Well I missed my chance, I was going to take bets on how long [bold]LexZ [/bold] would last before he was once again "banished"...there is a further opportunity as I wll be taking bets once again after his re instatement,. Now I [bold]DO[/bold] call myself an old timer...I've got 2 (now) teenage kids so I had to have a little fiddle with their comp while they were at school, now there is 4 computers in the house. Cheers Present betting is at 2 to 1. BTW whats the female for "old Fart"??? Old Fartress??
Auslander i always wanted to know what a young or old fart looks like.. are they one of the same? or do ye become a old fart at 19? ddp theme song
from 8 Sep, 2006 to 22 Sep, 2006, reason: http://forums.afterdawn.com/thread_jump.cfm/391960/2358937 from 31 Oct, 2006 to 2 Nov, 2006, reason: name calling so what do you think the odds are now??
gwen: i put $10 down on november 23 and i think "old fart" for females is "gwendolin" ireland: young farts have less of a hump in the back and a few less wrinkles...but those are the only differences.
joined thread to contribute, good to see some interesting posts, then yet another bout of pointlessness from LexZ (Gwen i couldn't take your money on that bet, you can guess who's leaving the site in 2days). anyways, i've been using computers since Secondary school (typical school computers of the time such as BBC Micro etc) but am old enough to have been around since the very first IBM PC's and clones; i started fulltime employment at 19 while most people i knew weren't doing a great deal. Most of my working years (19years so far) have been spent on shift using room-sized Mainframe computers but have also kept in touch with PC technology for most of that time. The last 6years i've been office-based using 'Big-Iron' ie Sun Servers, the most expensive of which have been around a million pounds. Trouble is with depreciation we usually sell them for like a thousand pounds or whatever but hey, it's not my money, i'm responsible for building/maintaining them, not paying for them. as i'm always surrounded by PC's/on them all the time,my 2 girls have been PC aware from the youngest ages, both Windows (sorry i know that counts as child cruelty) and Linux, and i've always been in awe of when they first learnt to use computer mice (even with the wheels/wheel buttons); a lot of people my age don't know how to use computers (nothing wrong with that, they're entitled to be normal & well-adjusted LOL) but i'll always have fond memories of my kids first becoming computer aware, and it'll stand them in good stead; <begin rant> unlike a lot of kids today my kids appreciate more than just games consoles (AD is crawling with kids of that type). ps my eldest, 9, has been fully au fait with Google (just like her pa) for a year or two, no flies on her. <end rant>
Well. @LexZ I meant, For old timers, such as Ireland @Auslander Your not that old! @Everyone else, Awesome... I mean my father is like, Pieter, Can you print this document for me... It doesn't work. *Dad, the disk is empty...* @Older Members... Thanks for telling me, I thought it would have been something more significant then most of your stories... but hey! Does every post have to turn like this? I asked a simple question to seemingly mature members of AD, and here we go having a rave and a nut case... But fair enough... Its in the safety valve...
I got drawn to computers for the opportunity to get all the old music that I grew up with, Glen Miller,Doris Day, Lawrence Welk etc. LMAO This old fart was self taught from the start and have come a long ways since my first crank 33 1/3 player circa 1950s you could use a sewing needle for a stylus. I'm basically a gadget man!
@NicHT:.....nah, you just started something. You know how us old farts love to sit around and talk; exchange war stories, as they say. @Ireland: pity we can't iron out the wrinkles! Have you seen Barbara Walters lately? She's just a talking mouth and the rest of her face simply doesn't move any more...had to lighten up on the botox injections methinks.
My first computer was an old IBM I got over twenty years ago, it had a 250meg HDD and ran on DOS, what a treat. Needless to say when Win 3.1 came on the scene I jumped for joy, I finally got a screen that had something other than text on it. Now they got cell phones that do more than that old one did.
@Arniebear, One of the first computers I found in the trash and fixed was a Packard Bell that had a 40 meg HD. Back then that was a BIG hd and it ran DOS/Doshell. These youngsters today don't know what they missed. How about the Commmador PC's (spelling may be off) where everything had to be entered line by line. It was a learning experience. Jerry
wow there are so many users here that are older than I would have thought otherwise and I did not even know )) I want to become old now, and I want wisdom. There is no better forum than AD. AD has that great feel about it, it is like a little cosey place you can come to and snuggle into. The orangy colour makes it even better, it glows and makes you feel warmer than you would normally feel. COMMODOR I heard of it. As for this thread, now I know how the How Old Are You Thread turned out to be how it is now, someone posts something irrelivent someone else gets angry has a rant, the poster in the wrong tries to justify himself, another user comes along posts something like "LOL" or "LMAO" etc. then it continues till a mod bans one of the posters then it calms down then we look back at the event.
who wants one? The commodore 64 is, along with the Apple II and the Atari XL computers, the most famous home computer. According to the 2001 edition of Guinness book of records, the C64 was the most "prolific computing device ever manufactured". During its production run from 1982 to... 1993, about 30 million (!) units were sold. To put this number in perspective, that's more than all the Macintoshes in the world. The C64 was an up-market version of the VIC-20. A wide range of software packages, games and programming languages was available for this machine which was itself available practically anywhere from a toyshop to a business supplier. Superficially, the C64 closely resembled the VIC-20. It had the same casing, an identical keyboard configuration and virtually the same interfaces and sockets. But the apparent similarity belies some fundamental differences: a MOS 6510 processor and 64 KB of RAM which was quite unusually large at the time for a model of this price range. The C64 also had the ability to recognise user-established priorities by which 'sprites' (or movable blocks) could move independently of displayed text/graphics, enabling the creation of graphics with up to 8 layers. Music synthesis was performed by a special sound interface chip. Sound envelope could be controlled on all three voices on a full nine octave of each. It was one of the first computers to offer both a high quality sound chip and graphic resolution with many colors and sprites. A great range of peripherals was developed for this computer and it can also use several of the Vic 20 peripherals. Several versions of the Commodore 64 were launched : The first one, C64-1, used the VIC 20 case and was to be quickly replaced with the C64-2 (pictured) which used the famous brown case, and later by the C64-3 with small cosmetic changes in the keyboard. A special version called Educator 64 or PET64 or CBM 4064 was proposed for schools and uses the PET case. Commodore produced the first generation of C64s until May 1986, then it was discontinued and they introduced the C64C. According to the 64'er magazine, this version has been planned since the Hannover Fair in 1985, but as the old version sold so well during Christmas '85, its release date was delayed. Then appeared the C64 "Aldi" (1987, only in Germany) and the C64G (1989). They were virtually same machines, this time with the new, short motherboard. So, although the case might look the same and the label says "Commodore 64", the boards may be completely different. Finally, the C64GS game console was released in 1990. Basically it was a re-boxed C64, without a keyboard or any other interfaces, except for the cartridge slot on top. NAME C 64 MANUFACTURER Commodore TYPE Home Computer ORIGIN U.S.A. YEAR 1982 END OF PRODUCTION 1993 BUILT IN LANGUAGE Basic KEYBOARD Full-stroke 66 keys with 4 function keys CPU 6510 SPEED 0.985 MHz (PAL) / 1.023 MHz (NTSC) CO-PROCESSOR VIC II (Video), SID (Sound) RAM 64 KB ROM 20 KB TEXT MODES 40 columns x 25 lines GRAPHIC MODES several, most used : 320 x 200 COLORS 16 + 16 border colours SOUND 3 voices / 9 octaves, 4 waveforms (sound output through TV) SIZE / WEIGHT 40.4 (W) x 21.6 (D) x 7.5 (H) cm / 1820 g I/O PORTS RGB (composite, chroma/luma and sound in/out), 2 x Joystick plugs, Cardridge slot, Tape interfarce (300 bps), Serial, User Port, TV RF output BUILT IN MEDIA Cassette unit. Provision for 170 KB 5.25'' floppy disc unit (1541) POWER SUPPLY External power supply unit PRICE $595 (USA, 1982) - £229 (U.K. 1984) http://www.old-computers.com/museum/computer.asp?c=98
