[NTLK] Fact Check

[Ryan Vetter]

I think this thread is officially blown.

I am going to stick with what I input before about the Newton Messaging Card.  If anyone has any last input, speak now or forever hold your peace.

All the best.


----- Original Message ----
From: Matt Howe <matthowe at comcast.net>
To: newtontalk at newtontalk.net
Sent: Mon, January 25, 2010 2:01:51 PM
Subject: Re: [NTLK] Fact Check

My first computer was also a ZX81, actually a Timex Sinclair, the US version
but otherwise the same. My second computer was an Atari 600XL 32kb of
memory, booted from ram and saved to cassette. Eventually I added a ram pack
to move up to 64kb and you don't want to know what I paid for that first
5.25 floppy drive. But if you want to feel old Frank, here is a bit of my
history, my only class in programming (the rest is self taught) was in
Fortran input was punch cards and output was green bar paper. From reading
of punch cards till you got the print out back was one hour. I'll keep my XP
box thank you, at least till I can upgrade to Windows 7.

Matt (Ducky) Howe
Owner of a MP2000U and an Emate
SantaMatt at Gmail.com (Nokia N770)
matthowe at comcast.net (Desktop)
http://home.comcast.net/~mhowe41/
http://SantaMatt.blogspot.com

Frank Gruendel wrote:
<snip>
> (my first modem was a 1200bd modem built into my 80x24 column "CGA"
laptop--a
> Tandy, with a 10 meg hard drive)

Hey, MY second computer did not even HAVE a hard drive. It was a 2MHz Z80
computer with a whoopin'
64 kiloByte of RAM. Assembled in my parent's cellar with an 8 bucks
soldering iron using (wherever
possible) parts from old TV sets. Eight RAM chips cost me about USD 200.00.
This beauty booted its
CP/M operating system (pip lst:=, anybody?) from its eight inch floppy disk
in less than a minute.
It took about 90 seconds from switching it on to beginning work with Turbo
Pascal. Or playing
Ladder. Of course, after my tinkering with the mainboard a bit to increase
the clock frequency to an
amazing 4MHz, things became much faster.

Today, my PC at work is a 4GHz (that's 2048 times the speed of my second
computer) dual core CPU
laptop with 4GB RAM (that's 65536 times the memory of my second computer)
running Windows XP. When I
switch it on in the morning, booting XP requires more than twice the time it
took  my second
computer to boot CP/M. And that's only the beginning. After that it's the
turn of what our cherished
IT fellows consider necessary WHENEVER a computer is booted. It takes almost
5 minutes before this
computer's sluggishness disappears and any real work can begin.

I guess these days my old computer's whole RAM wouldn't be enough to even
load the keyboard
driver...

And all my younger colleagues consider this completely normal.

Boy, must I be old...

Frank

PS Did I mention that my very first computer, a ZX81, booted its OS from ROM
in a couple of seconds?

-- Newton software and hardware at http://www.pda-soft.de
<snip>


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