Extinction

[CNCAppsJames]

Never had an Amiga. Went from the Commodore to my grandpa's Epson. Then I think I got my first "IBM Compatible". A 286. No math co-processor so I couldn't run AutoCAD.

[SuperHoneyBadger]

The closest I'll ever get to the era is my project PC on the shelf at home, looks like the RAM debacle is going to push the build (again). It's an IBM XT (5160) case that I want to put a modern board into. I just love the look and feel of the case, has the original power supply with the big switch on the side. There is an aura of regal importance, a kind of palpable history that I cannot deny when I see it. Makes me grin every time.

[gcode]

The magazine would publish programs in BASIC that you had to type in by hand. Make a mistake? Go through the code, line by line, and find whatever character you fat fingered.

My first experience with computers was a main frame at Colorado School of Mines in 1975.
The computer class assignment was to write a program to calculate the amount and placement of explosives necessary
to bring down a hill. I think the language was COBAL
 
You wrote the program out long hand, then typed it onto cards about twice the size of a playing card.
If you are old enough, you'll remember that the power, water, phone and gas companies used these cards for billing back then.

The machine printed text across the top of the card and punched holes for the card reader to read.
Then you took them to the computer room, a hermetically sealed room where nerds in booties, hairnets and surgical
gowns took your cards. You had to pass your cards through an airlock sort of like an old time bank drive thru drawer.

Come back in a few days and they'd give you the resulting printout from your program.
My program would not run.
I had to go though several hundred cards, comparing the text to the punched holes.
After several weeks of failure I was down to counting holes in the cards,
I finally found the problem

On one card there was supposed to be a comma  ( , )
I had typed a semicolon ( ; ) but the period was barely visible and the printed text had passed
my visual inspection a dozen times.
I only found it when I stated reading the holes in the cards.

That experience was enough to put me off computers from quite a while.

[JakeL]

and punched holes for the card reader to read

Was it similar to punch cards (er, what was it called? Tape?) for programming old CNC machines? How long ago was that being used? and did it jump from punched paper to floppy disks, or was there something else in between?

[CNCAppsJames]

Was it similar to punch cards (er, what was it called? Tape?) for programming old CNC machines? How long ago was that being used? and did it jump from punched paper to floppy disks, or was there something else in between?

Tape... paper was for one offs and prove outs. Mylar was for production. I keep a small roll of mylar on my desk... for perspective. When I feel like bitching about something stupid... I take a look at that mylar and take stock in just how good we have it today on CNC machines. 

 

[jstell]

Was it similar to punch cards (er, what was it called? Tape?) for programming old CNC machines? How long ago was that being used? and did it jump from punched paper to floppy disks, or was there something else in between?

I was grumbling about running out of memory in a Fanuc 10 and going thru the roughing passes editing out 4-place decimals, only to realize that in order to actually get space back I had to "defrag" it by sending it back to the PC and then back to the machine.  The "words" take up the space they are allocated even if you shorten the value, until it is put in fresh with the shortened words.  My boss came over and said, "At least you don't have to edit tape."  Told me about literal cut and paste (tape) editing programs manually on tape.  Put some masking tape over a line and get out the hole-puncher to change it.  Want to add a spring pass?  Cut a gap, duplicate the section, tape it back in.

The transition was to magnetic tape instead of punch tape.  I ran a machine that had a '70s to '80s converter, like those 80s to 90s converter cassette tape contraptions that you could plug your sony discman into for your car stereo.  This machine had a tape reader with an RS232 plug feeding into it's read/write head so you could send/receive programs from the PC.  It wasn't DNC, the machine had decent amount of memory (we weren't doing surfacing) so it just had to read in about 28 pages of hand-typed trailing zero (no decimal) code to machine the castings for a dental chair seat pan.  Fun times.

[TSmcam]

In my toolbox at home, I have a small, manual tape punch with a little guillotine built into it.

Back the eighties, I used it to correct tapes and manually punch short tapes. Manual programming at its finest..

I've kept that as a relic of my time with paper tape.

Ah, the young people of today with their Fusion and #boom just don' unnastanda!

[gcode]

Back the eighties, I used it to correct tapes and manually punch short tapes. Manual programming at its finest..

I've kept that as a relic of my time with paper tape.

With practice you could read those tapes.
Editing was a chore, and very easy to screw up.

[TSmcam]

With practice you could read those tapes.
Editing was a chore, and very easy to screw up.

I got to the point where I could read the tape. And pick up errors.

I agree, editing was a chore, and I made enough mistakes that actually honed my tape skills.

[Jeff]

My boss bought 2 nc tape lathes in the early 90's for a song.
One was for parts, the other ran quite well.
Guess who got to program it, set it up and run it.....me.
G50 XZ on every friggin line.
I suffered that for a little over a year.

[Newbeeee™]

My boss bought 2 nc tape lathes in the early 90's for a song.
One was for parts, the other ran quite well.
Guess who got to program it, set it up and run it.....me.
G50 XZ on every friggin line.
I suffered that for a little over a year.

If only you ripped out the control and did the PC upgrade.... AhHa!!!!

[gcode]

I'm spending my time off cleaning and packing for our escape from the People's Republik of Kalifornia
The new house is bought and paid for and the  power, gas and water is on.
I have a theoretical choice between 2g fiber optics and old school 1g cable mode.
I cannot get a straight answer out of either provider as to which service the house is actually wired for.
Of course Mrs gcode didn't look at that sort of thing when she checked out the house, so that one is going to have to wait till I get there.
While cleaning out closets in my office I found this blast from the past I have no recollection of ever buying it. LOL.
I can't decide whether to save it or trash it.
I've already thrown out a ton of old Mastercam, Win98, WinME, XP, Office 2000, 2007 etc install discs.
Next will be  a bunch of old laptops, cell phones, routers and a couple of too old to mess with computers.
It is amazing how much crap you can accumulate over time.

[mowens]

Where in north central arkansas will you be living? My parents are from there and I spent many summers there also. Around the Batesville area. Humidity was a bitch, at least for me.

When I first started programming, we wrote our APT programs by hand on manuscript paper and then turned it into the data input ladies. You would launch it in the afternoon and get your big 3 inch pile of print out the next day. Then start debugging.

[CNCAppsJames]

If you can get it, take the fiber every day and 2x on Sundays. 

Cable internet is trash. I've had it 3x in my life (Adelphia, Roadrunner/Spectrum, and XFinity). Beyond 2000, it's not been worth the grief. 

Cable is asynchronous at the higher speeds vs. fiber being synchronous. 

Cable divies up the regional bandwidth allotment between you and ALL your neighbors and they are cheap AF about it.  I started here in Utah with that trash XFinity... That was a HORRIBLE experience. I got rid of it after like 3 months. I bought the router THEY recommended, after about a month XFinity did a "software upgrade" on their side which pretty much rendered my modem ($350) nearly useless. Paid for 2G down... at it's best I may have been getting 1G... and .25G up. After the "update", I was lucky to get .25G down and .05G up. Getting rid of it was was harder than getting rid of a gym membership. Ultimately I had to go into a store and do it... under their strenuous objections... they wanted me to keep talking to to India Tech support. Kash Singh (no lie that was these three dude's names allegedly) confirmed at least 3x and they said service was canceled. Got a bill for ~$450 and they threatened me with collections. When I canceled the 1st time, I unplugged everything coming in the house. I cut the cord at the street so there was ZERO cable signal going into my home.... because I just knew it was going to be a problem. I took a metadata and location enabled picture as proof of disconnection.  They forced me to talk to 3 people that first time to try to get me to stay. I told them repeatedly that even if internet was free for life I would not be keeping the service. I must have repeated myself 50x... "No, I do not want your service for any price." They kept asking well, what you be willing to pay. It must have taken an hour and a half to cancel. I told them if they didn't get my service canceled in the next few minutes, I was sending them a bill for what my company bills me out at retroactive to the time I made first contact with them. "No need for that, we're just trying to have a 'professional' conversation...". It was anything BUT. 

We're supposed to get fiber in the not too distant future. For the trime being, I found a small regional internet provider (Wasatch Broadband) that uses over the air technology. I have ~.85GB synchronous. Avative Fiber is who will be available. I'm thinking they won't have it until our part of the city gets closer to build out in the next few years. Anyway.. Wasatch has been acceptable. We've only had a couple outages that lasted less than an hour. 

STAY AWAY FROM CABLE!

 

[Newbeeee™]

Next will be  a bunch of old laptops,

You could always stick linux on them....they'll be faster and way more reliable than windowzy and last you a lifetime....