Early wood “Machining”

[Bruce Page]

I thought I’d get a chuckle out of you guys before I cannibalize this for the electronics. I made this PC Monitor thingamajig in the early 80’s shortly after I got my first milling machine - and 14” COLOR monitors were all the rage. As I recall, it was a little tricky getting the push-on, push-off power switches just right. :rolleyes:
We used it for 10 or so years before getting a larger 19” monitor. It’s been gathering dust in a closet ever since. Oh yeah, red oak & walnut...

OK, you can laugh now. :D

[Gary Herrmann]

I like it! Where the heck were you when I bought my XT?

[Vaughn McMillan]

You had speakers on your PC in the 80s? Man, you were cutting edge. Then or now, I still like the speaker grilles, even if you did cheat with a milling machine. ;)

- Vaughn

[Lee DeRaud]

You had speakers on your PC in the 80s? Man, you were cutting edge.No kidding, especilly considering that the monitors and speakers of that vintage weren't magnetically shielded:
"Neat screen-saver, Bruce!"
"Uh, that's Wordperfect, dude..."

[Tyler Howell]

Reminds me of some of the mods for my Comador Pet with 12" screen. 16k of RAM, I beefed up to a whopping 32K.:eek: IEEE488 bus.

Loaded everything via cassette, finally advanced to a dual 8" floppy.:cool:
20 electronic techs, engineers, and bit heads got a group buy.
There was more share ware, mods and upgrades flying around the office than you could shake a stick at.:eek:
A couple pirates too as I recall:rolleyes: .
My Engineer daughter still has it running to show her bit head friends. What her antique dad used way back when.;)

[Jim Becker]

That was very clever, Bruce! It's very "altar" like, too!

And Tyler, the first computer I ever learned to use was a Commodore Pet...with the original "chicklet" keyboard. IEEE488 was pretty advanced stuff, too, compared to the connection methodology the "competitors" were using at the time...

[Bruce Page]

You had speakers on your PC in the 80s? Man, you were cutting edge. Then or now, I still like the speaker grilles, even if you did cheat with a milling machine. ;)

- Vaughn
The more I think about it, it was probably mid to late 80's (the memory is the first thing to go..) I do remember paying almost $1100 for one meg of RAM for my Compac PC!

[Rich Torino]

I'm thinking museum....

[Chip Charnley]

My first computer was an Exidy Sorceror with a slot in the side where you could plug in an 8-track cartridge with a ard edge exposed for BASIC and other things on ROM. Eventually had 64K RAM and dual 8" floppies attached! :-)

However, A story from the same time frame that a friend of mine never lets me forget (and understand I have work in computers for 2+ years now with an MSCS) will give a few a chuckle. He was getting ready to buy an Apple II (which I later bought from him and still have). He was agonizing over whether or not to spend the extra money to buy the memory expansion from 48K RAM to 64K RAM when I told him "Get the 64K RAM. Once you do you will never have to worry about buying more RAM as 64K RAM is all the RAM you will ever need on a personal computer.":eek: So, what's the average personal computer got for RAM today? 512meg? 1gig? A hell of a lot more than 64K he assures me every time I see him. :rolleyes: :D

[Daniel Heine]

I canb remember buying my first hard drive. I paid $350.00 for it, and it held a whopping 10MB of storage. I thought I had the sweetest setup of all: Commodore 64, 10Mb hard drive, color monitor, and my new lighteninh speed 300 baud modem!!! Downloads ran overnight for most files. This past weekend I was at the Tiger Direct outlet store in Orland Park, IL, and they had a 250Gb hard drive, OEM packaging for only $79.00. I sure had fun on that old Commodore tho!!!!
:D :)

[Ed Lang]

Anyone remember the Ohio Scientific 6502 micro processor based machine? That was my first machine when I was in high school. Tape interface that 20 mins to load BASIC!. Later upgraded to a single 8" floppy at $1K Never got a hard disk for that machine. Anyone remember the first Votrac unit?

I also played 78's but never did the wax cylinder thing.

[Roy Bennett]

First computer - Wang 720C w/ 8 nixie tube display. I/O via a IBM Selectric typwriter.

Second involvement with computers - an Interdata Model 12 with 8K of magnetic core memory. The I/O device was a Teletype with a 10 cps tape reader. CPU had 16 LED's for its display (8 address/8 data)

[Frank Chaffee]

Cool cabinet Bruce,
I came in at the end of the Honeywell and Sperry Rand era, certainly well after ENIAC, but I (as a common laborer), schlepped tons and tons of punch cards and tape reels and perfory paper printout between programming and mainframe sites, OUAT.

Control Data Corporation, Burroughs, and International Business Machines were the biggies then, and I remember organizing storerooms that had lots of heavy gauge wire and cumbersome circuit boards.

The on-site people from those corps (now mostly corpses), all wore identifiable uniforms, suits and shoes that would keep them warm in the super-cooled environs that their machines required to crunch data, or whatever it is that they crunched to make this modern world.

I just know that I would love to get a source for the floating floor systems they used to support those banks of gargantuan machines above the distribution lines of copper wire and very cold AC ducting.

Could make a very good floor for a woodworking shop!

Frank

[Joe Mioux]

My first computer at work was an IBM AT(or xt, whichever was smaller) with two floppy drives; Drive A for the programs and Drive B for data. A 300 baud modem. I remember working with the freelance writers for the magazine and us setting up computer to computer downloads. At 300 baud, I read the stories.

Then we went big time with a Hayes 1200 baud modem. The IT guys at work used to brag about the 9600 baud modems that they used (at their previous jobs) to use at Monsanto.

Oh the days.....

Doesn't it seem like this old technology should belong in the 1950's rather than just the 1980's?

Back then did any of you use Volkswriter or Data Capture?

Joe

[Tom Sontag]

I remember using Lotus 123 with the program in one 8" floppy drive and saving the file to another. Then, the guy down the hall got a machine (IBM AT?) that actually had a hard drive!! Wow!

[Bruce Page]

Cool cabinet Bruce,
I came in at the end of the Honeywell and Sperry Rand era, certainly well after ENIAC, but I (as a common laborer), schlepped tons and tons of punch cards and tape reels and perfory paper printout between programming and mainframe sites, OUAT.

Control Data Corporation, Burroughs, and International Business Machines were the biggies then, and I remember organizing storerooms that had lots of heavy gauge wire and cumbersome circuit boards.

The on-site people from those corps (now mostly corpses), all wore identifiable uniforms, suits and shoes that would keep them warm in the super-cooled environs that their machines required to crunch data, or whatever it is that they crunched to make this modern world.

I just know that I would love to get a source for the floating floor systems they used to support those banks of gargantuan machines above the distribution lines of copper wire and very cold AC ducting.

Could make a very good floor for a woodworking shop!

Frank
Boy Frank, I bet you could tell some stories!

[Frank Chaffee]

Boy Frank, I bet you could tell some stories!
Well Bruce,
Fact of the matter is, that was the sixties, and I didn’t take very good notes, and frankly I forgot some of the key… well actually *all*, of the key facts about computing in that age.
…But I sure remember the nice grid of floor panels that supported main frame components and the battery/electric movers that positioned them.
I would love to get a hold of that stuff for my shop!
Bruce, that you were able to do such fine woodworking as well as build computers, way back when, is something I admire.
Thanks for sharing your piece of the history,
Frank