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F6Dave
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« Reply #40 on: January 23, 2019, 07:25:53 AM » |
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Funny how quickly things change, I remember when an entire ISP could run off of a single T1.... Now people wouldn't settle for that even with crappy DSL service, a full T1 only has 1.544 MBPS. (Although admittedly it's far more reliable than that crappy DSL would be.) Even a T3, which was once just a young geek's wet dream is "only" 44.736 MBPS... I had the Frontier FIOS guy out yesterday to replace a flaky Ethernet port on my fiber optic to copper ONT box, and he told me GB Internet is now available in my area if I wanted to spend the money... In 1999 this idea was on the verge of science fiction, now it's a reality and everyday thing... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xAxtxPAUcwQIt's amazing. It reminds me of how Moore's Law accurately predicted the improvement in processors for many years. But there are applications where slow still rules. When drilling for hydrocarbons, there are very complex tools near the bit that measure geologic characteristics and pinpoint the location via azimuth and inclination measurements. That data needs to be evaluated at the surface in (near) real time, which isn't easy when the equipment is at the end of a string of drilling pipe that can be 4 miles long or more. The most common method of communication is called mud pulsing. This involves interrupting drilling operations for a short time, and inducing a tool near the bit to generate a series of pulses in the column of drilling mud, using a piston or similar device. A listening device at the surface gathers the data by detecting the pulses. A typical speed for mud pulsing communications is, believe it or not, 6 BITS per second! The code for these devices needs to be extremely efficient! |
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« Last Edit: January 23, 2019, 07:32:45 AM by F6Dave »
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0leman
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« Reply #41 on: January 23, 2019, 07:29:55 AM » |
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When I retired in '09 at our Gov office (we had some 60 computers), we were running on a T-1 line. Thought it was great. When I helped set it up 6 years before I retired, I was amazed that all our internet use was going over a single pair of phone lines. Since it was better than before, we didn't know that we were running way slower than today speeds.
Now my home internet/TV comes in on a cable a lot bigger than those two small wires with speeds that would astound us 10 years ago with no slow downs with two TV's going and downing loading junk.
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2006 Shadow Spirit 1100 gone but not forgotten
1999 Valkryie I/S Green/Silver
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Robert
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« Reply #42 on: January 23, 2019, 08:31:42 AM » |
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Funny how quickly things change, I remember when an entire ISP could run off of a single T1.... Now people wouldn't settle for that even with crappy DSL service, a full T1 only has 1.544 MBPS. (Although admittedly it's far more reliable than that crappy DSL would be.) Even a T3, which was once just a young geek's wet dream is "only" 44.736 MBPS... I had the Frontier FIOS guy out yesterday to replace a flaky Ethernet port on my fiber optic to copper ONT box, and he told me GB Internet is now available in my area if I wanted to spend the money... In 1999 this idea was on the verge of science fiction, now it's a reality and everyday thing... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xAxtxPAUcwQStill blows my mind when I think of early hard drives compared to today. Along with we have more computing power in our phones than they had with early space shots  |
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“Some people see things that are and ask, Why? Some people dream of things that never were and ask, Why not? Some people have to go to work and don’t have time for all that.”
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scooperhsd
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« Reply #43 on: January 23, 2019, 09:10:21 AM » |
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My first computer (1990) was a 386SX, 1 M RAM and a 40 MB MFM harddrive.
That computer eventually grew to 9GB SCSI external HD, 16MB RAM and a 387SX math coprocessor, running Novell Netware.
I did recycle my computer museum before we moved to KC.
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Wizzard
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Bald River Falls
Valparaiso IN
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« Reply #44 on: January 23, 2019, 09:43:53 AM » |
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my first computer was a sinclair ZZX80 in 1980. Used a cassette tape as data storage.
Next was a vic20 and used the same data cassette
Next was a commadore 64
After that I built a zenith Z100 which was way ahead of its time and learned to program in CPM. That was way better than assembly. Also programmed in zeniths version of VB.
Had so many since then I cannot count.
Before the internet there was a Zenith users group that would network. Was called ZDnet and it was on Compuserve. Spent many hours on there. What fun times that was. We used 300 baud modems.
My first seagate hard drive was 20 meg and on the cutting edge. Cost me 800 bucks.
on a side note,, in 1980 I built my first satellite recieve system from the ground up. 12 foot dish using window screen. Folks that drove by my house thought I was doing something with the police and radar.
Good times
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« Last Edit: January 23, 2019, 09:47:24 AM by Wizzard »
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hubcapsc
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upstate
South Carolina
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« Reply #45 on: January 23, 2019, 11:47:20 AM » |
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My first computer was a laptop... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grid_Compass-Mike "they've all been laptops, seventh generation X1 Carbon now..." |
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Wizzard
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Bald River Falls
Valparaiso IN
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« Reply #46 on: January 23, 2019, 12:30:01 PM » |
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Those old grids were built like a tank. Military grade.  |
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VRCC # 24157 |
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F6Dave
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« Reply #47 on: January 25, 2019, 05:22:42 AM » |
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Nobody's mentioned the prices back when computers and communications were so slow. In '91 the Texaco office I worked at decided it was time for everyone to have a PC. So we bought about 700 IBM PS2s for over $6,000 each! And that didn't even include network connectivity. Token Ring cards (arguably better than Ethernet at the time) added another $400 to each machine.
These PCs had Intel 386 processors, and ran that newfangled Windows 3.1 OS. Processor speed was 16 MEGA Hz. Some power users got lightning fast 25 MHz machines. Base memory was only 2 MEGA bytes, though we splurged and upgraded them to 6 MB. Memory was very expensive back then, costing well over $100 per MB.
It's amazing how much we spent on what now looks like primitive machinery. But it wasn't only on computers. I had 2 friends who paid over $1,000 for early Betamax VCRs.
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Pete
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« Reply #48 on: January 25, 2019, 06:53:30 AM » |
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Memory cost?
In the mid to late 1960's CORE memory was 32 KILObytes (not megabytes, my mistake) for $32,000. I.e. $1.00 a byte.
For you non computer folks 1 byte holds 1 alpha character.
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« Last Edit: January 25, 2019, 01:39:45 PM by Pete »
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scooperhsd
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« Reply #49 on: January 25, 2019, 06:53:49 AM » |
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Those PS2's had the DISADVANTAGE of using Microchannel instead of ISA/ EISA expansion slots (proprietary IBM bus). Everything on IBM's was proprietary to them.
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Pete
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« Reply #50 on: January 25, 2019, 06:57:01 AM » |
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The 1st notebook with color LCD screen that I remember cost over $7,200.
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Serk
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« Reply #51 on: January 25, 2019, 07:19:28 AM » |
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Memory cost?
In the mid to late 1960's CORE memory was 32 megabytes for $32,000. I.e. $1.00 a byte.
For you non computer folks 1 byte holds 1 alpha character.
Don't you mean 32 kilobytes? 32 megabytes in the 1960's would be an astronomical amount of memory (And money) Even by the mid 1970's, the first Cray 1 super computer was installed in 1976 with a at the time whopping 8 megabytes of memory... |
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Never ask a geek 'Why?',just nod your head and slowly back away...  IBA# 22107 VRCC# 7976 VRCCDS# 226 1998 Valkyrie Standard 2008 Gold Wing Taxation is theft. μολὼν λαβέ |
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F6Dave
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« Reply #53 on: January 25, 2019, 08:06:32 AM » |
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Those PS2's had the DISADVANTAGE of using Microchannel instead of ISA/ EISA expansion slots (proprietary IBM bus). Everything on IBM's was proprietary to them.
Texaco was in love with IBM. We had 360 mainframes with single digit serial numbers. |
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Oss
Member
Posts: 12761
The lower Hudson Valley
Ossining NY Chapter Rep VRCCDS0141
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« Reply #54 on: January 25, 2019, 08:29:02 AM » |
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I still have a 386 or 486 machine running 3.1 Word for Dos on a workstation on the other end of my office.
Yes I keep it as sometimes (ok rarely) I want to see something I wrote 20yrs ago for a case.
To do that I open hit a bunch of keys and save to small floppy
I have a usb floppy reader on my desktop
Also it has a joystick port so I can play Chuck Yeagers Air Combat in the evenings
Our first 286 machine was about 1800 and the printer was almost 1000 and NOISY
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« Last Edit: January 25, 2019, 11:52:50 AM by Oss »
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If you don't know where your going any road will take you there
George Harrison
When you come to the fork in the road, take it
Yogi Berra (Don't send it to me C.O.D.)
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