[dscabra]

Originally Posted by Esteban

Yep, was always an Apple guy, still am. Got the first Mac when it came out; a whopping 128 KB of ram. Then got a "fat Mac" with 512 KB of ram. Didn't know what to do with all that memory.

And now look at us...

I started with an Apple-IIc. I can't recall the details about the system, but it was certainly nothing like what I have for my home PC today:

[Esteban]

Originally Posted by dscabra

I started with an Apple-IIc. I can't recall the details about the system, but it was certainly nothing like what I have for my home PC today:

We’ve come a long way in 40 years.

[MaxVO2]

Originally Posted by Esteban

We’ve come a long way in 40 years.

****I actually still have my old Apple II+ and IIe and booted it up a couple of years back on a whim to see if it worked and to play some of my old video games (Ultima II, III, Wizardry, Castle Wolfenstein, etc..).

Geez. Everything loaded up just fine including the old 5 1/4 inch floppy disks, and let's just say I cannot believe I played so many hundreds of hours of Ultima II, III, and IV - Lord British's masterpiece - with those graphics. Amazing what could be done with only 64-128k of RAM memory and a little 6502 microprocessor.

It was no Playstation 5 and I was kind of shocked as I remembered thinking at the time just how awesome the graphics were back then!

Amazing game for its day.

[Esteban]

Originally Posted by MaxVO2

****I actually still have my old Apple II+ and IIe and booted it up a couple of years back on a whim to see if it worked and to play some of my old video games (Ultima II, III, Wizardry, Castle Wolfenstein, etc..).

Geez. Everything loaded up just fine including the old 5 1/4 inch floppy disks, and let's just say I cannot believe I played so many hundreds of hours of Ultima II, III, and IV - Lord British's masterpiece - with those graphics. Amazing what could be done with only 64-128k of RAM memory and a little 6502 microprocessor.

It was no Playstation 5 and I was kind of shocked as I remembered thinking at the time just how awesome the graphics were back then!

Amazing game for its day.

That’s pretty cool.

I still have my old Mac around here somewhere. Will have to see if I can find it and try turning it on. Hopefully it doesn’t blow up on me.

[Vindicator3]

I still have my old Atari 800 in a box, but I don't own a TV set with a twin-flat-lead connector to hook it up to a TV to use as a monitor. And I spent lots of time in Lord British's world back in the day. Good stuff.

[MaxVO2]

Originally Posted by Esteban

That’s pretty cool.

I still have my old Mac around here somewhere. Will have to see if I can find it and try turning it on. Hopefully it doesn’t blow up on me.

***I was in absolute shock (I mean not literally - the system booted up just fine! ) when everything booted right up and just flat out worked as it did 40 years ago!!!

I still have several hundred old Apple II+ games on floppy disks in boxes. I only loaded up Ultima, Wizardry, and I think Zork plus the Scott Adams text adventure series.

Really cool. The neighbors kid was surprised at how hard it was to navigate directories, and find things compared to now... Dir:, Call -151, VTOC, etc..

A precursor to Mortal Kombat was Karateka on the Apple II+ and the graphics and motions, combos, etc.. were just laughable now but back in 1985 or so - it was SO cool to see what sort of kinda looked like maybe blood spurting out of a defeated opponents head or arm you just ripped out and beat him to death with....

Now? My PS5 makes it look *real*. The processing power of gaming systems is now just exponentially greater than back in the day...

Jeez... I'm starting to sound like my dad.....

I think I'll go outside and start yelling at clouds!

[Lady Jane]

That's why I hang around this forum.

[kscarrol]

Originally Posted by Lady Jane

That's why I hang around this forum.

Attachment 3627818

Is that Murf the Surf with the green shirt back right? Looks like he’s ordering another rum.

[Esteban]

.

[sygazelle]

Originally Posted by Lady Jane

That's why I hang around this forum.

Attachment 3627818

...and we are glad to have you as a guest so you can see what the future holds for your generation.

[3.0L]

Originally Posted by Esteban

That’s pretty cool.

I still have my old Mac around here somewhere. Will have to see if I can find it and try turning it on. Hopefully it doesn’t blow up on me.

I still have my Timex-Sinclair 1000.

[wdb]

Merry Christmas everyone! I'm a bit behind in the thread; we've been having a medical adventure for the past few weeks. Fortunately everyone is back home and hopefully on the mend.

I started writing code in dBase on a dedicated word processing workstation that had DOS loaded from 1-1/4" disk; I recall that taking the better part of 20 minutes all by itself. I built a small database for the devices we were building in a clean room environment at the time. Each one had an armload of batch IDs and dimensional specs to keep track of, and the database made it easi----errr, less difficult. That job went away, and while I was unemployed I started writing BASIC on our Apple IIc. I built a pretty nifty system for my dad's Lions Club golf tournament; it allowed them to enter the players' scores, then calculated their handicap (I can't for the life of me remember the name of their handicapping method) and sorted all of the players by handicap score. At the end of the tournament they'd print out the list and hand out the prizes. Saved a couple trashcans full of paper scraps with calculations on them lol.

I could go on. But it's all ancient history at this point. I haven't written a line of code in years, and I don't miss it. But who knows, maybe I'll start digging into ECUs...

[sygazelle]

...when your programming languages in school were Fortran, BASIC, COBOL, and Assembler.

[M_Six]

We're cooking a pot roast for Christmas dinner. Step 1 was to sear the onions and carrots and then the meat on the stove top in the cast iron Dutch oven, then transfer the whole thing into the oven. My age addled mind was thinking the Dutch oven hadn't yet been in the oven, so I could move it there bare handed. I was quickly and rudely reminded that my thinking was faulty. Ouch.

[RickFLM4]

Originally Posted by M_Six

We're cooking a pot roast for Christmas dinner. Step 1 was to sear the onions and carrots and then the meat on the stove top in the cast iron Dutch oven, then transfer the whole thing into the oven. My age addled mind was thinking the Dutch oven hadn't yet been in the oven, so I could move it there bare handed. I was quickly and rudely reminded that my thinking was faulty. Ouch.

Ouch. I keep some of this on hand since I’ve done similar more than once. It does help a bit.

https://a.co/d/iSu9iLe

[M_Six]

Originally Posted by RickFLM4

Ouch. I keep some of this on hand since I’ve done similar more than once. It does help a bit.

https://a.co/d/iSu9iLe

I'll have to grab some of that. I lucked out in that the pot wasn't super hot at the handles. My fingers are a touch singed, but not to a blister level.

[sygazelle]

....when the best friend of your son, the kid that was always hanging around the house, that you still think of as a little kid, just announced his retirement.

[Esteban]

Originally Posted by sygazelle

....when the best friend of your son, the kid that was always hanging around the house, that you still think of as a little kid, just announced his retirement.

You A-R-E old.

I join the 70s Club in less than a month!

[Lady Jane]

Back in 1974. Waiting for the consequences for stealing and crashing dad's car.

[sygazelle]

Originally Posted by Lady Jane

Back in 1974. Waiting for the consequences for stealing and crashing dad's car.

Attachment 3629685

1968 or so Ford Thunderbird. 206 inches long, 4400 pounds, and 9 miles per gallon. Far cry from the 1955 2-seater Thunderbird.

Detroit auto leaders were losing their collective minds. End of rant from and old guy who was there.

[tturedraider]

Originally Posted by sygazelle

1968 or so Ford Thunderbird. 206 inches long, 4400 pounds, and 9 miles per gallon. Far cry from the 1955 2-seater Thunderbird.

Detroit auto leaders were losing their collective minds. End of rant from and old guy who was there.

I must admit I missed this car. Never would have recognized that and I had absolutely no idea a Thunderbird ever came with suicide doors!!

[sygazelle]

At first I thought I'd share this photo on the LOL photo thread, but then I realized that the humor would be lost on the younger crowd. So, I've chosen this fine thread of older, wiser, and just plain better participants.