Data. How things have changed

[barryd]

Barry, you are only a spring chicken compared to many people on here.
Some of us remember computers before they were even called "computers". And before that time, "computers" were actually PEOPLE - it was a job title/role, not a thing, and were most commonly women.

Oh yes that is true. I've never really known a working world or even a teenage world without them really. Although at school we only had a handful of BBC Micros that only the real egg heads were allowed to use. They wouldn't let me anywhere near them. They fascinated me from an early age though and my uncle worked for Olivetti in the 70s until he passed away in the noughties and it was him that pushed me into it.
When you were a teenager and all this stuff came out like the zx81 and Spectrum it was an amazing time. Films like War Games and Tron only added to the glamour (maybe the wrong word) and excitement. When I figured out you could make a decent living out of them that was a bit of a light bulb moment as well. Right age, right time I guess very much helped by my nutty uncle of course. It was all quite a ride really.

There is a great drama series called Halt and Catch fire which might interest some of you IT buffs.

Halt and Catch Fire (TV series) - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[Nabsim]

Not forgetting Dial Up on a 9600 baud rate modem, ah, those were the days, listening to them struggle with an email, easier to send a Fax.

Not too many had dial up in a van either

 

[Nabsim]

Oh yes that is true. I've never really known a working world or even a teenage world without them really. Although at school we only had a handful of BBC Micros that only the real egg heads were allowed to use. They wouldn't let me anywhere near them. They fascinated me from an early age though and my uncle worked for Olivetti in the 70s until he passed away in the noughties and it was him that pushed me into it.
When you were a teenager and all this stuff came out like the zx81 and Spectrum it was an amazing time. Films like War Games and Tron only added to the glamour (maybe the wrong word) and excitement. When I figured out you could make a decent living out of them that was a bit of a light bulb moment as well. Right age, right time I guess very much helped by my nutty uncle of course. It was all quite a ride really.

There is a great drama series called Halt and Catch fire which might interest some of you IT buffs.

Halt and Catch Fire (TV series) - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

We had a computer at one school I went to in around 1967, it was a punch card system. The lesson would consist of deciding what problem to set, punching it out on a card then queuing up to run the card through the ‘computer’. You got a card with the result stamped in then took that back to the classroom to get the answer.

Seems old fashioned now BUT we installed a state of the are computer control system onto a Swedish asphalt plant we had outside Buxton, (I was asphalt/technical then not IT) in around 1995. A4 size plastic cards and a punch machine. We had ‘recipe books’ for the operator that showed what holes to punch for load size and weight if it was a first run of the combination lol

Halt & Catch Fire was a brilliant series as well

 

[r4dent]

Okay Okay, when I was at school in the late 50's all we had was a floor to sit on, a Slate to write on and bit of chalk.

But did you have ink wells?

I was an ink monitor, but deep down I wanted to be the milk monitor

 

[barryd]

Not too many had dial up in a van either

Actually you kind of could have by the late 90s. I remember setting up a system for one of our Franchisees who wanted to access his CRM / EPOS in the UK when he was away in the south of France. It was an extremely thin client system as were a lot of them then before developers assumed everyone had super fast data connections so we loaded the client software on his suitcase size chunky laptop and used his Nokia mobile as a modem to make the connection to the system in the centre up in Scotland. Expensive as you were using a direct dial connection between France and the UK which back in the 90s wasnt cheap but it worked a treat. The packets of data going backwards and forwards were tiny as all the software was loaded on his laptop (Thin client). You could have used it to browse the net I guess as well but probably not as effectively although thats something else thats massively grown in bandwidth. I remember when the general norm was not to put up images on websites over 50k in size! A modern website on a 90s or 2000s connection would take half a day to load now.

 

[trevskoda]

My first home built PC had dial up and win xp, after fighting with it i gave up and sold on, later restarted on a second pc running ubuntu with a proper modem, never looked back, safe secure fast, and easy for a numpty like me.

 

[Nabsim]

Actually you kind of could have by the late 90s. I remember setting up a system for one of our Franchisees who wanted to access his CRM / EPOS in the UK when he was away in the south of France. It was an extremely thin client system as were a lot of them then before developers assumed everyone had super fast data connections so we loaded the client software on his suitcase size chunky laptop and used his Nokia mobile as a modem to make the connection to the system in the centre up in Scotland. Expensive as you were using a direct dial connection between France and the UK which back in the 90s wasnt cheap but it worked a treat. The packets of data going backwards and forwards were tiny as all the software was loaded on his laptop (Thin client). You could have used it to browse the net I guess as well but probably not as effectively although thats something else thats massively grown in bandwidth. I remember when the general norm was not to put up images on websites over 50k in size! A modern website on a 90s or 2000s connection would take half a day to load now.

It wasn’t dial up though was it Barry?didn’t it use WAP?

 

[matbic]

If you are fed up with SIM cards and satellites can I recommend short wave radio! It’s not fast 300 bits/second is good going. You will need at least 40A at 12v when transmitting and a very big antenna. Also only works well when the solar wind is low and behind you.

You will need one of these: https://www.pactor4.com/

But apart from that it’s unlimited bandwidth!

 

[colinm]

We had a computer at one school I went to in around 1967, it was a punch card system.

You had a computer at school in 67! That was a posh school, we where told computers existed and we would all be retiring early as computers would do all the work.

 

[guerdeval]

But did you have ink wells?

I was an ink monitor, but deep down I wanted to be the milk monitor

I was milk monitor at junior and senior schools, those little bottles all popping their tops off in winter and melting them on the cast iron radiators, I must have drank minimum 2 pints a day throughout my schooling which probably led to having parathyroids removed to deal with excess calcium later in life

 

[wildebus]

Actually you kind of could have by the late 90s. I remember setting up a system for one of our Franchisees who wanted to access his CRM / EPOS in the UK when he was away in the south of France. It was an extremely thin client system as were a lot of them then before developers assumed everyone had super fast data connections so we loaded the client software on his suitcase size chunky laptop and used his Nokia mobile as a modem to make the connection to the system in the centre up in Scotland. Expensive as you were using a direct dial connection between France and the UK which back in the 90s wasnt cheap but it worked a treat. The packets of data going backwards and forwards were tiny as all the software was loaded on his laptop (Thin client). You could have used it to browse the net I guess as well but probably not as effectively although thats something else thats massively grown in bandwidth. I remember when the general norm was not to put up images on websites over 50k in size! A modern website on a 90s or 2000s connection would take half a day to load now.

I used to use my Nokia 6110 (?) to connect the laptop up to get my work email when about. Would have been 9600 baud and probably quite expensive? (co. phone so not my problem).
One problem with things getting bigger and faster .... coders got lazy and didn't have to work to optimize code at all. I remember when my dept at work all got new computers - 40MB hard drives! And bear in mind I worked for a very big computer manufacturer. (I kept hold of my old PC as it had a 190MB Drive (massive at the time and was a prototype I got off an old colleague from a storage company)).
A 40MB hard drive wouldn't even give enough room for a video driver nowadays!! And going back to modems, back then you would have to dial up to a specific companies system for updates .. a Video driver on a fast dialup 19,200 baud V.92 connection would be around 1MB is size and take an hour to download.

 

[Pudsey Bear]

Barry, you are only a spring chicken compared to many people on here.
Some of us remember computers before they were even called "computers". And before that time, "computers" were actually PEOPLE - it was a job title/role, not a thing, and were most commonly women.

We just watched a film about them last week David, it was really good and showed how black folk were treated badly even in the 60's.

Hidden Figures - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[barryd]

It wasn’t dial up though was it Barry?didn’t it use WAP?

No. The mobile connected to the laptop with a cable and worked as a modem. You set up a dialup networking connection in Windows 95/98 and it literally phoned the computer in Scotland where his office was that made the connection.

 

[Pudsey Bear]

But did you have ink wells?

I was an ink monitor, but deep down I wanted to be the milk monitor

Stupid boy

 

[barryd]

I used to use my Nokia 6110 (?) to connect the laptop up to get my work email when about. Would have been 9600 baud and probably quite expensive? (co. phone so not my problem).
One problem with things getting bigger and faster .... coders got lazy and didn't have to work to optimize code at all. I remember when my dept at work all got new computers - 40MB hard drives! And bear in mind I worked for a very big computer manufacturer. (I kept hold of my old PC as it had a 190MB Drive (massive at the time and was a prototype I got off an old colleague from a storage company)).
A 40MB hard drive wouldn't even give enough room for a video driver nowadays!! And going back to modems, back then you would have to dial up to a specific companies system for updates .. a Video driver on a fast dialup 19,200 baud V.92 connection would be around 1MB is size and take an hour to download.

Yep. I can remember us downloading games at work from bulletin boards on modems and they took an absolute age to download and that was if you got the handshaking right. ISDN was a massive improvement and ADSL a game changer. I was selling 1/4 of a meg 256 broadband in 2001/2 when it first came out at £50 a month and £750 to install it and a few extras. It paid for my house.

 

[wildebus]

Yep. I can remember us downloading games at work from bulletin boards on modems and they took an absolute age to download and that was if you got the handshaking right. ISDN was a massive improvement and ADSL a game changer. I was selling 1/4 of a meg 256 broadband in 2001/2 when it first came out at £50 a month and £750 to install it and a few extras. It paid for my house.

ISDN was a major improvement indeed. Allowed for at-the-desk Video Conferencing for the first time.
Nowadays it is all automatic and easy with Facetime, Zoom and all that stuff and people don't give it a second thought. Back in the 90's, as well as the ISDN card, there was special video cards, cameras and all that kind of stuff. I think the setup we did for another Oil Company cost an extra £5k (back the) for the kit and a complicated production line testing.

 

[Nabsim]

You had a computer at school in 67! That was a posh school, we where told computers existed and we would all be retiring early as computers would do all the work.

It had been donated to the school by a local company, I was thinking the school was in Ashby but just having a Google it is in Shepshed, (was then Hind Leys secondary school).

 

[Nabsim]

No. The mobile connected to the laptop with a cable and worked as a modem. You set up a dialup networking connection in Windows 95/98 and it literally phoned the computer in Scotland where his office was that made the connection.

Ok, I seem to remember doing similar but what I was doing was only direct dial, it wouldn’t connect to the internet unless you had a connection from the target computer. I had forgotten all about the direct connection in the early days with mobile and laptop. Mind, I have managed to forget most of what I knew lol

 

[r4dent]

I was milk monitor at junior and senior schools, I must have drank minimum 2 pints a day throughout my schooling.

That is why I aspired to be a milk monitor.

I did have all the ink I could drink, but it wasn't the same.

 

[barryd]

ISDN was a major improvement indeed. Allowed for at-the-desk Video Conferencing for the first time.
Nowadays it is all automatic and easy with Facetime, Zoom and all that stuff and people don't give it a second thought. Back in the 90's, as well as the ISDN card, there was special video cards, cameras and all that kind of stuff. I think the setup we did for another Oil Company cost an extra £5k (back the) for the kit and a complicated production line testing.

The print and design Franchise I worked at in the 90s had a network of 300 centres across the UK and before email and the internet they put in these disk fax machines. I got into hot bother with one of the major share holders for saying it was a crap idea as ISDN and the Internet was just around the corner (A bloke called Richard Raworth, Sophie Raworths dad). They spend £300k on these machines which were basically modems that would send the contents of a disk from one site to another.


There was 4 Sight ISND Manager as well which was pretty good and much faster (about £1500 in 1995). When that came out the owners invited me down to Bournemouth on a lavish jolly to see if they could get it into all our centres. They made a fortune out of that as all the newspapers were using it. The internet and email very soon after made all of this stuff redundant so of course I was right (as always)

Still someone trying to flog one though.

Vintage Mac Software 4Sight ISDN Manager 4 for networks | eBay

A great Mac Collectors Item. This software was around £1400 to buy when new.

www.ebay.co.uk