Remember when one had to type in "win" at the DOS prompt to run Windows?
Some used computers then and remember.
Kids today got it way too easy.
They should have to start out on an XT and learn about it bit by bit (thanks, Barbara) and pass data over a 2400 baud modem connection, and THEN get to use the new stuff.
Why not do the job properly, and insist that they learn how to flake stone tools, rather using kitchen knives made out of bronze or steel.
And you should be unhappy about molly-coddling them by giving them enough food to eat all the year round. Our ancestors were toughened up by watching half their siblings die of starvation or disease before they'd grown up.
I don't imagine that it made them better people, but DLUNU will probably have a different opinion.
-- Bill Sloman, Sydney
I believe all the great philosophers were agreed that we must, Jeff, yes. Especially that Greek fellow who lived in a barrel and eventually got devoured by wild dogs in the pursuit of knowledge. :-D
You mean you are going to make them walk into the kitchen and pick up a han dset attached to the black box on the wall, then turn the crank a few times to get the operator's attention before you let them use their cell phone? You are going to make them learn how to feed, care for and harness a horse before you let them drive a car? You are going to teak them how to card w ool or cotton before you let them buy clothes ready made?
Do you yell at the kids to get off your lawn?
-- Rick C. - Get 1,000 miles of free Supercharging - Tesla referral code - https://ts.la/richard11209
Rick C wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@googlegroups.com:
No. Those do not handle modems.
One does not teach logic operations by putting a Ryzen CPU on the board.
Hell, they should start on a 555 timer and an old synthesizer circuit. Both analog and digital all in one.
Rick C wrote in news:dcd54465-524a- snipped-for-privacy@googlegroups.com:
No, I start right in with the modified carnival bb gun machine gun except I spray salt pellets at them. Better sting, less evidence.
....No, I start right in with the modified carnival bb gun machine gun except I spray salt pellets at them. Better sting, less evidence.....
A man with a plan. Another reason why engineers are held in such high esteem in society.
I didn't know you could get a 555 timer to play YouTube. I'd like to see your circuit. Please post.
-- Rick C. + Get 1,000 miles of free Supercharging + Tesla referral code - https://ts.la/richard11209
snipped-for-privacy@columbus.rr.com wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@googlegroups.com:
No part of the star can be visible (the carnival stand). It was hard to do with BBs because they spray out of a non rifled barrel like atomic particle collisions at the LHC. So all the aiming in the world does not remove the choas aspect and winning the challenge is pretty hard since you only get so many shots.
Rick C wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@googlegroups.com:
WTF does making an audio synth have to do with playing a youtube video?
And how does youtube teach logic operations? It does not. There are youtube videos that would relieve the instructor of the responsibility of actually teaching the course.
A piano prodigy get a full size piano because that is all they make. A computer prodigy usually starts on some father supplied gadget or toy that he shows him how it works, and spawns the kid's interests.
So, YES, starting with basic hardware is far better than feeding some jaded kid a full bore gaming computer and skipping the how it works segment, and then the kid calls himself computer savvy when he is about as far from it as it gets.
Look at SkyTard Trolling for a perfect example. And he thinks he is so all knowing about computers because he watched a couple of youtube videos.
Exactly! You don't seem to understand what computers are for. They may be built by geeks, but it's all paid for by the masses who want to watch cat videos and care nothing about your ideas of what people should learn.
-- Rick C. -- Get 1,000 miles of free Supercharging -- Tesla referral code - https://ts.la/richard11209
Rick C wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@googlegroups.com:
Nope. I watch chipmunk videos. And Squirrel videos. And Hummingbird and Blue Jay videos. And Lynx videos!
Old audio and video recording and playback format videos too.
These days however, developers have top-of-the-line hardware and develop bloated applications that can only run on top-of-the-line hardware.
Jeroen Belleman
By "top-of-the-line" he means something sold in the last 10 years. There a ctually hasn't been a large improvement in computing speed to other capabil ities in the last 10 years. The main limitation of any PC is memory. Peop le who buy a machine with limited amounts of RAM will find the machine slow s down pretty much out of the gate and only gets worse with updates and var ious drivers and apps that are added but never removed. They blame it on d eveloper "bloat" because they don't understand this simple fact.
The last few machines I bought were already some four or five years old but had adequate memory for the task they were intended for. Some only had 8 GB because they would not be used for anything other than lab machines runn ing simple test programs. My personal machine was bought with 32 GB of RAM and is still fat and happy with all the browser tabs I keep open and any d esign tool I use. Not bad for $600. It's a bear though. Weighs a ton and my legs never get cold on winter nights. lol Summer can be a bit uncomfo rtable though.
Get a decent mid range computer and upgrade the RAM when it starts to drag. You will find your CPU can handle pretty much all the apps anyone writes for it unless you are trying to do major video editing or something really compute intensive.
-- Rick C. -+ Get 1,000 miles of free Supercharging -+ Tesla referral code - https://ts.la/richard11209
No, I don't remember those days and doubt they existed. And even if it did exist, just put "win" in the autoexec.bat file, problem solved.
Next!
Performance-per-watt has increased substantially. My dual-core Intel i7 mobile laptop processor from 2018 has about equal performance drawing 15 watts as my 90 watt AMD Phenom II six-core desktop processor from 8-9 years ago does.
This current $90 AMD desktop processor will stomp all over both at 50 watts. though also part of that is also bigger cache, higher memory bandwidth and FSB clocks:
As if there weren't slow load times and sluggish software that only performed well on top-of-the-line hardware in the 80s and 90s. Example: windows 3.1. Try running that on a 386SX 16 MHz with 2 megs of RAM, it's usable but not pleasant I remember cuz I had one. And remember that machine cost the better part of TWO THOUSAND dollars in 1992 when 3.1 was released.
It was indeed better on 4, not every even mid-tier 386 mobo supported 4 megs of RAM. a 486DX-class with 8 was ideal. 1 meg sticks of RAM cost about $80 in 1992 dollars, in 1992. A business-class machine with a
486DX 33MHz, 8 megs of RAM and 500 meg hard drive with SVGA monitor cost about $5-7k then.In the extreme case in the 1980s my buddy and I sometimes waited 15 minutes to load a game into the Commodore 64 from a cassette.
bitrex wrote in news:WIf7G.66672$ snipped-for-privacy@fx27.iad:
Most of it is due to die size reduction, which equates directly to lower power consumption, but they kill some of that off by stuffing more into the same square milliage.
bitrex wrote in news:WIf7G.66672$ snipped-for-privacy@fx27.iad:
I paid nearly $600 for my first full ht 1GB HD.
I paid nearly that much for my first 16MB set of RAM for my 486.
I had a 486 EISA box at one time too.
My first 0.25 mm pitch SVGA vertically flat sony tube viewsonic display cosy me over $500 too back then ('91 I think). Damn thing broke in less than a year and Viewsonic would not give me an RMA to send it in for repair. Dirty bastards. And I like a stupid ass have bought severel more of their products, though their quality has improved greatly, likely using the cash from folks like me on their overpriced failed shit.
To an extent, because you get more enlightenment from suffering. If you want it. Not everyone does. I remember a 60 year old lady who worked as a proofreader and who posted in dial-up BBS's in 1990. She was glad she bought a computer when you had to do the low-level format, partitioning, format, and OS install yourself. She said it took her 2 weeks but she learned a lot. She also hated GUI's, saying that point and click was like a caveman communicating by pointing at things.
I'm also glad I had to do those steps, and put in the HDD because my first PC came without one. It didn't take me 2 weeks but I'm glad I had to do it.
I'm also glad my first computers came with tech books and BASIC interpreters. Today they should come with Python and a book but they don't. I've met kids who wanted to learn but didn't know where to begin. If their PC came with Python they could have started learning sooner.
"Tom Del Rosso" wrote in news:r3m7jp$pu4$ snipped-for-privacy@dont-email.me:
Low level BIOS initialization on an MFM hard drive was a fun chore.
And that was just the beginning.
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