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[David]

It is truly nice to read the stories of the true Internet pioneers!

I was rather late to game myself, when my boss dumped a DEC PDP/11/23 on my desk (it was around 1979 I think) - it was hooked up to many buildings and controlled the HVAC systems in them via a 300 baud modem, running on leased telephone lines. It turned out to be an eye opener for me, and a jump into the future.

[jhollington]

Heh, it's very cool to see that there are some real old-timers around here.... I like to point out to a lot of folks that I've been on the Internet since before most people knew there was an "Internet" ("...no, kids, the world wide web is not the 'Internet' " ), but I was definitely later to the game than you guys — my first "real" modem was a blazing fast 1200 baud Hayes (although my dad had a 300bps acoustic coupler in his office).

I cut my teeth on a Z80-based CP/M system I built myself, and I well remember DOS 1.0 (no subdirectories!), but I'm humbled by you guys who had to deal with 3270 terminals and most likely punch cards

Since I was still in my teens in the eighties, most of what I encountered was hobbyist, so I was monkeying with my own computer stuff and getting into the old FidoNet BBS network. The best I could get in terms of the "real" Internet in those days was a dial-up UUCP gateway into a non-local University connection.

I did a small bit of 3270 and AS/400 work when I started my professional career, but most of my work was centred around PC networks, back when Novell was a contender and Windows NT was still merely a gleam in Microsoft's eyes.

[Deano]

My first computer was a KayPro, 1979, I toted it with me to distant places and was forever trying to find a dial-up. I also had a DaisyWriter printer, which I bet some of you remember as the "cadillac" of printers, soon to disappear because they were so unaffordable.

[BritTim]

Originally Posted by jhollington

Heh, it's very cool to see that there are some real old-timers around here.... I like to point out to a lot of folks that I've been on the Internet since before most people knew there was an "Internet" ("...no, kids, the world wide web is not the 'Internet' " ), but I was definitely later to the game than you guys — my first "real" modem was a blazing fast 1200 baud Hayes (although my dad had a 300bps acoustic coupler in his office).

I cut my teeth on a Z80-based CP/M system I built myself, and I well remember DOS 1.0 (no subdirectories!), but I'm humbled by you guys who had to deal with 3270 terminals and most likely punch cards

Since I was still in my teens in the eighties, most of what I encountered was hobbyist, so I was monkeying with my own computer stuff and getting into the old FidoNet BBS network. The best I could get in terms of the "real" Internet in those days was a dial-up UUCP gateway into a non-local University connection.

I did a small bit of 3270 and AS/400 work when I started my professional career, but most of my work was centred around PC networks, back when Novell was a contender and Windows NT was still merely a gleam in Microsoft's eyes.

I have some punched card war stories, but cards were way preferable to punchred tape. Imagine a fragile reel of paper tape, a bit over half an inch wide, that you must feed through a tape reader to load your compiler (actually, you most load two of them). The slightest nick or crease in the tape renders it useless, and has you scrambling to find one of the backups (guess how long that takes when your time on the machine expires in 25 minutes, and you are up against a tight deadline!)

[n5bb]

As we continue off-topic ...

• The first computer I programmed was an Olivetti Programma 101 in high school in 1969 or 1970.
• A couple of years later I used a Teletype Model 33 with acoustic coupler 110 baud modem in a Fortran programming class. We used a CDC6400/CDC6600 supercomputer at the University of Texas at Austin. When I was a University of Texas engineering student, I used punched cards, Model 33 Teletype, and a CRT terminal to program that same CDC6400/CDC6600 computer.
• I found a few images related to old small computers. The PRINT-OUT was the newsletter of the Central Texas Computer Association. I was one of the founding members when the club incorporated in early 1977, and my name is there on the incorporation documents.
• The first computer I purchased was a Commodore PET 2001 (in January 1978). I believe it was the first unit shipped to Texas.
• I later purchased a Radio Shack Color Computer (which used a 6809 microprocessor).
• Then I purchased a Zenith Z-89 computer, which ran the HDOS and CP/M 8-bit operating systems.
• Later I owned a small business selling and repairing Heathkit/Zenith computers. I owned several Z-100 series of MS-DOS (but not IBM PC-compatible) computers, as well as Zenith PC-compatible computers.
• This was all 30-47 years ago.

Bill