Become a Patron!

Old Pharts Club

f1r3b1rd

f1r3b1rd

https://cookingwithlegs.com/
Staff member
Senior Moderator
VU Donator
Diamond Contributor
VU Challenge Team
Member For 5 Years
VU Patreon
Lady Sarah said:
Never needed WiFi when I was little. There was no such thing as internet. The only video game I had was Pong.
Click to expand...

My pop is a software engineer... member of the first class of computer sci graduates at Tulane. The man has been a programmmer in the oil India since the late 70s. Case in point, we have had a computer in the house since I was 5. I remember the old modems that went through the phone. Albeit, none were available for fun or games. They were for “dads work”. Not that there were anything fun to do on them anyway back in the 70s to early 80s.

Luckily we were all fisherman and what not, so we didn’t have the interest anyway.
 
The Cromwell

The Cromwell

I am a BOT
VU Donator
Diamond Contributor
Member For 4 Years
Most of my working career was in Telecom.
Was working with computers very early and the first modems were hard wired not dialup. 110 baud if I remember correctly.
the first computers I as trained on and worked on had no microprocessors and had magnetic core ram.
Paper tapes and mechanical TTY for input and output.

first hard drive I worked on had a 14 inch platter with a whole Megabyte of storage capacity. Was fantastic.
 
Lady Sarah

Lady Sarah

Diamond Contributor
Member For 5 Years
The Cromwell said:
I walked about 1/8 mile each way to catch the school bus.
And it was only uphill one way... Well actually both ways since there was a dip in the middle :)

bought my first bicycle at about 12 with money I earned putting up hay for a neighbor for $5/day.
Was used.
But was wonderful!
Click to expand...
I was given a 3 speed bike when I started my paper route at the age of 12. The first bike I bought was a Schwinn 12 speed. I have since built better bikes than that was.
 
f1r3b1rd

f1r3b1rd

https://cookingwithlegs.com/
Staff member
Senior Moderator
VU Donator
Diamond Contributor
VU Challenge Team
Member For 5 Years
VU Patreon
The Cromwell said:
Most of my working career was in Telecom.
Was working with computers very early and the first modems were hard wired not dialup. 110 baud if I remember correctly.
the first computers I as trained on and worked on had no microprocessors and had magnetic core ram.
Paper tapes and mechanical TTY for input and output.

first hard drive I worked on had a 14 inch platter with a whole Megabyte of storage capacity. Was fantastic.
Click to expand...
Lmao!! I remember the old backup tapes he came with. The damn things were like giant brief cases almost as big as I was.
I don’t know how much data they stored but I would guess the micro as in my drone stores more.
 
The Cromwell

The Cromwell

I am a BOT
VU Donator
Diamond Contributor
Member For 4 Years
f1r3b1rd said:
Lmao!! I remember the old backup tapes he came with. The damn things were like giant brief cases almost as big as I was.
I don’t know how much data they stored but I would guess the micro as in my drone stores more.
Click to expand...
Hmm 9 track drives I suspect. 1600 bpi maybe?
Used to have to electronically align the heads on such beasts.
Physical alignment first then use a master skew tape and account for differences in the nine heads in the head assembly by electronic means of signal delay adjustment.
 
f1r3b1rd

f1r3b1rd

https://cookingwithlegs.com/
Staff member
Senior Moderator
VU Donator
Diamond Contributor
VU Challenge Team
Member For 5 Years
VU Patreon
The Cromwell said:
Hmm 9 track drives I suspect. 1600 bpi maybe?
Used to have to electronically align the heads on such beasts.
Physical alignment first then use a master skew tape and account for differences in the nine heads in the head assembly by electronic means of signal delay adjustment.
Click to expand...
Sadly I don’t have any clue.
I got my EE, but we never went over that kind of gear. It was all physics and modern tech.
He could have discussed it with me, but I was a Youngjn.

Sounds like a complicated way of sticking a pencil in a tape cassette.
 
choderfett

choderfett

VU Donator
Gold Contributor
Member For 4 Years
nadalama said:
Finished the second season of this the other day. Now I believe the second season was actually better than the first.

Thanks @choderfett

Hey OPs! How's tricks?
Click to expand...


i think13 reason 2nd season was a little more fast paced in a way since there was a lot more going on instead of a singular focus on why she committed suicide..
 
The Cromwell

The Cromwell

I am a BOT
VU Donator
Diamond Contributor
Member For 4 Years
f1r3b1rd said:
Sadly I don’t have any clue.
I got my EE, but we never went over that kind of gear. It was all physics and modern tech.
He could have discussed it with me, but I was a Youngjn.

Sounds like a complicated way of sticking a pencil in a tape cassette.
Click to expand...
Yep had full factory service tech training on the HP tape drives, hard drive and the rack mounted mini computers.
Also component level training on proprietary cpu's made almost entirely out of 7400 series dual input NAND gates.
You learn how a CPU really works because you bit bang yer way thru them. registers, shift registers, etc. Program opcodes were stored in ROM.
Also did machine language level programming on them. Had to write several programs and make them work to pass :)

also trained on mega power systems 52 volt battery strings 20,000 AH. multiple 1,600 amp chargers in parallel. Component level servicing on them as well. I was one of the few that would work on them. Scared the heck out of most. 460 3 phase input with floating ground....
 
The Cromwell

The Cromwell

I am a BOT
VU Donator
Diamond Contributor
Member For 4 Years
Contractor dropped a 36 inch crowbar across the 52V bussbars one day. I was going into the power room to check on their progress when the small window in the door lit up like an arc welder and I was pretty much knocked down and trampled by the stampede to get out of the power room :)
Just vaporized about 10 inches of that crowbar in maybe 1 second. Those chargers hummed bigtime for a second but did not trip out.

One guy got a nasty crater burned in his leg from a blob of molten steel....

Was a bitch to replace that busbar on a hot system....
 
f1r3b1rd

f1r3b1rd

https://cookingwithlegs.com/
Staff member
Senior Moderator
VU Donator
Diamond Contributor
VU Challenge Team
Member For 5 Years
VU Patreon
Omg hahaha!!! I’m sure it wasn’t funny at the time, not with the smell of a freaky clean bowel.
Hahaha

I used to discharge 60k farad caps across my chair during lab classes, just to watch the professor jump.



Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
The Cromwell

The Cromwell

I am a BOT
VU Donator
Diamond Contributor
Member For 4 Years
f1r3b1rd said:
Omg hahaha!!! I’m sure it wasn’t funny at the time, not with the smell of a freaky clean bowel.
Hahaha

I used to discharge 60k farad caps across my chair during lab classes, just to watch the professor jump.



Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Click to expand...
LOL in tech school you learned quickly to not catch something thrown to you.
It was likely a cap charged to a couple hundred volts.
My tech school was around vacuum tubes...
Was just moving into Transistors.

yeah struggled to my feet and asked if they were ok.
About that time the one guy with the burn realized that he was NOT ok and the pain cut in. So I told someone to call an ambulance and went in the power room to see if it was burning or what.

Was not burning but the smoke set of the fire detectors and the fire dept showed up.
Was not enough heat to set off the Halon system.

Byt that time EVERYONE had shown up including the VP of the company. I filled him in and asked him if he had brought doughnuts. He laughed and asked me what we needed to do. I told him order more bussbar and clamps and keep the contractors out.
but that we would have no problem staying online.
Doughnuts and such did show up later :)
 
Last edited:
f1r3b1rd

f1r3b1rd

https://cookingwithlegs.com/
Staff member
Senior Moderator
VU Donator
Diamond Contributor
VU Challenge Team
Member For 5 Years
VU Patreon
The Cromwell said:
LOL in tech school you learned quickly to not catch something thrown to you.
It was likely a cap charged to a couple hundred volts.
My tech school was around vacuum tubes...
Was just moving into Transistors.

yeah struggled to my feet and asked if they were ok.
About that time the one guy with the burn realized that he was NOT ok and the pain cut in. So I told someone to call an ambulance and went in the power room to see if it was burning or what.

Was not burning but the smoke set of the fire detectors and the fire dept showed up.
Was not enough heat to set off the Halon system.
Click to expand...
Lol!! Nothing changes ...
it’s good to be the nerd.
 
The Cromwell

The Cromwell

I am a BOT
VU Donator
Diamond Contributor
Member For 4 Years
f1r3b1rd said:
Lol!! Nothing changes ...
it’s good to be the nerd.
Click to expand...


yep they count on ya when they are at risk of losing all long distance service to about 1/4 of a state.

I ran most of the hangouts off made them go to offices to talk about it.
 
f1r3b1rd

f1r3b1rd

https://cookingwithlegs.com/
Staff member
Senior Moderator
VU Donator
Diamond Contributor
VU Challenge Team
Member For 5 Years
VU Patreon
The Cromwell said:
yep they count on ya when they are at risk of losing all long distance service to about 1/4 of a state.

I ran most of the hangouts off made them go to offices to talk about it.
Click to expand...

Lol! Yeah, the most wanted group after the national guard when a natural disaster happens
 
The Cromwell

The Cromwell

I am a BOT
VU Donator
Diamond Contributor
Member For 4 Years
Never got my degree but had over 6,000 classroom hours of technical training in my career.

About 1/2 of it company sponsored but the rest on my own. Continuing ed classes at the university and such.
Had my FCC licence and was a CET both of which I got on my own.

then about 25 years ago I moved into the software development end of Telecom.
 
f1r3b1rd

f1r3b1rd

https://cookingwithlegs.com/
Staff member
Senior Moderator
VU Donator
Diamond Contributor
VU Challenge Team
Member For 5 Years
VU Patreon
The Cromwell said:
Never got my degree but had over 6,000 classroom hours of technical training in my career.

About 1/2 of it company sponsored but the rest on my own. Continuing ed classes at the university and such.
Had my FCC licence and was a CET both of which I got on my own.

then about 25 years ago I moved into the software development end of Telecom.
Click to expand...
I got mine for fun... until they decide what is going to happen with Healthcare and the SSDI, I have to be careful what monies can be proven that I make.
Can’t help it though, I enjoy the process of learning.
 
The Cromwell

The Cromwell

I am a BOT
VU Donator
Diamond Contributor
Member For 4 Years
f1r3b1rd said:
I got mine for fun... until they decide what is going to happen with Healthcare and the SSDI, I have to be careful what monies can be proven that I make.
Can’t help it though, I enjoy the process of learning.
Click to expand...
Yepo I enjoy learning.
One thing that attracted me to Vaping I suppose.
Did not really want to quit smoking, but wife wanted me to and sneaked and bought me an over priced cigalike kit.
So I decided I would learn about this vaping fad....
Now I have the vape monkey on my back but it is much lighter than the smoke monkey.
 
f1r3b1rd

f1r3b1rd

https://cookingwithlegs.com/
Staff member
Senior Moderator
VU Donator
Diamond Contributor
VU Challenge Team
Member For 5 Years
VU Patreon
Lady Sarah said:
At least we ain't forced to learn Hindi yet.
Click to expand...
I would rather learn Hindi than Chinglish.
Then I could watch, “slumlord millionaire,” again and have it
Make sense.
 
Draconigena

Draconigena

Platinum Contributor
Member For 4 Years
ECF Refugee
I vote that the official language of the USA be declared to be English and the Spanish beer commercials be banned. Then all we have to worry about is trying to understand the supposed English used in New Jersey, Georgia, etc.
 
f1r3b1rd

f1r3b1rd

https://cookingwithlegs.com/
Staff member
Senior Moderator
VU Donator
Diamond Contributor
VU Challenge Team
Member For 5 Years
VU Patreon
Draconigena said:
I vote that the official language of the USA be declared to be English and the Spanish beer commercials be banned. Then all we have to worry about is trying to understand the supposed English used in New Jersey, Georgia, etc.
Click to expand...

I don’t think it matters. Based on conversations with young people, the English language is either dying or evolving. Either way, it’s unintelligible.
 
f1r3b1rd

f1r3b1rd

https://cookingwithlegs.com/
Staff member
Senior Moderator
VU Donator
Diamond Contributor
VU Challenge Team
Member For 5 Years
VU Patreon
That too...


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
Draconigena

Draconigena

Platinum Contributor
Member For 4 Years
ECF Refugee
Hey, old folks, there's a song buzzing through my brain... somewhere from the 1950s... a guy is stuck on the MTA train and can't get off...
very folksy... Charlie? Save Charlie from the MTA? What is it and who sang it?
 
f1r3b1rd

f1r3b1rd

https://cookingwithlegs.com/
Staff member
Senior Moderator
VU Donator
Diamond Contributor
VU Challenge Team
Member For 5 Years
VU Patreon
This?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

VU Sponsors

Top