Lurkers Are Bangshifters Too

[pdub]

Back in '12 I got a PM from a guy named Erik. As of today, like TODAY, his screen name is showing post count 0. Zero. He signed up just to send me a PM, and I got another one from him yesterday, after the years.

On some thread in the now-ancient past, I made mention of a computer game, a business simulation game I wrote for the Commodore 64 back in 1983. Shovel Factory. Erik's original PM from '12 said he loved playing that game as a kid, his dad had bought it for the 64 and he really enjoyed playing it. He asked if it was available in some other newer format. Which is amazing because I sold a total of 20 copies of that game on mail order via a very expensive magazine ad and we lost our ass. My brother and I were financial partners in that venture. I'll bet he won't do that again, partner with me.

Yesterday, Erik said he might could figure out how to post the game up on some sort of a shared web thing that features "classic" Commodore 64 games, reformatted to run on real computers. I said go for it. Whoever can enjoy it, if you can do it. And tell everybody you have my permission to use it.

How cool, whatta blast from the past. And all to say...BangShifters, even if they don't ever say anything on the big screen, are the greatest people in the world. Just sayin. How so very cool.

[Barry Donovan]

would love to see that game.

I got into writing, but for math.
I collapsed functions into reverse to go forward and retreated.
I still have a scripting language.

I remember numbers being limited, 16 bit, 32bit, 64bit.
I made this very small program that added commas and a dollar sign at the beginning of the number.
the only thing that ran out was the screen.

computers, dumbest human ever.

[pdub]

computers, dumbest human ever.

My brother, he had a VIC 20. Was over at his house, maybe the first computer I ever saw. He had written a little program that would calculate your monthly mortgage payment based on interest.

I was flabbergasted....you TOLD that thing to do that?!?!? How did you do that? He said he programmed it.

Wow, that did it for me, got a VIC 20 and then a Commodore 64 and bought an instructional program for Commodore BASIC language at WalMart I think, on cassette tape, how to program the 64. It was mostly algebra. And all of us in high school wondered what the hell good algebra would ever do us in real life.

[Barry Donovan]

that is very old computing. I had one uncle in the 70s doing something with one.
I was a small kid.

I was hurled at some apple computing, and a guy I swear was the clone of the older hippy steve jobs was talking to us and parents, very enthused speaker.
We played hangman type game.

that was very early 80s. Rhode Island.
I can't say as I liked the work it took, B floppy intermittent.... so very slow.

I then got a TRS80 from radio shack, 1985. Dialed out on the 9600 baud to a local phone switch.
A man in black showed up to the front door...
went after my dad at first. He then had to explain it was the 13 yr old boy doing the "hacking".

I thought the firster paranoid stuff was done, then found myself at it again, air force computers. 1992.
large secret network for aircraft maintenance.(crew chief -"basic" secret clearance)

1996, helped run the first fiber optic at UMO orono maine. Hand ground perpendicular connections. Ethernet.
the phone switch room was combination of manual hookups, thousand upon thousand of pairs on several walls.
A basic computer told us where to hook up for certain individual phones.
Machines quickly took all that over.

My first big computer was the pentium 2 350...1998.
I was then a beta tester for the worlds biggest attempt at networking online games.
Half Life 1 and counterstrike.
I played with russians with 300ms lag...3 am eastern time.

That dial in was hacked from day one. I even ran a rare thing called shotgun. dual modems. No security, wild west of the computers. Bailed by a newfound company called ebay in 1999, and not long after was Amazon. They helped verify real id...gov't did something anonymous to finalize my real path.
Been there ever since. 17 years ebay.
Amazon was my first credit line.

I also remember overclocking an athlon 900 to 1013mhz...1999.
I was among the first in the documented world within weeks, to reach 1ghz at home.
motherboard: kt7a

Been building my own ever since.
I took a penium4 to 70000 hours.
90watts for 70000 hours. A lot of juice...and heat. that 90 was just the cpu.
the cost was more than my truck when said and done.
took about 7 years.

I have a 3.8ghz four core Xeon in a custom box today.
Pretending to be a lenovo.(it actually is a lenovo)
Custom cooling, impressive machine.

Not sure where I am headed. I seem to be plateau'd.. just going with the modern cruise.

[Beagle]

1985 , 9600 baud? Errrr.....did you hop into the DeLorean with Marty McFly and time travel into the 90's and then sneak back to 1985 with that modem?

[DanStokes]

I didn't understand any of this back then. Still don't. Anyhow have a wrench or maybe a welder?

Dan

[Dan Barlow]

Yeah , I'm a lurker over at Pro-touring.com. You guys should be so lucky !

[Monster]

1985 , 9600 baud? Errrr.....did you hop into the DeLorean with Marty McFly and time travel into the 90's and then sneak back to 1985 with that modem?

That is funny stuff right there ... I don't think they had 4800bps in 1985, wasn't it more like 1800 ?

[SuperBuickGuy]

Technology Rate Rate ex. overhead Year
Morse code (skilled operator) 0.021 kbit/s[4] 4 characters per second (~40 wpm)[5] 1844
Modem 110 baud (Bell 101) 0.11 kbit/s 0.010 kB/s (~10 cps)[6] 1959
Modem 300 (300 baud; Bell 103 or V.21) 0.3 kbit/s 0.03 kB/s (~30 cps)[6] 1962[7]
Modem 1200 (600 baud; Bell 212A or V.22) 1.2 kbit/s 0.12 kB/s (~120 cps)[6] 1976
Modem 1200/75 (600 baud; V.23) 1.2/0.075 kbit/s 0.12/0.0075 kB/s (~120 cps)[6] 1988 [8]
Modem 2400 (600 baud; V.22bis) 2.4 kbit/s 0.3 kB/s[6] 1988 [8]
Modem 4800 (1600 baud; V.27ter) 4.8 kbit/s 0.6 kB/s[6] 1988 [8]
Modem 9600 (2400 baud; V.32) 9.6 kbit/s 1.2 kB/s[6] 1989[7]
Modem 14.4 (2400 baud; V.32bis) 14.4 kbit/s 1.8 kB/s[6] 1991[7]
Modem 28.8 (3200 baud; V.34-1994) 28.8 kbit/s 3.6 kB/s[6] 1994
Modem 33.6 (3429 baud; V.34-1996/98) 33.6 kbit/s 4.2 kB/s[6] 1996[8]
Modem 56k (8000/3429 baud; V.90) 56.0/33.6 kbit/s[9] 7/4.2 kB/s 1998
Modem 56k (8000/8000 baud; V.92) 56.0/48.0 kbit/s[9] 7/6 kB/s 2001
Modem data compression (variable; V.92/V.44) 56.0–320.0 kbit/s[9] 7–40 kB/s 2000[8]
ISP-side text/image compression (variable) 56.0–1000.0 kbit/s 7–125 kB/s 1998[8]
ISDN Basic Rate Interface (single/dual channel) 64/128 kbit/s[10] 8/16 kB/s 1986[11]
IDSL (dual ISDN + 16 kbit/s data channels) 144 kbit/s 18 kB/s 2000[12]

[SuperBuickGuy]

and I lol'd at .021 kbit/s for morse code operator.

I was contrarian back then too, my first computer was a TRS80 Color Computer that I installed a custom keyboard, made my own board so that I could use a floppy disk drive with the computer and a video card so that I could run my amazing Red screen monitor .... all in that way back year of 1984....

[SuperBuickGuy]

1985 , 9600 baud? Errrr.....did you hop into the DeLorean with Marty McFly and time travel into the 90's and then sneak back to 1985 with that modem?

Even Wiki says you're wrong... 1989 buddy. Don't make me bring Julien to come open a can of bits on your keyboard.

[studemax]

I played with computers early, but never became a nerd about them. My first one used DIP switches to control it, and had a cassette tape player for memory storage. The computer was about the size of my current modem. Then a Commodore, and Amiga, then an Apple IIC with a big 2 floppy disc slots (woo-hoo!).Then there was an Acer, and something else. This was all before I went on the internet - mostly played flying games and wrote articles, newsletters, and letters.

Only took the dive into the net about 15 years ago. I still visit the first website I ever logged onto on a daily basis - landracing.com....

[Deaf Bob]

Went big! Commadore 128!
Just when they were on the way out..
Bought a drafting program to use for community college... Lol.. Got laughed out of the labs.. I had better color and screens but nothing worked!
Now? Ipad! Iphone!