do is then to either accept or switch. Accepting MS as partner? Sorry, not me. So what is left as alternative?

...

I won't install any more distro once I know I will install a different one in the future.

You have already decided to switch? Based on what?

As said above and before.

...

Any additional SuSE install would then be more migration pain once it is time for an upgrade.

That holds true for *any* distro install....

Well, here it means - no upgrade from Novell x.x to Novell-MS x.y but from Novell x.x to OtherDistro x.y which is probably requiring not an upgrade but a new install and as such more painful.

Have you already made you mind up that SUSE is no more? And what basis?

1) Experience with seeing Novell buying, hyping, killing, and then selling WordPerfect, QuattroPro, DrDOS, UnixWare, etc. etc. It always looked as if they would do the job for Microsoft, eliminating the competition. This made me worrying the moment Novell bought SuSE. 2) The shadow of MS and its patent lawyers over a clueless Novell management. However, Patrick, if I see some light, some hope, I'm willing to listen. As said, I like the SuSE team, I would prefer to stay with SuSE, if not ... (see above)

On Wednesday 08 November 2006 20:30, JJ Gitties wrote:

...

eh.h.. doesn't really count. that era of tech history is littered with these kinds of moves and stories. anyone remember Borland?

http://www.borland.com/ Rumors of their death are greatly exaggerated.

Doug McGarrett wrote:

At 09:29 PM 11/8/2006 -0800, Randall R Schulz wrote:

...

Content-Disposition: inline

On Wednesday 08 November 2006 20:30, JJ Gitties wrote:

...

...

eh.h.. doesn't really count. that era of tech history is littered with these kinds of moves and stories. anyone remember Borland? http://www.borland.com/

Rumors of their death are greatly exaggerated.

Oh, yeah? Try and buy a copy of Turbo Pascal, or Eureka. Whatever they might be doing now is no help to me.

In what age do you live? Try and buy Suse 5.1! Turbo Pascal has evolved to Turbo Delphi. Pricetag a bit high though at $400. :-( MS-Windows only. Unfortunately the Kylix project has run aground and is no longer supported. BTW I have BP 7.0 running on dosemu, but I never use it. Regards, -- Jos van Kan registered Linux user #152704

At 10:37 AM 11/9/2006 +0100, Jos van Kan wrote:

Jos van Kan wrote:

...

Turbo Pascal has evolved to Turbo Delphi. Pricetag a bit high though at $400. :-( MS-Windows only.

Correction. There is an Explorer version (which appears rich enough) that

is free.

http://www.turboexplorer.com

Regards, -- Jos van Kan registered Linux user #152704

Once, I actually wrote some code. Not an awful lot, and not as my prime occupation, but I actually _wrote_ code, and compiled it. I did not "drag and drop" stuff, and when Visual Basic and Delphi came along I knew I was out of the game. I still have a Kylix disk, somewhere, but it might as well be Chinese. I never learned C, or C++, so I guess that I will never code again. Well, I'm retired, and I really don't have to anymore. Besides, anything anyone needs to calculate anymore is done by people who understand Excel. Phooey! --doug

On Thursday 09 November 2006 07:07, James Knott wrote:

Doug McGarrett wrote:

...

At 10:37 AM 11/9/2006 +0100, Jos van Kan wrote:

...

Jos van Kan wrote:

...

Turbo Pascal has evolved to Turbo Delphi. Pricetag a bit high though at $400. :-( MS-Windows only.

Correction. There is an Explorer version (which appears rich enough) that

is free.

...

http://www.turboexplorer.com

Regards, -- Jos van Kan registered Linux user #152704

Once, I actually wrote some code. Not an awful lot, and not as my prime occupation, but I actually _wrote_ code, and compiled it. I did not "drag and drop" stuff, and when Visual Basic and Delphi came along I knew I was out of the game. I still have a Kylix disk, somewhere, but it might as well be Chinese. I never learned C, or C++, so I guess that I will never code again. Well, I'm retired, and I really don't have to anymore. Besides, anything anyone needs to calculate anymore is done by people who understand Excel. Phooey!

I took courses for C, Pascal, BASIC and Fortran. I've never used any of them professionally, though I have hand assembled some short routines for the Data General Nova 800 & Eclipse. I've also done a fair bit of assembly programming for my IMSAI 8080 and a bit for my XT clone. And, like many others, some BASIC on my home computers. =========

I'm just waiting for Cobol to make a big comeback! Remember to watch those periods. ;-) bye, Lee

At 08:32 AM 11/9/2006 -0500, BandiPat wrote:

Content-Disposition: inline

/snip/

=========

I'm just waiting for Cobol to make a big comeback! Remember to watch those periods. ;-)

bye, Lee

I have a cousin who actually wrote Cobol for a living until she came into some money and "retired." And I once knew an engineer who thought Cobol was cool, but he wasn't such a wonder as an engineer, either. ;-) --doug

On 09/11/06 14:58, Doug McGarrett wrote:

At 08:32 AM 11/9/2006 -0500, BandiPat wrote:

...

Content-Disposition: inline

/snip/

...

=========

I'm just waiting for Cobol to make a big comeback! Remember to watch those periods. ;-)

bye, Lee

I have a cousin who actually wrote Cobol for a living until she came into some money and "retired." And I once knew an engineer who thought Cobol was cool, but he wasn't such a wonder as an engineer, either. ;-)

You didn't have to say he wasn't such a great engineer either... every university I went to, the engineers used to amuse themselves writing better databases in Fortran than the admin students could write using Cobol :-)

Doug McGarrett wrote:

Oh, yeah? Try and buy a copy of Turbo Pascal, or Eureka. Whatever they might be doing now is no help to me.

Try to buy anyone's Pascal. It appears to be a dead language these days.

On 09/11/06 06:59, Carlos E. R. wrote:

The Thursday 2006-11-09 at 06:55 -0500, James Knott wrote:

...

Try to buy anyone's Pascal. It appears to be a dead language these days.

Not quite.

There is a gnu version of pascal, and there is also "Free Pascal" ( http://www.freepascal.org/). Then, there is also Lazarus (http://www.lazarus.freepascal.org/), that emulates Delphi.

When I code something, I do it in Pascal.

I thought real programmers write code at the command line: in DOStalk, copy con filename.exe :-)

On Thursday 09 November 2006 17:44, Carlos E. R. wrote:

The Thursday 2006-11-09 at 18:56 -0600, Darryl Gregorash wrote:

...

...

...

When I code something, I do it in Pascal.

I thought real programmers write code at the command line: in DOStalk, copy con filename.exe

:-)

X'-)

It's been a long time since I heard that one.

I wonder how many here even actually know what that one is anymore. :P That's why I don't use Vi. Too many bad memories of edlin, followed by copy con. Next thing you'll be doing is telling me to cat something. -- kai ponte www.perfectreign.com www.4thedadz.com

On Friday 10 November 2006 09:45, Carlos E. R. wrote:

You know, older programmers could have a joke like real programming was done with physical switches; there were old computers you actually had to load the initial boot program into memory, programming word by word flipping switches. Or so I have been told. Cute :-)

Rank amateurs! I watched as friends flipped switches on their Altairs and SWTP 8080s and kept thinking. "How crude". When the Apple II came out it was, "That's better", so we started importing Apple clones from Taiwan. When big blue got into the act we switched to pc clones. Windows was a huge improvement over whatever was before. When I started working in a computer center we had PDP-8, 11, VAX 11/70 and HP stuff. None used any graphics software until the early 90s and the PDPs needed a bootloader paper (or mylar) tape. I remember the latest and greatest 300MB disk drives that were as small as a washing machine. etc, etc, etc And all during this progression was my "Where's the beef" attitude. I saw vast amounts of software sold that I would have been embarrassed to put my name on because of all the bugs and gotchas. I learned that Bill Gates and Ross Perot weren't computer geniuses, they were marketing geniuses. I found out that I could program but that I could also stick sharp things in my eyes and I didn't like that, either. I learned that if I needed a comp sci degree for a job I could go to one of the gas stations in this 2 college town and hire one for a couple of bucks over minimum wage. Now, after around 30 years of personal computing I am finally starting to see some decent desktops. Linux is, in my shop, a major player but since it still is a M$ world I maintain XP capability. I know that a lot of the software that I see now is a result of CASE tools, which partially explains the bloat that all seem to have. Nobody optimizes anymore. Why should they with memory being so cheap? I remember spending $500 to add a whopping 64 Megs of RAM once and, at the time, that was a bargain. (chips only, no labor) Yeah, I know about keying in a half days work to be able to play command line blackjack and I wouldn't go back to then for anything. Them wasn't the good ol' days, nosiree Bob. Fred An old fart --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

Sure sounds familiar! Another old geezer end ----- Original Message ----- From: "Stevens" To: Sent: Friday, November 10, 2006 8:43 AM Subject: Re: [opensuse] "Real" programming

On Friday 10 November 2006 09:45, Carlos E. R. wrote:

...

You know, older programmers could have a joke like real programming was done with physical switches; there were old computers you actually had to load the initial boot program into memory, programming word by word flipping switches. Or so I have been told. Cute :-)

Rank amateurs!

I watched as friends flipped switches on their Altairs and SWTP 8080s and kept thinking. "How crude". When the Apple II came out it was, "That's better", so we started importing Apple clones from Taiwan. When big blue got into the act we switched to pc clones. Windows was a huge improvement over whatever was before. When I started working in a computer center we had PDP-8, 11, VAX 11/70 and HP stuff. None used any graphics software until the early 90s and the PDPs needed a bootloader paper (or mylar) tape. I remember the latest and greatest 300MB disk drives that were as small as a washing machine. etc, etc, etc

And all during this progression was my "Where's the beef" attitude. I saw vast amounts of software sold that I would have been embarrassed to put my name on because of all the bugs and gotchas. I learned that Bill Gates and Ross Perot weren't computer geniuses, they were marketing geniuses. I found out that I could program but that I could also stick sharp things in my eyes and I didn't like that, either. I learned that if I needed a comp sci degree for a job I could go to one of the gas stations in this 2 college town and hire one for a couple of bucks over minimum wage.

Now, after around 30 years of personal computing I am finally starting to see some decent desktops. Linux is, in my shop, a major player but since it still is a M$ world I maintain XP capability. I know that a lot of the software that I see now is a result of CASE tools, which partially explains the bloat that all seem to have. Nobody optimizes anymore. Why should they with memory being so cheap? I remember spending $500 to add a whopping 64 Megs of RAM once and, at the time, that was a bargain. (chips only, no labor)

Yeah, I know about keying in a half days work to be able to play command line blackjack and I wouldn't go back to then for anything. Them wasn't the good ol' days, nosiree Bob.

Fred An old fart --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I am using the free version of SPAMfighter for private users. It has removed 819 spam emails to date. Paying users do not have this message in their emails. Try SPAMfighter for free now! --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

Stevens wrote:

I know that a lot of the software that I see now is a result of CASE tools, which partially explains the bloat that all seem to have.

CASE tools are really a thing of the past. Seer*HPS, IBM AD/Cycle etc. are all long gone. I haven't seen a CASE tool mentioned anywhere for quite some time. (and I read the IEEE Spectrum, Computing and c't regularly). Modelling tools - Rational Rose and whathaveyou - are presumably still used quite a bit, at least in the OO world.

Nobody optimizes anymore. Why should they with memory being so cheap?

There's no doubt that the amount of cheap memory and CPU available has brought about a lot of sloppy code. Mind you, the last major project I worked on (as a coder) was pure assembler - that was chosen for speed and availablity of system interfaces. And we're not even talking embedded stuff. /Per Jessen, Zürich -- http://www.spamchek.com/ - managed email security. Starting at SFr5/month/user. --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

Yeah, I know about keying in a half days work to be able to play command line blackjack and I wouldn't go back to then for anything. Them wasn't the good ol' days, nosiree Bob.

I have a certain nostalgia for the "old days" (yes, I've booted computers by loading the bootstrap using front-panel switches, and entered a hand compiled program in hex), because it was all so difficult. It's the same appeal that killer sudoko has, or playing chess, and demanded high levels of concentration and discipline. It was _really_ expensive because few people could do it well. The modern way of constructing systems is much better, and allows much more complex system to be designed, built and tested. All of the intellectual effort which used to go into invisible complexity (hand optimising compiled code, packing data into fewer bytes) now goes into providing greater "end user" functionality. This progression will lead to software development becoming an engineering discipline one day. We aren't there yet but sometime we will. I still like the nostalgia ... but would hate to have to go back to working in it. --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

James Knott a écrit :

Stevens wrote:

...

Now, after around 30 years of personal computing I am finally starting to see some decent desktops.

OS/2 had an excellent desktop back in '92.

frankly, windows 3.1 with HP extension (the one with virtual desktops, I don't remember the name) was very near of today apps. jdd -- http://www.dodin.net http://dodin.org/mediawiki/index.php/GPS_Lowrance_GO --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

On Sat, 2006-11-11 at 22:14 +0100, jdd wrote:

James Knott a écrit :

...

Stevens wrote:

...

Now, after around 30 years of personal computing I am finally starting to see some decent desktops.

OS/2 had an excellent desktop back in '92.

frankly, windows 3.1 with HP extension (the one with virtual desktops, I don't remember the name) was very near of today apps.

That sounds fun. I wonder if it would work under FreeDOS? Might be nice of them to donate it to the GEM project. -- ___ _ _ _ ____ _ _ _ | | | | [__ | | | |___ |_|_| ___] | \/ --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

I remember now the name. It was "dashboard". It has a very nice virtual desktop manager (exactly like the one Kde uses today) and made windows 3.1 better than windows 95 that lacks this very usefull thing... as do XP today

Well the Windows-NVIDIA driver provides virtual desktops. It's still missing a nice desktop switcher applet though and sometimes doesn't work quite right. You notice that it's a feature which has been built on top of Windows whereas the virtual desktops of Linux/UNIX are a core part of the X Window System. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

Bernhard Walle a écrit :

* Sven Jacobs [2006-11-15 15:25]:

...

...

I remember now the name. It was "dashboard". It has a very nice virtual desktop manager (exactly like the one Kde uses today) and made windows 3.1 better than windows 95 that lacks this very usefull thing... as do XP today Well the Windows-NVIDIA driver provides virtual desktops.

there are lots of third place desktops, but none I know as good as Kde one :-) (I use 8 desktops :-) the point is that this was possible with hardware we got ten years ago, when Linux was not even a dream, and win never implemented it. I often ask myself why Win is a so badly build OS, with all the money and programmers BG got :-( may be it's a luck for us, this gives us room :-) jdd -- http://www.dodin.net http://dodin.org/mediawiki/index.php/GPS_Lowrance_GO -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

On 2006/11/11 15:56 (GMT-0500) James Knott apparently typed:

Stevens wrote:

...

Now, after around 30 years of personal computing I am finally starting to see some decent desktops.

OS/2 had an excellent desktop back in '92.

Still has, though with a different name for anyone who wishes to buy it today: http://www.ecomstation.com/ Check the headers of this message. -- "Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven." Matthew 5:12 NIV Team OS/2 ** Reg. Linux User #211409 Felix Miata *** http://mrmazda.no-ip.com/ --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

Patrick Shanahan wrote:

* James Knott [11-11-06 16:01]:

...

OS/2 had an excellent desktop back in '92.

Should be the dominant contender for the desktop, except for IBM's bungling attempts at sales :^( ...

Plus extortion and other dirty tricks from MS. The MS trial transcripts reveal much about that. --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 The Friday 2006-11-10 at 13:09 -0500, Ed McCanless wrote:

...

You know, older programmers could have a joke like real programming was done with physical switches; there were old computers you actually had to load the initial boot program into memory, programming word by word flipping switches. Or so I have been told. Cute :-)

I remember the switches from high school, but I was not allowed to join the computer class because my history grades were not high enough. (History?)

Lucky you! I don't think any of my teachers new what a computer or a program was. I had a Texas Instruments Programmable Calculator TI-58C, with a wonderfull 500 program steps memory (shared with storage memory space, so you never really had that many steps), so I knew what a program was. But I couldn't show off, because none of my friends understood what I talked about so excitedly! - -- Cheers, Carlos E. R. -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.2 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Made with pgp4pine 1.76 iD8DBQFFVNAgtTMYHG2NR9URAtKQAJ9y+oSfzam/eQ8LpOZTCspdROVpGACgktJm k6ZXYDt0kA6WtrqX8Ddb7Qo= =pxUW -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 The Friday 2006-11-10 at 16:42 -0500, Patrick Shanahan wrote:

:^) my 'computer/calculator' was three pieces of bamboo with a plastic slideing window, and NO memory.....

A sliding rule calculator! I have two or three of them around, from my father. But they were made from ivory, not bamboo. Are you meaning something else? - -- Cheers, Carlos E. R. -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.2 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Made with pgp4pine 1.76 iD8DBQFFVQIBtTMYHG2NR9URAhtBAJ9gdhghiRuZhCaZ9WXQX7XWdueqZgCfWj8Z hLhOjJeyd7qzb+X/43yG2ws= =/6Uu -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

On Fri, 2006-11-10 at 22:44 -0500, Patrick Shanahan wrote:

* Carlos E. R. [11-10-06 18:59]:

...

A sliding rule calculator! I have two or three of them around, from my father. But they were made from ivory, not bamboo. Are you meaning something else?

You had the higher priced version. I had what I could afford :^). Heck, I still heavily use a couple of K&E Log Log Duplex Decitrig rules, but I retired my Bruning machine, and haven't used the old printer in ages...a Lecroy Lettering Set. -- Tom in NM SuSE 9.3/Evolution 6:58am up 8 days 6:33, 2 users, load average: 5.37, 5.11, 5.03 ====

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-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 The Saturday 2006-11-11 at 13:06 -0500, Ed McCanless wrote:

I still have my Dad's old rule, made of bamboo with an ivory veneer. I believe they came in three qualities back then, all bamboo, ivory veneer (as the one I have), and all ivory. The slides are celluloid, and have to be protected from sunlight.

I have no idea about that. I have three or four, all inherited from an uncle and from my father, all used professionally. I think they are made from ivory, but I can't certify it and I'm not disassembling them to know! My times at school were of paper and the beginning of calculators, which were very expensive back then in Spain. Four rules and bigger than a cigarette package, with some kind of fluorescent display. No, no linux on them, I'm afraid - just to stay on topic briefly ;-) - -- Cheers, Carlos E. R. -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.2 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Made with pgp4pine 1.76 iD8DBQFFVmKotTMYHG2NR9URAoLQAJ4o/CzaxntDw9T0aQNLu0Y5KApjRgCfXlUO awH+TkTcl0NN7EYCJFJsEdQ= =SyIE -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

* Doug McGarrett [11-11-06 19:27]: ...

I guess, as the fomenter of this thread--which has gotten even further OT than I ever thought--I could contribute this: I have a Lafayette Radio Log-Log-Decitrig rule, model F341, made in Japan, in perfect condition, which I used to use in the 1960's and early 70's, until calculators became available. I think it is made of bamboo, but it has a very nice plastic scale on both sides and the slide. I admit that I never understood all the possibilities of this fine instrument. It works as well today as it did when it was made. I don't!

I still have a book I obtained in school about two years after my first log-stick, 1957 publish date: The Chemical Rubber Publishing Company, Cleveland, OH. 2310 Superior Avenue, N. E. , Cleveland Ohio C.R.C. - Standard Mathematical Tables formerly Mathematical Tables from Handbook of Chemistry and Pysics Editor in Chief: Charles D. Hodgman, M.S. Professor Emeritus, Case Institute of Technology First CopyRight 1931 Price on the cover page, Three Dollars in United States, Three Dollars and Fifty Cents outside United Sttes. The book does not contain a Library of Congress number, and is still in it's original age-yellowed plastic protective cover. I was a junior in High School. -- Patrick Shanahan Registered Linux User #207535 http://wahoo.no-ip.org @ http://counter.li.org HOG # US1244711 Photo Album: http://wahoo.no-ip.org/gallery2 --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

Carl William Spitzer IV wrote:

A teacher of mine used a blank slide rule, he was PHI Beta Kappa.

A blank slide rule? Doesn't that make it hard to read? ;-) --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

On Sunday 12 November 2006 14:33, Patrick Shanahan wrote:

* James Knott [11-12-06 07:58]: ...

...

A blank slide rule? Doesn't that make it hard to read? ;-)

Not if you don't know what you are doing.

It's not hard to read if you don't know what you're doing? Actually, I can believe that --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

Carlos E. R. wrote:

But I remember buying the old pcmagazine and typing rows of hexadecimal as "data" lines for a basic program that would then create a tiny .com program like "ted.com".

Back in highschool we had a 16bit minicomputer with a grand 32K of core-memory. Boot-strapping it meant entering instructions directly on to the databus using 16 toggle-switches on the frontpanel. Now that's real programming :-) /Per Jessen, Zürich -- http://www.spamchek.com/ - managed email security. Starting at SFr5/month/user. --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

Russbucket wrote:

Now your talking about the days when programmers were programmers. I remember some of my first systems which were PDP5, 7 or 8's (8 bit systems) with 16K core and 256K head per track disk. we controller complet chemical plants, steel mills and electric plants.

PDP-8's were 12 bit. --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

Darryl Gregorash wrote:

On 09/11/06 06:59, Carlos E. R. wrote:

...

The Thursday 2006-11-09 at 06:55 -0500, James Knott wrote:

...

Try to buy anyone's Pascal. It appears to be a dead language these days.

Not quite.

There is a gnu version of pascal, and there is also "Free Pascal" ( http://www.freepascal.org/). Then, there is also Lazarus (http://www.lazarus.freepascal.org/), that emulates Delphi.

When I code something, I do it in Pascal.

I thought real programmers write code at the command line: in DOStalk, copy con filename.exe

No, real programmers write directly to punch cards, using only their pen knife. ;-)

At 09:46 PM 11/9/2006 -0500, Ken Jennings wrote:

Content-Disposition: inline

On Thursday 09 November 2006 21:25, James Knott wrote:

...

Darryl Gregorash wrote:

...

On 09/11/06 06:59, Carlos E. R. wrote:

...

The Thursday 2006-11-09 at 06:55 -0500, James Knott wrote:

...

Try to buy anyone's Pascal. It appears to be a dead language these days.

There is a gnu version of pascal, and there is also "Free Pascal" ( http://www.freepascal.org/). Then, there is also Lazarus (http://www.lazarus.freepascal.org/), that emulates Delphi.

When I code something, I do it in Pascal.

I thought real programmers write code at the command line: in DOStalk, copy con filename.exe

No, real programmers write directly to punch cards, using only their pen knife. ;-)

No, no, no. Real programmers use a bent paper clip to punch holes in paper tape. But they only do that when they're too lazy to flip the switches by hand on their Altairs.

I love it! You guys should go on the Letterman show, or something. But I must tell you that I kept a 4" diameter roll of paper tape, punched on a model 35, for over 30 years, in my desk, thinking it might come in handy someday. Of course, it never did, and when I retired, I threw it out. OTOH, I once went to a seminar where switch programming was demonstrated. When computing was a baby, you really could do it yourself. I bet most of the pioneers once had a Commodore. Altho the richer ones probably had a Radio Shack. Remember them? The company I worked for then had a bunch of secretaries typing in manuals on TRS-80's. (I think that was the number.) I guess that was even before CPM, altho not by an awful lot. --doug

Could we please take this totally off topic thread to private email please. -- Until later, Geoffrey Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety. - Benjamin Franklin --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

* James Knott [11-10-06 13:22]:

Also, CP/M was around before the Trash-80. ;-)

Does a VIC-20 count?? -- Patrick Shanahan Registered Linux User #207535 http://wahoo.no-ip.org @ http://counter.li.org HOG # US1244711 Photo Album: http://wahoo.no-ip.org/gallery2 --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

At 03:42 PM 11/10/2006 -0500, Patrick Shanahan wrote:

Content-Disposition: inline

* James Knott [11-10-06 13:22]:

...

Also, CP/M was around before the Trash-80. ;-)

Does a VIC-20 count?? -- Patrick Shanahan Registered Linux User #207535 /snip/

I bought my son a VIC-20 when he was just a little kid. He's 36, now, and he says he hates computers. I don't know if this is related or not. --doug --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

On Sat, 2006-11-11 at 17:43 -0500, James Knott wrote:

Patrick Shanahan wrote:

...

* James Knott [11-10-06 13:22]:

...

Also, CP/M was around before the Trash-80. ;-)

Does a VIC-20 count??

I modified a couple of those, to increase memory from 5K to 8K (yes, that's right, 8 kilobytes!)

My Old TRS80-4P had a wopping 64k and no harddrive. It could be made 128k and a hugh external drive could be bought for about $500 but this was about 1984. -- ___ _ _ _ ____ _ _ _ | | | | [__ | | | |___ |_|_| ___] | \/ --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 The Saturday 2006-11-11 at 20:05 -0800, Robert Smits wrote:

...

Does a VIC-20 count??

Only to the extent that when I brought one back from Oregon to Canada, where they weren't available at the time, I had it bungied to the back of my motorcycle. When the customs agent asked what it was, I told him a computer, he said sure, and waved me through.

ROTFL! X'-) - -- Cheers, Carlos E. R. -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.2 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Made with pgp4pine 1.76 iD8DBQFFVxNFtTMYHG2NR9URAlqPAKCMn73y97RI1euRkQ3Z6M8elkBLwACcCU9B gPphym2yDy9YDLXGhJafaz4= =sIge -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

On Thu, 2006-11-09 at 22:19 -0500, Doug McGarrett wrote:

...

I love it! You guys should go on the Letterman show, or something. But I must tell you that I kept a 4" diameter roll of paper tape, punched on a model 35, for over 30 years, in my desk, thinking it might come in handy someday. Of course, it never did, and when I retired, I threw it out. OTOH, I once went to a seminar where switch programming was demonstrated. When computing was a baby, you really could do it yourself. I bet most of the pioneers once had a Commodore. Altho the richer ones probably had a Radio Shack. Remember them? The company I worked for then had a bunch of secretaries typing in manuals on TRS-80's. (I think that was the number.) I guess that was even before CPM, altho not by an awful lot.

I owned a TRS80-4P up until I could afford to buy my first 486. I did word processing on it. We still had Windows 3.1.1 and I think it was DOS 6.0 on that DX2-66 with 4 meg. I think its guts are in a box here some place. -- ___ _ _ _ ____ _ _ _ | | | | [__ | | | |___ |_|_| ___] | \/ --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 The Friday 2006-11-10 at 22:38 -0500, Ed McCanless wrote:

Does everyone interested in computing save this kind of stuff? I'm criticized for it all the time. I kept a TRS80, a TI99, and three 286's laying around until I had to move, and was forced to reduce the load.

I do... I have my Amstrad PC 512 in working order ;-) - -- Cheers, Carlos E. R. -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.2 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Made with pgp4pine 1.76 iD8DBQFFVbaytTMYHG2NR9URAjXQAJ9xlllCChYNcwPxW5nPy++PWdwtkgCeNW0i 1q8xVLDJe16h4xmEfIptGfM= =ybJR -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 The Saturday 2006-11-11 at 11:26 -0500, Ed McCanless wrote:

On Saturday 11 November 2006 06:40, Carlos E. R. wrote:

...

I do... I have my Amstrad PC 512 in working order ;-)

Now that's one I'm not familiar with. And, it's good to see that I got thru with the new address.

They were quite popular here in Spain. British made, and frowned upon by experts because the PSU was inside the monitor, had no fan, and the video was on board, so some upgrades were very dificult. But it sported a fast 8086, true 16 bits bus, running at 8 Mhz. Mine had two disketes and 512 KB, CGA mono graphics. Later I added a 32MB HD on card, plus a termally regulated fan I designed myself. - -- Cheers, Carlos E. R. -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.2 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Made with pgp4pine 1.76 iD8DBQFFVmSmtTMYHG2NR9URAhQaAJ0V8Bpn4iJBQikcbYj9D3KaEXHHHgCfaQhx 19pUvPaedYcstbzXAVha3LQ= =FcgU -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 The Saturday 2006-11-11 at 19:36 -0800, Kai Ponte wrote:

...

Mine had two disketes and 512 KB, CGA mono graphics. Later I added a 32MB HD on card, plus a termally regulated fan I designed myself.

Buddy of mine in Stuttgart, Germany had one. Brilliant computer for the time, especially compared to my poky Apple IIe.

Of course what really blew me away was his later Amiga 500, on which I did stuff that I couldn't ever imagine doing in Windows for several years.

Yes... but they were more expensive, and they convinced me at college to buy a PC for "compatibility". Every one was using them and I could "share" programs for free ;-) It was a deciding factor. I needed a computer because with only three hours per week at the university only Vax I'd never learned a thing, so using one compatible with my fellow students was a necessity.

But, now we all have AMD/Intel systems and run X on top of a truly brilliant kernel. :)

Right. - -- Cheers, Carlos E. R. -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.2 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Made with pgp4pine 1.76 iD8DBQFFVwvwtTMYHG2NR9URAomIAJ45xwCEnuLqdnKSH5Zsl5m3dv3o0ACfeCDr q2gNLC4i4xihXi5FPVOedSI= =cAfy -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

Ed McCanless wrote:

On Friday 10 November 2006 22:09, Carl William Spitzer IV wrote: <cut>

...

I owned a TRS80-4P up until I could afford to buy my first 486. I did word processing on it. We still had Windows 3.1.1 and I think it was DOS 6.0 on that DX2-66 with 4 meg. I think its guts are in a box here some place.

Does everyone interested in computing save this kind of stuff? I'm criticized for it all the time. I kept a TRS80, a TI99, and three 286's laying around until I had to move, and was forced to reduce the load.

I kept my IMSAI 8080 for years after I got an XT clone and then 386, but eventually sold it for a low price. However, I still have *EVERY* issue of Byte Magazine, on the shelf here. --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

Ken Jennings wrote:

... But they only do that when they're too lazy to flip the switches by hand on their Altairs.

Hey, I did that! Well the bootloader, at least -- on Digital PDP-8, PDP-11, HP 2100, hp21mx, General Automation SPC-16, ... And probably others I can't remember offhand. And the bootloader loaded the absolute binary assembly language program from the paper tape. Until later, when NASA went deluxe and bought the 14" 5MB hard drives. Then I had much longer bootloaders to key in. -- John Perry Embedded Electronics (757)813-6109 j.e.perry@cox.net

James Knott wrote:

John E. Perry wrote:

...

Ken Jennings wrote:

...

... But they only do that when they're too lazy to flip the switches by hand on their Altairs.

Hey, I did that! Well the bootloader, at least -- on Digital PDP-8, PDP-11, HP 2100, hp21mx, General Automation SPC-16, ...

And probably others I can't remember offhand. And the bootloader loaded the absolute binary assembly language program from the paper tape.

Until later, when NASA went deluxe and bought the 14" 5MB hard drives. Then I had much longer bootloaders to key in.

Ah yes, the PDP-8 RIM loader. Brings back (core) memories. ;-)

Incidentally, I still have a core memory plane (4 Kbits IIRC) from a Collins 8500B.

I still have maintain a SEL 32/55 running RTM with 8 8kb core memory modules in it. I turn it off when not needed which is most of the time) but when I turn it back on it starts running right where it left off with out even having to reboot from the 40 MB removable CDC connected to it. Its initial bootstrap is from cards. That card reader still works too. Mark Mark --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

Carl William Spitzer IV wrote:

On Fri, 2006-11-10 at 06:55 -0500, James Knott wrote:

...

Ah yes, the PDP-8 RIM loader. Brings back (core) memories. ;-)

Incidentally, I still have a core memory plane (4 Kbits IIRC) from a Collins 8500B.

The Smithsonian Museum is searching for really old ware to use to translate old media to more modern forms. Perhaps its time to donate.

Seems they have a lot of punch paper tape, 8" floppies and some reel to reel tape but need drives. So if your an antique collector you might be of help.

Unfortunately, I don't have any of the above. I gave away my Model 35 Teletype several years ago. However, I do have a Morse telegraph sounder here. --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

At 06:55 AM 11/9/2006 -0500, James Knott wrote:

Doug McGarrett wrote:

...

Oh, yeah? Try and buy a copy of Turbo Pascal, or Eureka. Whatever they might be doing now is no help to me.

James Knott wrote:

Try to buy anyone's Pascal. It appears to be a dead language these days.

Check out "Pascal compiler" in Google. It's not quite gone. I found Pascal to be a very logical and useful language. One of the most helpful ideas was the "case" statement. You could do in a few lines what it took as many as several pages of BASIC. I guess something similar exists in C, but I always got the idea that C was too convoluted, compared to Pascal. (Pascal is the only language I actually took a college course in, about the time that CPM was becoming popular, and affordable, altho if I had been a bit younger, I would surely have been exposed to Fortran and punched cards.) While I was actively doing engineering, I saw a lot of programmers writing C and C++ to control microprocessors, but I don't remember anyone ever writing a C program to actually solve a set of equations and provide answers in plain numerical output, as BASIC and Pascal did. Well, I take that back--I suppose that the modern spreadsheets are written in a C dialect. I think Eureka was written in Pascal, but I'm not sure. Eureka was a Borland product that solved equations, but it was _really_ a GIGO routine. It would provide some kind of answer, no matter what garbage you fed it. It really taught you to be careful! But unlike spreadsheets, it understood x, y, z, etc. instead of +b13. I suppose Mathcad is still around, but it had the world's worst editor, and I never got used to it. (By the time I could get anything useful entered, I could have solved by hand!) --doug

On Wed, 2006-11-08 at 23:30 -0500, JJ Gitties wrote:

But it's not gonna happen. 10.1 is probably going to be my last SUSE distro. I am going Ubuntu or Fedora. I would ever go with Red Hat at this point. They seem the lesser of evils.

Forget Dead Rat try CentOS. I know someone who will be helping me try it on a test box a friend gave me an old HP Kayak server, thing is heavy weighs close to 25 pounds about as much as my cat Brian. -- ___ _ _ _ ____ _ _ _ | | | | [__ | | | |___ |_|_| ___] | \/ --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

* Darryl Gregorash [11-09-06 19:50]:

(Going completely off-topic... hmm, now I wonder just why Novell is in the library of my spell-checker, but SuSE is not, yet this is the version of SeaMonkey that is on SuSE's ftp site.. and now that I wonder about this, I am also led to wonder why the dictionary for SeaMonkey does not contain SeaMonkey, and why does any computer spell checker not contain ftp in its dictionary?)

SuSE would be wrong, anyway. It's SUSE, and that's official. -- Patrick Shanahan Registered Linux User #207535 http://wahoo.no-ip.org @ http://counter.li.org HOG # US1244711 Photo Album: http://wahoo.no-ip.org/gallery2

* Carlos E. R. [11-09-06 20:46]:

My dictionary contains SuSE :-P

And _you_ know that it incorrect :^) -- Patrick Shanahan Registered Linux User #207535 http://wahoo.no-ip.org @ http://counter.li.org HOG # US1244711 Photo Album: http://wahoo.no-ip.org/gallery2

On Saturday 11 November 2006 13:29, Ed McCanless wrote:

On Thursday 09 November 2006 20:46, Carlos E. R. wrote:

...

My dictionary contains SuSE :-P

-- Cheers, Carlos E. R.

This is the way I've been writing it since someone corrected me back in August.

Wellllll.....have you tried running SUSEconfig, or Suseconfig, or suseconfig ??????? Must still be SuSE at heart! Bob S. --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

* John Andersen [11-09-06 22:03]:

Lots of people think it stopped being SuSE when it became SUSE.

If you are shooting at Novell here, iirc, the change from SuSE to SUSE came before Novell purchased SUSE. -- Patrick Shanahan Registered Linux User #207535 http://wahoo.no-ip.org @ http://counter.li.org HOG # US1244711 Photo Album: http://wahoo.no-ip.org/gallery2 --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org