5 Things We Miss About Old-school Computing

[Saint_Michael 3]

1. More RAM Than You Can Handle

 

One early quote often attributed to Bill Gates is that 640KB--that's right, kilobytes--should be enough for any computer user. (He vehemently denies saying it.) We joke about it today, but in 1981 that sentiment would have made sense.

 

The phenomenally popular Apple II and Commodore 64 computers had 48KB and 64KB of system memory, respectively, and the IBM PC's basic configuration had a measly 16KB. Few people complained. For personal computing's first decade, none but the seriously hard-core had to push their system beyond the seemingly limitless 640KB. These days, even 2GB isn't enough to prevent Windows from dipping into the virtual-memory well.

Well what can I say I barely remember the 256MB and I think it was even less with a Packard Bell back in 1995. I did use Apple computers and the C64 but never really thought about what they had in their cases. Well if you really dumb down a computer system and I mean get rid of everything except the bare essentials then maybe. Of course 26 years ago I doubt no one would have expected the way computers have change, and thats including those nasty price tags. I say in another 26 years computers will be so dirt cheap that people would be throwing them out for a new one after they used it for like one day (unlikely).

 

2. Easy, Registry-Free Tweaks

 

Hey, want to tweak your WordPerfect settings? Fire up your favorite text editor and edit the WP.INI file to your heart's content.

 

Prior to Windows 95's introduction of the Registry, editing .INI files was the way to customize your experience on a PC. Sure, some of the parameters seemed arcane, but dealing with them was better than deciphering the enigmatic HKEY_local_machine parameters infesting Windows machines over the last 12 years.

 

The .INI files were also easy to back up, restore, or swap, and messing one up wouldn't take down your entire system. And honestly, did you ever hear of an .INI cleaner? I rest my case.

Well I was just starting out in the computer world when windows 95 came out, and I done some minor ini stuff with a few games later on, but I do agree though that editing the wrong registry would most likely crash your system. However, thats the price you pay for wanting a fast machine that does trillions of operations a minute.

 

3. Software That Goes With You

 

Back when hard drives were expensive (and therefore rare on most PCs), the medium of choice was the floppy disk--which, depending on your operating system, could hold as little as 180KB. Without hard drives, software had to fit on floppies, meaning that applications were reasonably compact and self-contained. You could easily run your programs with your own settings on any compatible computer if you were willing to tote a few disks around. Recent innovations such as the U3 spec for USB drives are just starting to bring that capability back to modern PCs.

Yep I remember doing it the old fashion way, I had a couple of printers that did that and of course the millions of AOL disks that they would send you on a daily basis. Of course having a 1 Gb hard drive meant that you were filthy rich because of how expensive those things were; in the army unit I was in they had these really old laptop computers that only had 1GB hard drive, and we eventually got rid of them. I think the Flash stick software will start becoming bigger later on since flash disks are matching Cd's and DVD's in size, and so I wouldn't be surprise that CDROM drive will get obsolete like the floppy drive, say 10-15 years.

 

4. Lightning-Fast Startups

 

Microsoft has worked hard to keep startup times down for Windows, but let's face it: With all of the drivers, antimalware utilities, and other doodads that load into memory (do you really need that casserole-recipe widget on your desktop?), you can probably make a cup of coffee before you can do anything on your PC.

 

In the old days, either the operating system was built into ROM (so the computer was ready as soon as you flipped the switch) or you loaded it from a disk (which took just a few seconds).

I never really paid attention to this from the beginning so for me that's a tough call, although you put enough junk on your computer you could slow it down to the point that it feels like a 28k modem.

 

5. A Virus? What's That?

 

It's not that malware didn't exist--computer viruses actually predate personal computers--but virus protection wasn't as big a concern as it is now. Running virus scans certainly took less time; since most personal computers lacked hard drives, you could guarantee that a clean floppy would stay uninfected simply by write-protecting it. In a certain sense, an inch of adhesive tape, back then, provided better protection than a battery of antimalware utilities does today.

Well if you know your history computer viruses didn't really become a concern till the 80s when every teenager and college computer nerd started going after military installations and what not. Of course one observation I have made is that virus writing has decline in the last few years as people are making their money in spam and Identity theft, yeah you get a virus or two out there that will do some damage, Melissa anyone? But 15-20 years ago viruses would coming out on a daily basis and so the real computer crimes are the ones that exploit code and steal money.

 

 

SOURCE

[rayzoredge 2]

This was pretty awesome. I first started my computer adventures with a Tandy (or a Commodore 64, if that counts)... can't remember the specs, but after that I jumped into Windows 3.1 with Chip's Challenge.Nostalgic and humorous to read some of these, especially the piece of tape for antivirus protection.

[silver_wolves 0]

gosh, i remember all that! i remember buying 64mb of RAM for my first computer, thinking it was so much and i would never need more. things were a lot simpler back then, i miss that to some extent.

[jlhaslip 4]

Ha! You are forgetting some of my first experiences with computers...1. Don't drop the stack of Punch cards... that was always a problem...2. the teletype would always run out of printer tape or ink just when you were ready to print the code for handing in...3. the Computer Lab would close and log you out at precisely 10 pm for its nightly maintenance... which took 4 hours to backup the system onto 12 inch Tape Drives.4. your cassette recorder would jam or run out of battery power at the most critical times...5. You could not find a decent coffee anywhere near the Computer Labs... and if you left to get one... you lost your place in the line to place your cards into the card reader...Fun times... don't miss it for a minute...

[Saint_Michael 3]

Punch card I though those existed only in fairy tales , heck I think to play Tic-tac-toe in the punch card system was like 60,000 cards or something like that Heck I don't think you want to drop the cards period as they were never numbered in order or something like that. Well luckily for you haslip there is a star bucks every 5 feet from you .

[serverph 0]

ah the good old days

 

although i may add some of the things which got stuck in my consciousness during my earliest exposure to computers and computing:

* those green monitors... (yeah, those crawling letters and characters you can see floating around as results of typing in the keyboard are colored green. they were cool to the eyes, and computers are a novelty that even if they were a bit bland at first, you get used to it.)

* ...which got upgraded to brown/beige/cream monitors (by this time, seeing a monitor that is not green is surprising, and considered "modern". i suppose i fell in love with the earth-color-inspired monitors, since once i used them, i never went back to using green monitors at school. color monitors are a rarity because it was very costly to acquire one, a disadvantage to budget-constrained educational institutions.)

* the C > or C:\> -- that's a C: PROMPT for those who have no notion of what it is called. sometimes also known as the DOS prompt, the command line where all commands are issued. this is where EVERYTHING starts, before you can go using the computers of old for anything. with the dawn of graphic interfaces for operating systems, most notably windows 95, the C: prompt somehow faded into obscurity. nowadays, some users can't even get around the system via the command line since we are now in the age of point and click interfaces. the mouse wasn't even a standard computer peripheral then.

* WORDSTAR! --- the earliest use of computers for me was for writing my essay submissions at school, and WORDSTAR was the software of choice for my word processing. as was the norm, this can be easily fitted in a single floppy disk, with enough room to save up multiple copies of documents. back then, i have even committed every single keystroke commands for wordstar to memory (my brain, not the hardware ) so i can manipulate the results i want to appear for my documents.

* when text-based softwares became passe (and computers got more powerful) i went to a phase of WYSIWYG desktop publishing. i forgot the name of the software i was using then, but it was a blast to see on the monitor what you actually lay out for publication is what actually gets printed out. as i was part of the editorial team for our school newspaper, computers were heaven sent. then came pagemaker. oh what a bliss! my desktop publishing experience actually helped me land my few early gigs for a printing press, which was easy cash back then since they can't afford an inhouse DTP specialist. then i moved on to the more professional projects for a multinational company in the medical field.

* batch programming -- those .BAT files which one can actually program to do random tasks i wish the computer to do at any given time. for the most part, i usually program batch files to initialize the DOS (disk operating system) to perform nifty tricks during startup.

* DOT-MATRIX PRINTERS --- NOISY printers, what can i say. i particularly leave the room when i'm on the printing stage of my documents back then because i can't stand the noise generated by early dot-matrix printers.

* VIRUS -- i actually collected them before, and i nurture them by keeping them safe and warm in my floppy disks, ready to be awakened to spread havoc wherever i want! LOLZ

[smithy500 0]

Well if I take old-school literally my 'old school' didn't have websense which is hard to get on any websites at all. I got past it then I got found out now I'm a restriced user.. I really should stop hacking the system

[Galahad 0]

Oh, when I remember my old Commodore 64... 64Kb of memory... At first, I used a commodore tape drive, to play moslygames, as I was a kid... Later, I got Commodore 1541 floopy drive, and a whole new worlf opened... 5 1/4" floppies, full of wonderfull programms... That were small, tiny, compared to todays standards...I remember programming games with top graphics for my C64... Well, top for that time anyway... And you didn't need any extra hardware, you only connected your C64 to a TV, and you already had color picture and sound...Those were the days...Then killing my eyes on a Hercules cards, first that radio-active shade of green, and later, a modern variant, that was orangy... Playing around in DOS, programming in QB, using Windows 3.1... I made my own shell for Win 3.1, to replace Programm Manager... It was as easy as pouring a glass of water... No regustry, no this or that... Everything worked...I used Word Perfect to write documents... Made my own primitive spreadsheet program... A ton of stuff... I really miss those days... F-Prot would scan my huuuuge 540Mb hard drive in a matter of minutes... I had full 32Mb of RAM... And I could virtually do anything with it... I even miss that EMS/XMS memory chaos... One game wants this much EMS, the other want this much XMS... Editing autoexec.bat and config.sys to make all the neccessary adjustments... Great times... Truely great...

[georgebaileyster 0]

Does nobody remeber using CPM or DRDOS as it later became? Far more advanced than MSDOS. If you had the 8" DSDD floppy drives you get wordstar, Dbase and supercalc on one disk and integrate between them...

[Echo_of_thunder 1]

oh man a topic I can relate too. I do love old school computing. Kind of funny this topic would pop up too. because I happen to be digging around in the basement and found a old Coo Coo lol With a copy of Dos. So brought it upstirs along with a old B&W TV. Yes you got it for a monitor. will fired that puppy up. annd works fine. Even had a few old Dos games in it and a Dos Copy of Juno Mail lol. but on to the topic at hand.1 Dos. so very simple Thank god for copycon.2 Windows 3.1 3 old style modems. 4 When you could get into a chatroom such as AOL Meeting nice and friendly people.5 See 1 thru 4

[k_nitin_r 8]

I would like to add that there was almost always more space on the hard disk drive than one could possibly fill up. I had 80MB on a 386 laptop, and 500MB on an old 486 that I could never fill up. Now, I've got a terabyte of data on external USB hard disk drives and an internal hard disk drive of 80GB that is pretty much full with only 2 GB of free space in which it has a swap file and some temporary data.Later, as we moved to the Pentium age, modems became popular and felt excruciatingly slow that folks would send floppy disks around by snail mail instead of bothering with transfer over modems.

[Xarex 1]

I definitely don't miss the days when a 256 MB stick of RAM cost almost $50. Now you can purchase a 2 GB stick of RAM for nearly the same amount, maybe around $60 these days.I also don't miss the days of dial-up, where you were in the middle of a download and someone would pick up the phone, and you'd lose it all and have to start over. Those days sucked. You can definitely look at the past and see how far we've come. It's really amazing and sad: Sad because you wonder how you ever made it through those times when you thought you were using the most advanced technology in the world, yet it always got better.I guess it's good, but when you buy a computer or laptop, it's already outdated.I do miss the old days, like Echo_of_thunder said, when I could go into a chatroom and speak to real people, make real friends who actually wanted to talk about where they lived and their lives. And a girl who said she was a girl was actually a girl :PI remember when, although the hard drive was small, max size was like 10 GB or so, and you didn't even think about filling it up. Today, I've got a 1 TB hard drive and a 160 GB HD which are both damn nearly full. But I guess that comes with the download speed technology that we have today. When you can download a movie in 10 minutes, or music in 2 minutes, than I guess you are more prone to doing something like that.Today, we are so impatient about things that we had to wait for back then. I remember when even trying to look at an image of a naked girl.. I had to actually wait for the whole picture to download and the pixels to actually become seen.. ugh, wow. Life has changed. Haha.Good times but just shows you our age, that we know this, and our children will wonder what we are talking about.