OT: Trip down GUI memory lane

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Milo

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Just thought some of you younger guys would like to see what some of us (not so) old and older timers used to have for Graphical User Interfaces.

Check this out.

I got into computers back in the mid-80s with Texas Instruments gaming machines and became fixated on them in the Air Firce when we recieved our first 8086's. I was a Commodore 64 owner until I bought my first PC (an Amstrad) that came with GEOS. I also played with GEOS on the C64.

I remember the text based UIs (would that be a TUI?) very well.

Ahh the memories.
 
Did you old timers ever have a Oddysey (Brown Box) game system? It was all circuitry, a whopping zero bits of power.
 
GUI? GUI? We don't need no stinkin GUI!.... heck I started in computers back in 1972 on an old(THEN!) IBM 026/029 Keypunch machine........ I can still remember standing in line at UKY waiting to load my card punched program into a IBM mainframe..... and I saw several people DROP their programs ......talk about hary cary......

there was no fancy GUI.., there wasn't even a PC or APPLE YET!!!!!! it was all text/character based dumb terminals.......

ahhhh the Good old days of BIG BLUE IBM BIG IRON.......
 
GUI? What's that?

How many of you are old enough to remember this:



A bear stands in your way.

>"Push bear"

Nothing happens.

>"Kill bear"

Nothing happens.

>"Move bear"

Nothing happens.

>"Hit bear"

Nothing happens.

....a donut for anyone who remembers how to eventually get rid of that bear.:D
 
I remember playing Zork.

Move west
You see a door
Open door
Door is lock
Move East
.....

Or something like that..... I hated that game. I was much happier playing Bard's Tale on my Amstrad in beautiful four color CGA.
 
Originally posted by shockwaveriderz
GUI? GUI? We don't need no stinkin GUI!.... heck I started in computers back in 1972 on an old(THEN!) IBM 026/029 Keypunch machine........ I can still remember standing in line at UKY waiting to load my card punched program into a IBM mainframe..... and I saw several people DROP their programs ......talk about hary cary......

there was no fancy GUI.., there wasn't even a PC or APPLE YET!!!!!! it was all text/character based dumb terminals.......

ahhhh the Good old days of BIG BLUE IBM BIG IRON.......

Yowzers, the thought of keypunch machines, lines, and picking up the results of batch runs in the middle of the night sends shivers down my spine! In my first computer class we had one 'on-line' assignment and the rest were all batch. The on-line assignment wasn't that snazzy either with command line input an connection which involved stuffing the telephone handset into the 'modem'.
 
Originally posted by Milo
I remember playing Zork.

Move west
You see a door
Open door
Door is lock
Move East
.....

Or something like that..... I hated that game. I was much happier playing Bard's Tale on my Amstrad in beautiful four color CGA.

1983: I'm watching a friend play a Zork-like text adventure game. He comes across a bucket, and can't figure out what to do with it. He tries to pick it up, turn it over, walk around it, all to no avail.

I suggest, "kick it."

He types in "kick bucket"

The program replies: "You are dead."

:D
 
Kabul Spy

and...

Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxie (or was it Universe?)

and...

many late nights playing U4 on the C64 swaping disks....
the graphics pall by todays' standards but the music was great!
 
Yup it was The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy :)
 
LOL... My dad told me about Hitchhickers guide to teh galaxy one time.... The meaning of life is..... "6".:rolleyes: Or something like that...




Thats a good one... well, I guess he kicked the bucket!:kill: I was laughing so hard my mom wanted to know whats so funny:eek: . LOL... Why do you think it did that? was it supposed to do taht if you kicked it, or what?:confused:
 
Like shockie B, I too started on computers back in the early 70s. At about the same time, some of my more anxious (stupid?) compadres were getting married. One of our favorite tricks was to get ahold of their car, and we would then spend a fair amount of time with a funnel and a bucket full of the teeny tiny little hole punches from the IBM card punch machines, and we would carefully pour those hole punches down into all of the heater/air conditioning vents. We would sometimes spend as much as an hour doing this, taking incredible care not to let a single card punch be left in sight.

It never failed: the couple is making their run from the reception hall to their car, to make their getaway. They jump in the car, fire the car up, and take off down the street. Suddenly, it appears that there is a snow storm inside the car, and brakes are locked up. They bail out of the car, trying in vain to escape the clouds of card punches.

Oh, them were the days !!!!
 
My dad says it was 6.... Go figure. Ill ask him again. :rolleyes:

do you still have your copy? if you do, check....:D ;) :p
 
My parents wouldn't get me the Atari 2600, since it was games only (darn them!) but instead got the Atari 400, which was a membrane keyboard interface with a cartridge slot. Learned basic on that thing, then graduated to C-64's and 8086's. Did some work with mag cards and punch cards for one of my early comp sci classes, to learn the "legacy systems" that were still in use in many computing environments.

The first "pc" I had was a compaq clone "transportable," which meant that the screen was mounted on the front of the CPU box, the keyboard snapped to the front of it, and it had a suitcase-style handle on the back to lug the total 40 pound system around. I've still got 2 of those in my garage!

Ahh, the good ol' days...

WW
 
GUI...


...HA!

I also come from the early 70's timeframe. Heck, my first "keyboard" (we didn't call them that because back then the "keyboard" was *attached* to the output device, **never** separate (what a concept). They were "terminals", either hardcopy or softcopy.

My hardcopy terminal (LA-36 from Digital Equipment) had a paper tape punch (who knows what "chafe" is??? :D )

My first soft copy terminal was the VT 50 (Video Terminal) and it was COLOR too!! Yep, mine was green. You could also choose amber or white. I much prefered the color tubes... LOL

12 lines per screen, incredible. The VT-52 with 24 lines per screen was a real kicker!

It wasn't until the VT-100 that the keyboard became separate. And at only 3" thick, it was an incredible engineering marvel!

"You are in a maze of twisting little passages, all alike..."

jim
 
42 was the ultimate answer. If memory serves, the earth was created to find the ultimate question. It's been a few years...

WW
 
It is 42 - it's practically a cliche by now, as is carrying a towel and preparing for hyperspace by consuming salted peanuts and a few pints of ale.

BTW, they're casting for the movie version of HHGTTG, now. A shame, really - I will have to "unburn" the original BBC miniseries cast from my mind.
 
I seem to sorta remember building a UNIVAC for my science teacher about 1963.

I'm not sure...I lost a lot of brain cells in the 60's.

sandman
 
Ah yes 42 is the ultimate answer to the ultimate question. Now for the bonus questions:

(1) What pan-dimentional beings created deep think to come up with the answer? [5 points]

(2) What is the question? [15 points]

(3) What was the built by the answer to #1 to figure out waht the question was? [15 points]

(4) What essential part of Zaphod Beeblebrox's attire would you recommend to have for a L3 certification? [30 points]

Class dismissed

Oh, back on topic, top this....

I still have a functional 300 baud acoustic coupler and a 75 Teletype serial printer. :D
 
4.) Peril Sensitive Sunglasses?

3.) Earth

2.) Life the universe and everything

1.) mice



long shots all.... been a while since I read the "trilogy"
 
Originally posted by Hospital_Rocket
Ah yes 42 is the ultimate answer to the ultimate question. Now for the bonus questions:

(1) What pan-dimentional beings created deep think to come up with the answer? [5 points]

(2) What is the question? [15 points]

(3) What was the built by the answer to #1 to figure out waht the question was? [15 points]

(4) What essential part of Zaphod Beeblebrox's attire would you recommend to have for a L3 certification? [30 points]


1) Mice
2) What is 6 x 7?
3) The earth
4) any help, guys?

WW
 
His parachute, Im guessing.....:D assuming he has one... :rolleyes:

My dad says that they made a machine, and generations and generations of beings/people/mice/whatever (I really have no clue) tended the macine as it searched for the ultimate meaning of life.... According to my dad, it finnaly just said "6". Your accounts seem different, however....:rolleyes: :kill: You guys all seem to agree on 42, so I guess ill go with that....:rolleyes:
 
Originally posted by shockwaveriderz
GUI? GUI? We don't need no stinkin GUI!.... heck I started in computers back in 1972 on an old(THEN!) IBM 026/029 Keypunch machine........ I can still remember standing in line at UKY waiting to load my card punched program into a IBM mainframe..... and I saw several people DROP their programs ......talk about hary cary......

there was no fancy GUI.., there wasn't even a PC or APPLE YET!!!!!! it was all text/character based dumb terminals.......

ahhhh the Good old days of BIG BLUE IBM BIG IRON.......

My first IT job was as a 2nd shift computer operator. I remember setting up jumper boards to duplicate cards. I started during my junior year. We had a Honeywell 'Level 6'. It was such a step up-- they bragged about getting rid of their Burroughs with the 'overnight compiler'(!)

I remember walking across campus on a windy day and seeing a guy lose his homework (an extended armload of punchcards) to a stiff breeze!
 
And we have a winner!


How could you do an L3 without peril sensitive sunglasses that turn opaque at any sign of danger?

Stewart, please accept this bonus of twice the money RF sent you last year....

Now, how many of you remember vacuum tubes?
 
First ypu need to build a time machine...

Then you need a MS-DOS OS. You might get by on a Windows machine, howeve WIN31 had not been written when the original ZORK came out. Keep in mind there are no moving pictures. You actually have to use your imagination.
 
Soooo...


I cant get it.darn. I've heard of a zork these days, but it has graphics. Any old games up for download?
 
Originally posted by Hospital_Rocket
How could you do an L3 without peril sensitive sunglasses that turn opaque at any sign of danger?

I'd forgotten about the sunglasses, although I do remember that they operate on the same principle as the Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Trell, the galaxy's most fearsome predator. However, the Bugblatter Beast has an Achilles' Heel: it thinks that, if you can't see it, it can't see you.

So, if the wearer of those sunglasses is confronted by a Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Trell, the glasses turn dark, you can't see it, so it thinks it can't see you, and it leaves you alone.

More generally, the sunglasses protect you from threats, because if you can't see them, they can't hurt you, right??

If you don't have the sunglasses, you can substitute a towel. :)

Oh, and for Neil's benefit: The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy was a series of humorous sci-fi novels (and also a BBC miniseries) written by Douglas Adams (one-time Doctor Who writer) in the late 1970s and early 1980s. I'm not sure if the TV show or the novels came first. The text-based computer game was based on these; I recall many hours spent on that game rather than studying while in college.
 
REMEMBER vacuum tubes? I have a drawer full of them!

Nothing like radios that do double duty as room heaters....
 
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