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picanin

I am sat here uploading stuff to my machine at home. I am currently getting 190K/sec. Who else remembers the days when even 1.5K/sec was an amazingly fast speed - on my USR 14400 which replaced my 2400 it certainly was!
Me.... Blush

Remember the days before internet ? :p
My dad's secretary still uses Wordperfect 5.1.. dos version...... think she's scared of the mouse :wall:

picanin

Quote:Originally posted by Jangar
Me.... Blush

Remember the days before internet ? :p


Indeed........ my good ole 1200baud modem dialling up to the various BBS's around SA. The forerunners to the internet. Downloading an app took forever - and God help if the BBS didnt support Z-Modem - if they were really iffy they would use Kermit or X-modem - then you could be on all night!

Long nights spent chatting on Beltel ended in bills of around R1000 just for the phone calls!

Then the internet came and so too my flashy all singing all dancing 2400 modem. A UNIX shell account with internet Africa gave me acess to more information than I thought possible using Gopher as well as Archie. But all that paled when compared to the newsgroups! USENET was a God! You could get an asnwer to any question using USENET as well as access to all sorts of interesting but often illegal content!

Ahhh the good old days!

picanin

Quote:Originally posted by Strawbs
My dad's secretary still uses Wordperfect 5.1.. dos version...... think she's scared of the mouse :wall:


Actually thats what so many people dont realise. If it works dont change it! WP 5.1 was excellent and would fly on the newer computers!
Quote:Originally posted by picanin
Indeed........ my good ole 1200baud modem dialling up to the various BBS's around SA. The forerunners to the internet. Downloading an app took forever - and God help if the BBS didnt support Z-Modem - if they were really iffy they would use Kermit or X-modem - then you could be on all night!

Long nights spent chatting on Beltel ended in bills of around R1000 just for the phone calls!

Then the internet came and so too my flashy all singing all dancing 2400 modem. A UNIX shell account with internet Africa gave me acess to more information than I thought possible using Gopher as well as Archie. But all that paled when compared to the newsgroups! USENET was a God! You could get an asnwer to any question using USENET as well as access to all sorts of interesting but often illegal content!

Ahhh the good old days!


My first experince with a modem was also with a 1200 baud dial up which we took home when we had to be on standby as it may save us a trip to work if it was something simple we could fix from home. Only problem was that by the time you'd got the history log on the screen you could've been at work already :mad: :haha:

What did amaze me though was that our supplier in Switzerland could log on to our VAXes and diagnose and download patches from there... I mean they were from the other side of the world.... LOL

I then got a 2400 baud modem, paid for by myself and it cost almost as the computer itself, thinking that I could use it for talking faster to the comps at work but alas they still ran at 1200....

By that stage the internet was up and running and the pages were quite 'heavy' and I got really mal when I'd lose the connection and have to dial up and start all over again.... :mad: I can't recall the amount of the phone bills but they were quite hefty, in fact so much so that I'd get up at 3 o'clock in the morning to do my surfing as it was cheaper then...

Hmmm !!! Those were indeed the bad old days... LOL
Quote:Originally posted by picanin
Actually thats what so many people dont realise. If it works dont change it! WP 5.1 was excellent and would fly on the newer computers!


That's what one of my bosses once told me and it is so true...

If you're happy and comfortable with a program then don't change it... Big Grin

I used to use a program called "Easy Extra" which fitted unto a 640 floppy disk and could do almost every thing the heavy "Word Perfect" and "M$Word" could do at that stage... And it was great... Much easier using keyboard short cuts than having to look for the mouse and then pointing and clicking... LOL

It's been a while since I've used the good old DOS based DB3+ and M$Access but I think I'll find my way around DB3+ (and possibly 5+) more easily than M$Access :haha:

picanin

Quote:Originally posted by Jangar

What did amaze me though was that our supplier in Switzerland could log on to our VAXes and diagnose and download patches from there... I mean they were from the other side of the world.... LOL



eeeek! Lets go further back! Back in the late 80's GE came out and upgraded the control systems on the steel mill I worked on. They used to use 300baud modems the size of bricks to log on from home at night to fix any problems we had. Additionally the engineers sat in Salem in the US were able to monitor our rolling progress everyday. That was what got me interested in online comms. I am just so sorry it didnt happen earleir!
Quote:Originally posted by picanin
eeeek! Lets go further back! Back in the late 80's GE came out and upgraded the control systems on the steel mill I worked on. They used to use 300baud modems the size of bricks to log on from home at night to fix any problems we had. Additionally the engineers sat in Salem in the US were able to monitor our rolling progress everyday. That was what got me interested in online comms. I am just so sorry it didnt happen earleir!


Yikes !!! That is too early for me.... LOL

Not sure when or where I got interest in comp. comms... I think it may have been when I as an appy got to spend some time in the "Computer Applications" department who were responsible for all the process computers and the networking of them, as opposed to the "frilly" computers that the accounting and stores, etc were using....

When I qualified they were all under one umbrella, hardware wise, which is where I ended up...We did the data transport and E.D.P. did the software....

Ahhhh !!! The bad old days of RS232 and 455 and trying to integrate it with DEC's standard...

Now I am homesick :bigcry:

picanin

Would one of these make you feel better Jan?

Lets But Jan a Vax For Christmas (el cheapo pressie!)
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