[ale] a moment of silence please

Jim Philips briarpatch.jim at gmail.com
Wed Apr 28 08:49:55 EDT 2010


The ever-expanding efficiency of data storage has got to be one of 
the most dramatic technological changes in our lifetimes. I'm just 
wondering if the processing power of our brains has caught up.

On Wednesday, April 28, 2010 08:39:03 am William Fragakis wrote:
> On an upcoming episode of "Hoarders"...
> 
> wf
> 
> On Wed, 2010-04-28 at 07:24 -0400, Jim Kinney wrote:
> > YOU HAD MAGNETIC MEDIA?!?!?!?!?
> > 
> > toggle switches, and paper tape were the IO methods on the 
first
> > computer I had access to. It was a big next step up to be able 
to use
> > punch cards for program entry over those horrid toggle 
switches. And
> > output was multiple feet of wide greenbar with tractor holes 
never
> > quite were perforated correctly for fast tear off.
> > 
> > And it wasn't my Dad's computer room with the bazillion floppies 
and
> > rw tape. It was mine. :-)
> > 
> > I still have a huge pile of floppies with win 3.1, MS office, 
autocad,
> > mathmatica, Lotus 1,2,3, excel 4, quicken, Prodigy and the 
upgrade to
> > 14,400baud, etc. I may still have my first Slackware floppies
> > downloaded over that speed-boosted 14.4 modem.
> > 
> > Still have a box of zip disks with the tons-o-crap downloaded 
from
> > uusnet as I bounced between win3.11 and slackware.
> > 
> > 
> > Hmm. Maybe I should throw out some cruft...
> > 
> > On Wed, Apr 28, 2010 at 6:47 AM, Richard Bronosky
> > 
> > <Richard at bronosky.com> wrote:
> >         I remember the punch tools. I remember using a soldering 
iron
> >         on the
> >         3.5s and cleaning up the hole with an Xacto. I'll raise you:
> >         knowing
> >         exactly where in my Dad's "computer room" I could go 
today to
> >         find the
> >         little black stickers that I would put on a 5.25 to make it
> >         writable
> >         again. I'll raise you: going to visit my dad for the weekend
> >         to find
> >         my room full of ceiling to floor stacks of boxes of 5.25
> >         floppies when
> >         it was his turn to look after the inventory of CUGA*. Good
> >         times!
> >         
> >         *Computer User's Group of Ashland (KY), which was 
basically
> >         like a
> >         monthly software swap meet.
> >         
> >         On 4/28/10, Pat Regan <thehead at patshead.com> wrote:
> >         > A friend of mine once bought OS/2 on cd.  I know we had 
2.0
> >         
> >         and Warp,
> >         
> >         > but I'm pretty certain this was Warp.  We were probably in
> >         
> >         the early
> >         
> >         > part of high school.  He didn't own a cd-rom drive, but I
> >         
> >         did.  A
> >         
> >         > monstrous 1x sony external deal that used caddies.
> >         > 
> >         > He saved 10 or 20 bucks by going cd instead of floppy.  
But
> >         
> >         we had to
> >         
> >         > find 10-20 floppies to use to create the install disks.  We
> >         
> >         made those
> >         
> >         > at my house and we walked the couple miles to his 
house to
> >         
> >         install it.
> >         
> >         > Half way through we hit our first bad floppy...  So we had
> >         
> >         to go back,
> >         
> >         > recreate that one...  I think we had to do that twice.
> >         > 
> >         > I don't miss 3.5 inch floppies.  My fond memories are of
> >         
> >         5.25 floppies.
> >         
> >         >   I had a neat little punch tool that made perfect clean
> >         
> >         holes to make
> >         
> >         > the other side writable in the Apple drives.
> >         > 
> >         > The 3.5 punch tool was much more monstrous by 
comparison,
> >         
> >         and the hard
> >         
> >         > plastic didn't cut as cleanly.  I do remember once melting 
a
> >         
> >         hole in a
> >         
> >         > 3.5 floppy with a soldering iron to make it high density...
> >         > 
> >         > Pat
> >         > 
> >         > On 04/28/2010 12:49 AM, Chris Woodfield wrote:
> >         >> I see your loading Windows 3.1 from floppies and raise 
you
> >         
> >         multiple
> >         
> >         >> installs of Microsoft Office 5.1(?) for Mac - I think there
> >         
> >         were at least
> >         
> >         >> 30 floppy disks in the box. And Windows 95 clocked in 
at 15
> >         
> >         disks?
> >         
> >         >> -C
> >         >> 
> >         >> On Apr 27, 2010, at 6:59 26PM, Dustin Puryear wrote:
> >         >>> I have vague memories of loading Windows 3.11 from
> >         
> >         floppies when I was
> >         
> >         >>> in 9'th grade or so. Wow.
> >         >>> 
> >         >>> -----Original Message-----
> >         >>> From: ale-bounces at ale.org [mailto:ale-
bounces at ale.org] On
> >         
> >         Behalf Of
> >         
> >         >>> Michael Trausch
> >         >>> Sent: Sunday, April 25, 2010 4:11 PM
> >         >>> To: Atlanta Linux Enthusiasts - Yes! We run Linux!
> >         >>> Subject: Re: [ale] a moment of silence please
> >         >>> 
> >         >>> On Sun, Apr 25, 2010 at 9:00 AM, Paul
> >         
> >         Cartwright<ale at pcartwright.com>
> >         
> >         >>> wrote:
> >         >>>> JoshuaInNippon writes "In a brief press release 
buried
> >         
> >         within Sony
> >         
> >         >>> Japan's
> >         >>> 
> >         >>>> website, the company announced that they would 
be ending
> >         
> >         sales of the
> >         
> >         >>> classic
> >         >>> 
> >         >>>> 3.5 inch floppy disk in the country in March of 2011.
> >         
> >         Sony introduced
> >         
> >         >>> the
> >         >>> 
> >         >>>> size to the world in 1981, which saw its heyday in 
the
> >         
> >         1990s. Sony has
> >         
> >         >>> been
> >         >>> 
> >         >>>> one of the last major manufacturers to continue 
shipments
> >         
> >         of the disk
> >         
> >         >>> type
> >         >>> 
> >         >>>> they helped develop, but had ended most worldwide 
sales
> >         
> >         in March of
> >         
> >         >>> this
> >         >>> 
> >         >>>> year. The company's production of the 3.5 inch 
floppy
> >         
> >         ceased in 2009.
> >         
> >         >>> Sony
> >         >>> 
> >         >>>> noted the demand, or a lack thereof, as the reason. 
The
> >         
> >         company's
> >         
> >         >>> withdrawal
> >         >>> 
> >         >>>> is one of the final marks in the slow death of the 
floppy
> >         
> >         era."
> >         
> >         >>> Being that I *still* use 3.5" floppy disks, this does 
make
> >         
> >         me quite sad.
> >         
> >         >>> I use them these days as ~900KB encrypted stores 
(with
> >         
> >         duplicates!) of
> >         
> >         >>> small things like encryption keys and certificates.
> >          
> >          Something about
> >          
> >         >>> sorting the things and working with them without 
them
> >         
> >         being in my
> >         
> >         >>> $HOME is nice to me.
> >         >>> 
> >         >>>   -- Mike
> >         >>> 
> >         >>> _______________________________________________
> >         >>> Ale mailing list
> >         >>> Ale at ale.org
> >         >>> http://mail.ale.org/mailman/listinfo/ale
> >         >>> See JOBS, ANNOUNCE and SCHOOLS lists at
> >         >>> http://mail.ale.org/mailman/listinfo
> >         >>> 
> >         >>> _______________________________________________
> >         >>> Ale mailing list
> >         >>> Ale at ale.org
> >         >>> http://mail.ale.org/mailman/listinfo/ale
> >         >>> See JOBS, ANNOUNCE and SCHOOLS lists at
> >         >>> http://mail.ale.org/mailman/listinfo
> >         >> 
> >         >> _______________________________________________
> >         >> Ale mailing list
> >         >> Ale at ale.org
> >         >> http://mail.ale.org/mailman/listinfo/ale
> >         >> See JOBS, ANNOUNCE and SCHOOLS lists at
> >         >> http://mail.ale.org/mailman/listinfo
> >         > 
> >         > _______________________________________________
> >         > Ale mailing list
> >         > Ale at ale.org
> >         > http://mail.ale.org/mailman/listinfo/ale
> >         > See JOBS, ANNOUNCE and SCHOOLS lists at
> >         > http://mail.ale.org/mailman/listinfo
> >         
> >         --
> >         Sent from my mobile device
> >         
> >         .!# RichardBronosky #!.



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