Microsoft Joke

[Gwylan]

Wow! Do you remember when 'microcomputers' first came out? (pre IBM PC days) There was a WP package called WordStar and you needed a certain technical level just to install it. This was because the monitors were of varying types and emulations and sometimes you had to work out which of these was the 'best approximation': Wyse, Lear-Siegler, Adds Regent, Adds Viewpoint, Hazletine, Hazeltine 1500, etc. I don't think I heard the name 'Wyse' again until today! WordStart let you put in Escape sequences to do things like clear screen etc, but I remember once having to use DDT to patch the .COM (8 bit, before EXEs)

Nowadays of course people just plug a monitor in and expect it to work. Tch. Bloody users.

I remember Wordstar, what a pain that was to use,

Do you remember trying to install a modem in those days? You'd need to know a whole load of stuff about protocols and have an intimate knowledge of the Hayes commands - I remember it taking the best part of a day to get a V.42 modem to work back in 1988.

Sigh ...what memories.

 

[SWD]

ICL in lewes

 

[Dr Breakfast]

Why the buggery bollocks ahs this thread had so many hits

 

[REDLAND]

Why the buggery bollocks ahs this thread had so many hits

What your looking at here Doc is whats know as a Geek sound off, this is where geeks battle it out against each other to prove who has the least amount of socal life,

I'm finding it facinating

 

[ripper]

Ah, but intrepreted languages do not scripts make

Sorry couldn't resist

 

[Digweeds Trousers]

 

[Vankleek Hill Seagull]

Any gum-chewing dimwits out there still using COBOL to maintain ancient mainframe payroll programs?

Nothing wrong with COBOL. It allows me to travel the world, cos todays youngsters don't find it a fashionable language.

 

[Tom Hark Preston Park]

Win.Forms are the encouraged method of interfacing to the GDI under .Net, even if you are writing a VB# application - which is NASTY, as they're designed for C#

Blimey MYOB - were you held hostage in PC World for the last 18 years or something? Seriously spooky

(now cut the crap and post a link to the tomato home delivery site)

 

[Titanic]

Nothing wrong with COBOL. It allows me to travel the world, cos todays youngsters don't find it a fashionable language.

Don't forget to pack your sandals TS!

 

[Brovion]

What your looking at here Doc is whats know as a Geek sound off, this is where geeks battle it out against each other to prove who has the least amount of socal life,

I'm finding it facinating

Just 'cos you can't understand a word we're saying!

Tokyo - CICS Cobol?

 

[Brovion]

I remember Wordstar, what a pain that was to use,

Do you remember trying to install a modem in those days? You'd need to know a whole load of stuff about protocols and have an intimate knowledge of the Hayes commands - I remember it taking the best part of a day to get a V.42 modem to work back in 1988.

Sigh ...what memories.

Ah Comms programming was always great fun. Putting bytes in and out of UARTs - was there any better way to spend a sunny afternoon?

Pity BHAExpress hasn't seen this thread - he remembers acoustic couplers! (Also he tells me there were punch cards that had less than 80 columns but I always thought they were a myth)

 

[Brovion]

..... and do you remember proprietry implementations of RS232? One manufacturer (can't remember the name) swapped the pins around!

Sorry about all this posting but I work on my own 90% of the time and it's nice to chew the cud with fellow professionals!

 

[Titanic]

My First Cobol (sounds like a book title!!) was for DPPX on an IBM 8130.

Then graduate to Cobol for IMS on an IBM 3081.

Then in the mid 80's got out of programming altogether - and into networks, which still keep me amused.

BSC, X25, BTAM, EP then VTAM, NCP etc... and now TCP/IP on assorted mainframes.

 

[Brovion]

My First Cobol (sounds like a book title!!) was for DPPX on an IBM 8130.

Then graduate to Cobol for IMS on an IBM 3081.

Then in the mid 80's got out of programming altogether - and into networks, which still keep me amused.

BSC, X25, BTAM, EP then VTAM, NCP etc... and now TCP/IP on assorted mainframes.

Respect! No cissy web or Internet stuff in that CV!

 

[Titanic]

(better not mention the Websphere or Lotus Domino stuff then)

 

[Cian]

Guess you weren't one of the guys who purchased OS/2 Warp then?

I managed to get a free copy from the IBM research labs at Hursley (near Winchester - that's where the term 'Wincheser Hard Drive came from) and thank god I didn't pay for it. No games worked on it

I got a Thinkpad for my... err... 11th birthday I think, that came preloaded with Warp 4.0.

Still have it, works pretty well with XP even.

 

[Cian]

Seems we've managed to extract the real geek element on here...

COBOL - way before my time. My dad can programme in it though...

I don't remember people swapping RS-232 pins but I do remember some PC company around 1995 boasting about having "Turbo Super I/O" because they'd whacked up the speed of the super i/o chip to get .5Mbit/s through on the serial port. Result: mouse moved too fast in Windows, and other weird problems....

Modems - the days when the init string was anything other than "atz" are thankfully long long gone....

 

[Vankleek Hill Seagull]

Just 'cos you can't understand a word we're saying!

Tokyo - CICS Cobol?

Was. I used to have to deal with BMS screens. What joy that was.

Nowadays we have a Browser front end using CICS as the Transaction Gateway to a COBOL back end using either DB2 or Oracle as our RDBMS.

 

[Cian]

Superb Company. Mac OS X is an excellent Operating System, and far better than Windows.

As for the Ipod/Itunes/ITMS combination, it's a winner.

A combo that works perfectly on Windows and indeed incide Codeweavers Cedega (and hence on Linux and the BSD's)? Not a great reason to buy an OS, is it?

 

[Garry Nelson's Left Foot]

Well, if this thread has done nothing else it has dispelled the myth that all Brighton fans are gay... This thread is far too geeky to be gay!