Sort-of-disposable USB memoery sticks ... made of paper

[Fairportfan]

Could be included in magazines. Tear off, fold twice, plug into USB port.



Also functions wirelessly. Capacity up to 32meg.

Not actually in production yet.

Dammit.

[Jabberwonky]

Okay, that's pretty cool...especially the smart note end of it.

And I still remember people saying "128k of memory? What in the world would you need that much memory for?" when the Commodore 128 came out...

[Fairportfan]

Heh. I remember someone saying "On an Apple II with 48K and assembly language you could rule the world..."

[Mark N]

Heh. I remember someone saying "On an Apple II with 48K and assembly language you could rule the world..."

Probably one of the people that I knew that started on Crystal Palace BBS back in the day.

[NOTDilbert]

Park this discovery next to the disposable cellphone as a magazine insert you found earlier....

[Fairportfan]

Heh. I remember someone saying "On an Apple II with 48K and assembly language you could rule the world..."

Probably one of the people that I knew that started on Crystal Palace BBS back in the day.

Actually, it was in a magazine article about the original Mac's upcoming release ... or maybe it was the PCjr ... one or the other.

[bmonk]

Heh. I remember someone saying "On an Apple II with 48K and assembly language you could rule the world..."

Of course, back in those days, Microsoft was known for being, err, small: very tightly programmed and efficient. Once they had more room to play with, they decided to become one program to rule them all. . . . (apparently mainly by being so big they just filled the available space)

[jwhouk]

Remember the days when application size was everything, so you were taught to code concisely?

[Fairportfan]

Heh. I remember someone saying "On an Apple II with 48K and assembly language you could rule the world..."

Of course, back in those days, Microsoft was known for being, err, small: very tightly programmed and efficient. Once they had more room to play with, they decided to become one program to rule them all. . . . (apparently mainly by being so big they just filled the available space)

Memory bloat started with the PC - PC versions of Apple programs that would run happily in 64K (or even 48K) required 128K or even 256K ... and didn't do anything extra.

[Fairportfan]

Remember the days when application size was everything, so you were taught to code concisely?

Heck. I remember the days when people looked at you funny if your circuit-board layout called for an inverter package instead of using the gate you didn't have any other need for in the quad-NAND package...

[Jabberwonky]

Took a little digging, but I knew I had it somewheres...

1989 Tandy 5000 MC.JPG (42.74 KiB) Viewed 9529 times

"lightning-fast 20MHz,"

(and it's sitting on a desk overlooking Sim City)

[jwhouk]

Those 386's were what I learned to code on.

[Fairportfan]

I worked a year-and-a-half at AMI (yes - the BIOS company), which was founded by the Indian engineers who designed the first working 386 motherboard.

[Mark N]

My first PC was a Tandy 1000 SX. It was an 8088 processor and what Radio Shack called Desk-mate software for a somewhat graphical interface and 2 disk drives but no hard drive (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tandy_1000). Before that I had used friends Apple ][ and first gen Macs

[Atomic]

First computer was an Apple ][ (with one floppy drive and drive card) -- 16K, bought another 32K in memory chips at Radio Shack, then bought the 16K expansion card for a total of 64K! W00t! Later came the improved power supply, fan/power switch, and another card (forget the name) that doubled the system speed. Finally, a printer (and a parallel card), Hayes Micromodem 300, and eventually, a Sider ][ -- 10MB external hard drive (needing a serial card to drive it). Eventually graduated to 14.4K modem and a better (still dot matrix) printer.

Lots of programming, lots of games, lots of dial-up BBS stuff (anybody remember Blue Wave?), and lots of word processing.

PR#6
3D0G
..............

[Fairportfan]

Started with an Apple IIc, got a IIgs, loved it, got shafted royally by Jobs, hate Apple ever since.

[NOTDilbert]

I had a roomie with an Apple ii for a while; after that I started with a Vic 20, then moved up to a Commodore 64. Computer-less for a bit after that; the got a lappy with Win 3.1. All those big plans for little systems - like someone changing clothes in a phone booth who ISN'T Superman......

[Julie]

Took a little digging, but I knew I had it somewheres...
EDITED: Old computer ad
"lightning-fast 20MHz,"

(and it's sitting on a desk overlooking Sim City)

Huh...that one had colors other than green on a black background? The first computers I remember touching were in 2nd grade (which would have been 1989-1990) in a keyboarding class...and they had black screens with green text/images. Then again, now that I think about it, I remember visiting my Uncle Mike's home when I was around that age...maybe a year ot two older...and seeing a color screen computer (my cousin John played Doom on it...and let me play his Where in Time is Carmen Sandiego game on it).

[DinkyInky]

Business school I went to had all Apple, all the time. Amber and green monitors with burnout. The DTP programs were a PitA, but all the newspapers were using them. My dad had over a thousand free credit hours there that he never used due to him going in and fixing all the issues the school had. Three kids and Management job meant no free time.

My Father had a Timex Sinclair 1000 and 2068, TI-99/4A, Amstrad' s, and a few other nerdy bits(apple' s were in the corner for when there was more time to play.
I also remember when Purdue University had a Computer Lab with a single computer in it, and you had to go through a TON of prerequisites to use it. That thing was HUGE. He took me to see it wen I was little, and he said one day we will have pocket sized computers, to which the professor scoffed.

Mother didn't allow a computer in the house for a loooong time, and told from teacher to superintendent where to shove it, as my siblings both could do the work faster than the machines. When she did, we had an Aptiva. My brother shortly got EverQuest on it. Later, Father got me a computer which remained in a box(I talked my brother into putting it together by offering to swap the two gig hard drive for an eight). The only thing other than Dragon Naturally Speaking that I remember about it, was the Riva TNT II and soundblaster card. My wee one still uses the Eastern Digital Speakers for his music.

My current render farm is a blend of Windows and Linux machines, which I persuade to make my pictures whenever I feel tech inspired, otherwise I get brushes, paint, oils, watercolours, and canvas or paper.

Gotta love "disposable" tech...