The good old days

[holo]

I'm only 25, but I feel like and old man when it comes to computers.
I remember fondly the days when a computer would look, and behave, like one. When you didn't have to worry about some dimwit messing your system up - they simply would have to learn all those DOS commands first.
Ah, DOS. Those were the days. You could actually control the computer. I could tweak a mean config.sys. It was just a man, his mad skills, and a command line.
Heck, you didn't even need a monitor. I remember this one time when a friend wanted to copy a game from me. He was discouraged when we found my monitor had died and gone blank. But he needn't fear: I knew where the game was installed, and simply typed the appropriate commands.
Try doing that with a mouse!

 

[Rokedwin]

Thats hardcore man

 

[RabidYeti]

I remember the days when you had to Park your hard drive before you could turn off the computer

Ahhh - those were the days

 

[holo]

Yes, there was a time when you could actually just turn it off, you didn't have to bother with "shutting it down", and if it crashed really hard, you wouldn't have to reach for the power switch on the back of the cabinet.

 

[RabidYeti]

DOS was a bit before my time - but I do remember trying to find the games and such i'd installed on it... Spent ages going through all the directory's

 

[datan]

I'm only 25, but I feel like and old man when it comes to computers.
I remember fondly the days when a computer would look, and behave, like one. When you didn't have to worry about some dimwit messing your system up - they simply would have to learn all those DOS commands first.
Ah, DOS. Those were the days. You could actually control the computer. I could tweak a mean config.sys. It was just a man, his mad skills, and a command line.
Heck, you didn't even need a monitor. I remember this one time when a friend wanted to copy a game from me. He was discouraged when we found my monitor had died and gone blank. But he needn't fear: I knew where the game was installed, and simply typed the appropriate commands.
Try doing that with a mouse!

um...
you can install another operating system I guess.
and boot into cui mode.

 

[doofus125]

hehe, now you are talking, I learned on dos, lol.....I don't remember having to park a hard drive though, I just always turned off the power, lol.......but I could do anything in dos with my eyes closed, I have even had to save and shutdown when monitors went, I still keep trying to use commands that don't work in the newer shell's, lol......but u know what, I wouldn't trade my XP Pro to go back to the stone age, as much as I love DOS, I'm not willing to give up all the new fun stuff, hehe

 

[WeakButHopeful]

How's this for an obscure DOS command?

cd \
dir /a:d /o:-d

I used to use that one friends computers who said strange stuff started happening one day. I usually discovered that their kids had been using their PCs and had installed all kinds of stuff without their knowledge. The command displays only directories in descending date of creation order. Of course, this was before "c:\Program Files" days.

To give you some idea of how many "good old days" I've been through...as a senior in high school (in 1971) I learned Fortran on an IBM 1620 that was about the size of a living room furniture set. Recently I've begun playing with Hercules, which is an IBM mainframe emulator for Windows/Linux. Wow, it even lets you do an IPL (that's reboot for you PC folks).

Take care all.

 

[pinPoint]

i still use dos and will continue to use it for the time being. or terminal on *nix box

 

[PennylessZ28]

I'm only 25, but I feel like and old man when it comes to computers.
I remember fondly the days when a computer would look, and behave, like one. When you didn't have to worry about some dimwit messing your system up - they simply would have to learn all those DOS commands first.
Ah, DOS. Those were the days. You could actually control the computer. I could tweak a mean config.sys. It was just a man, his mad skills, and a command line.
Heck, you didn't even need a monitor. I remember this one time when a friend wanted to copy a game from me. He was discouraged when we found my monitor had died and gone blank. But he needn't fear: I knew where the game was installed, and simply typed the appropriate commands.
Try doing that with a mouse!

Get a linux box you hippie and quite compaling.

Back then it would take you 50 thousand 5 and a quater floppies to fit your mp3 collection on.

You couldn't do **** with a command line either.

Yeah I remeber it back then too. But now I can vector process too.

 

[pgp_protector]

First Computer

Tape Drive (That Was An Upgrade)
No Monitor, Hooked up to a TV
No Floppy Drive
16K (I Beleve) of Memory

but It Did have Graphics You could create an 8X8 Grid of the ASCII Characters, and Repogram what they Characters looked like to draw a 64X64 Resolution Screen


My First Computer


A Commodore V20

 

[Kokopelli]

I can remember when MS-Dos was on a 5.25" floppy and Microprose actually produced good games. I used to setup custom config.sys and autoexec.bat files just to play a stupid game that consisted of 15+ floppies. It was fun while it lasted, but I wouldn't dare trade XP for DOS. I've used RedHat Linux 6 and 9, though I still consider myself a "n00b with it. I could probably take the time to learn it if I ever get the time and $$$ to build another PC. Yeah I could make my current system a duel boot with the lilo on a floppy, but personally I don't want too. I have my system setup the way I like it and I've agitated the wife as it is with the multiple drive partitions (have a 40 and 200 gb drives installed) I have in the system. Last thing I need is to put Linux on there have her head spinning.

 

[ThePhoenix]

Get a linux box you hippie and quite compaling.

Back then it would take you 50 thousand 5 and a quater floppies to fit your mp3 collection on.

You couldn't do **** with a command line either.

Yeah I remeber it back then too. But now I can vector process too.

Are you kidding? Command line is so much better then the **** GUI they include with windows. Gah, it took them so many iterations to add keyboard shortcuts. I might just switch to a dual boot with FreeBSD or Redhat if Corporate edition doesn't work out for me.

 

[PennylessZ28]

Are you kidding? Command line is so much better then the **** GUI they include with windows. Gah, it took them so many iterations to add keyboard shortcuts. I might just switch to a dual boot with FreeBSD or Redhat if Corporate edition doesn't work out for me.

I use a Mac so I know nothing about your windows GUI.

 

[ThePhoenix]

I use a Mac so I know nothing about your windows GUI.

I prefer a computer that performs well in stress tests, doesn't cost a fortune, and lets me fiddle with the parts to make it better when it gets old.

 

[keithylishus]

I'm too young for all of that. My very first computer was when I was like, 5, and was Windows 3.1 with mere KBs of memory. All I did was play little DOS games on it.

Though, in computing class we studied the history of computers, and I remember one day when we went into a room at the back of the Computer Science wing of the school. In the room was loads of old computers. With one of them, you had to physically boot the drive to make it work. Heh. I thought it was funny

 

[PennylessZ28]

I prefer a computer that performs well in stress tests, doesn't cost a fortune, and lets me fiddle with the parts to make it better when it gets old.

Odd, my G5 will out perform your PC anyday.

And I also own a self built PC desktop and HP laptop, if you didn't see my desktop screenshots thread.

Sarcasm with the windows GUI.

But the G5 does out perform every Windows machine on the market. Thats why Virginia Tech used 1100 of them to build the worlds 3rd fastest super computer. They couldn't do it with any PC off the shelf computer.

 

[onionring]

Get a linux box you hippie and quite compaling.
....

I believe he was trying to say, "Stop complaining". And while, I don't really see it as complaining, rather nostalgia, I would have to agree that you should get a Linux box. If you love the hands-on control of the older-machines and OSs, then jump on the band wagon. You'll dig it.

Odd, my G5 will out perform your PC anyday.
.....
But the G5 does out perform every Windows machine on the market. Thats why Virginia Tech used 1100 of them to build the worlds 3rd fastest super computer. They couldn't do it with any PC off the shelf computer.

I'll take that bet. Not only because it "performs well in stress tests, doesn't cost a fortune, and lets me fiddle with the parts to make it better when it gets old.", but because it's a smokin' machine. It still counts even though I use it for commercial work, right?!

And actually you can. It's called commodity clusters. Look it up.

 

[ThePhoenix]

Odd, my G5 will out perform your PC anyday.

And I also own a self built PC desktop and HP laptop, if you didn't see my desktop screenshots thread.

Sarcasm with the windows GUI.

But the G5 does out perform every Windows machine on the market. Thats why Virginia Tech used 1100 of them to build the worlds 3rd fastest super computer. They couldn't do it with any PC off the shelf computer.

They've built supercomputers with 300 megahertz computers. The key is to have a LOT. Heck, they're in the process of building a supercomputer with the playstation two as a POC exercise (because it looks like the playstation 3 could offer the largest megahertz to dollar ratio of any machine).

 

[Dracil]

I still use DOS (well, the command prompt) from time to time. For a long time, I didn't even bother with the windows GUI. It was a lot faster to search for stuff from a command prompt. Gotta love those wildcards.