General, General Thread Page 728

goto!!

My brother used to do programs on his commodore 64 all the time.

Oh, good times.

Quote: Nil Putters @ July 8 2008, 7:00 PM BST

There were those big 7 inch ones. BBC's used them I think. My school used them for I.T.

Yeah! That must be the ones.

Cor, could have done with 7" Wagon Wheels. Yum.

Quote: PhQnix @ July 8 2008, 7:03 PM BST

Why? Surely a decision to invest in Apple would be a good thing?

why do you think I don't sleep at night

"I've invested in a talking calculator with a body kit!"

Image
Quote: zooo @ July 8 2008, 7:04 PM BST

goto!!

My brother used to do programs on his commodore 64 all the time.

Oh, good times.

Does he know how to get past the dad dragon on puff the magic Dragon?

Quote: Gavin @ July 8 2008, 7:06 PM BST

why do you think I don't sleep at night

"I've invested in a talking calculator with a body kit!"

Image

It's back! Laughing out loud

Quote: Scatterbrained Floozy @ July 8 2008, 7:07 PM BST

It's back! Laughing out loud

Pleased keep em peeled coz I'm gonna discreetly sneak the other "pic" in somewhere in a conversation. lol

Quote: zooo @ July 8 2008, 7:04 PM BST

goto!!

My brother used to do programs on his commodore 64 all the time.

Oh, good times.

Yeah! That must be the ones.

Cor, could have done with 7" Wagon Wheels. Yum.

Count me in (on the wagon wheels). Bet your brother never got any working. Wasted so much of my youth on that crap.

5 cls
10 print"Zoo loves Tennant"
20 goto10

Of course, in class, the print command would 'ave contained some very harsh words about someone in the class. And the 'program' (ha!) would be left running for everyone to see.

And we thought it was amazing. I think I've got more processing power in my phone now. :)

Sorry to totaly nerd out on you guys but check this out!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UcqNvGK

The first floppy disk that I saw was about 30 inches diameter, back in the '70s. It was a storage device for a prototype computer-terminal that was capable of speaking short phrases.the disk floated over a thick aluminium disk with jets of air to make the floppy float.

The device was so delicate & so valuable that it had to have its own airline seat when it was transported to computer conferences.

=====================

But for the floppy disks that you know of.

The first ones were 8 inch diameter, the disk being inside a flexible cardboard/plastic case lined with slippery material so that the disk could spin inside the case, which FREAKED me out as that was a CRAZZZY idea (clearly you could not spin anything with so much friction, withour ripping the floppy disk itself). These original floppies (officially called diskettes) were invented by IBM computer engineers for the purpose of holding diagnostic programs for IBM mainframe computers. I guess they were fed up with carrying stacks of punched cards around. These big floppies were adopted by the early micro-computers (1978-1983) as the only practical cheapish storage device around.

The around 1980 came the new smaller floppy disk drive which used almost exactly the same technology, but with disks of only 5 inches diameter inside the slippery flexible case. As a much more convenient size these rapidly took over from 8 inch floppies. However there were many different formats, hard sectored, soft-sectored, single sided, double-sided, low density & high density. And every diferent kind of CP/M microcomputer formatted them in a different way.

When IBM released the IBM PC, such was the prestige of the IBM name & reputation, that almost all the other manufacturers of computers fell in line and made their floppies compatible with those of IBM and a lot of the chaos subsided.

Then came the 3.5 inch floppy, with which you all are probably more familiar, this has a floppy disk inside a RIGID plastic case, but still lined with slippery stuff so that the disk can spin inside. These came in just a few variants and the formatting was almost all IBM compatible (except Apple Macs).

Nowadays, floppies have been ousted by writable CDs/DVDs and with solid memory USB sticks, so most modern computers do not include a floppy disk drive.

IT engineers like me, still need them sometimes to cope with oddball situations, & some of the Windows server software still needs a floppy disk drive to do a sort of key-disk for a complete backup.

Angelic Angelic Angelic Wave

Was that Greek? It was Greek right?

Yayy! Floppy talk.

Quote: Nil Putters @ July 8 2008, 7:12 PM BST

5 cls
10 print"Zoo loves Tennant"
20 goto10

Awesome. :D

@billwill - Woah. Information overload. ;) Interesting though (honest).

@Gavin - What are we supposed to be looking at. Too many clips!!!!!

Quote: zooo @ July 8 2008, 7:38 PM BST

Yayy! Floppy talk.

Laughing out loud Ok, now we've warmed up lets do HARDdrives.

Not really... pls :S

Quote: Nil Putters @ July 8 2008, 7:38 PM BST

@billwill - Woah. Information overload. ;) Interesting though (honest).

Laughing out loud Ok, now we've warmed up lets do HARDdrives.

Not really... pls :S

Heh, heh..

<BluePetermode>
Here is one I prepared earlier...
take a washing up liquid bottle and... http://www.datahighways.net/support/topic.asp?topic_id=167&forum_id=20
</bluePeterMode>

I just spent 20 minutes getting a spider off my wall.
The worst thing about it was, I knew it was there because I HEARD it walking!

Either you're Superman or you have big spiders. Hmmm. Undecided.

Have you seen the Camel Spider? Has been doing the rounds via email at work. Yuck!!

http://uk.images.search.yahoo.com/search/images;_ylt=A1f4cfgbt3NI4AMAk4RLBQx.?ei=UTF-8&p=camel%20spider&sado=1&rd=r1&fr2=tab-web&fr=yfp-t-501

Pretty nasty if you get bitten by the looks of things. Double yuck!!!!

I'm not looking at that link - no thanks! I'm already paranoid enough now.

Quote: roscoff @ July 8 2008, 7:49 PM BST

Either you're Superman or you have big spiders. Hmmm. Undecided.

The latter! BIG f**ker!