5 ms·

Now if I can get XEDIT, 370 Assembler, and a Modula 2 compiler, I could recreate my college experience.

by protomyth 4y ago

rbanffy 4y ago
You’ll need a beam spring keyboard. ;-)
- protomyth 4y ago
  I actually have one (or close to it) since we have an old AS/400 terminal in the backroom. We bought a new iSeries and that, sadly, uses a PC as a console terminal.
Koshkin 4y ago
Going back to where you lived before is the best (if not the only) way to cure yourself of nostalgia. (You may or may not want to do that.)
- protomyth 4y ago
  I gotta admit XEDIT was kind of interesting for the left side command area. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XEDIT https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XEDIT
- rbanffy 4y ago
  Not sure I agree completely with that. These were simpler OSs for a simpler time. A lot of what I do today I accomplished in the 80s with an Apple II, a phone line, and a modem. I read emails (we didn’t call them that back then), wrote software, built databases, discussed esoteric topics in BBSs… Even met my first wife online over a Minitel-like system.
  - Koshkin 4y ago
    Sure, but you might lose some of the fondness of those memories if you tried and repeat the same experience today.
    - rbanffy 4y ago
      I routinely do. I have a number of old computers that are still functional. Won’t be writing anything to network drives from the Apple II, but DOS PCs (yuck!) and Macs are fair game.
  - digitalsankhara 4y ago
    Similar for me but on BBC-B Micro. Rose tinted memories perhaps. And replication of that experience now would be a very interesting exercise in patience and acceptance for me. Indeed simpler times. Could I personally go back? As much as technology has given us super fast hardware, very complex and flexible operating systems, GUIs and complex software am I any better off for it? Outside of my professional work where I have to deliver my work within a defined technology stack, I wonder how much I could do without and go back in time. And even then a lot of what I produce professionally resides in text files, so I could originate them on an older system - the key to this is, of course, interconnectivity or a bridging technology. SCSI to USB stick anyone! As much as there is an alternative lifestyle to be had rooted in minimalism and contentment in simpler things (which I aspire to) I am tempted to stop the hyper-driven tech world and get off! Reading the work and enthusiasm of retro-computing people is actually quite inspiring.
    - rbanffy 4y ago
      > And even then a lot of what I produce professionally resides in text files, so I could originate them on an older system - the key to this is, of course, interconnectivity or a bridging technology. SCSI to USB stick anyone! One think I did a lot, which is kind of cheating, is to use X to run the heavy lifting on my Linux box while sitting in front of a Sun. A lot of what we do is just larger versions of what we did before. We call batch processing ETL and use tables instead of tapes, but the ideas are there. And, unlike some MacBooks, a BBC has an ESC key ;-)

Now if I can get XEDIT, 370 Assembler, and a Modula 2 compiler, I could recreate my college experience.

rbanffy 4y ago

You’ll need a beam spring keyboard. ;-)

protomyth 4y ago
I actually have one (or close to it) since we have an old AS/400 terminal in the backroom. We bought a new iSeries and that, sadly, uses a PC as a console terminal.

Koshkin 4y ago

Going back to where you lived before is the best (if not the only) way to cure yourself of nostalgia. (You may or may not want to do that.)

protomyth 4y ago
I gotta admit XEDIT was kind of interesting for the left side command area. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XEDIT https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XEDIT
rbanffy 4y ago
Not sure I agree completely with that. These were simpler OSs for a simpler time. A lot of what I do today I accomplished in the 80s with an Apple II, a phone line, and a modem. I read emails (we didn’t call them that back then), wrote software, built databases, discussed esoteric topics in BBSs… Even met my first wife online over a Minitel-like system.
- Koshkin 4y ago
  Sure, but you might lose some of the fondness of those memories if you tried and repeat the same experience today.
  - rbanffy 4y ago
    I routinely do. I have a number of old computers that are still functional. Won’t be writing anything to network drives from the Apple II, but DOS PCs (yuck!) and Macs are fair game.
- digitalsankhara 4y ago
  Similar for me but on BBC-B Micro. Rose tinted memories perhaps. And replication of that experience now would be a very interesting exercise in patience and acceptance for me. Indeed simpler times. Could I personally go back? As much as technology has given us super fast hardware, very complex and flexible operating systems, GUIs and complex software am I any better off for it? Outside of my professional work where I have to deliver my work within a defined technology stack, I wonder how much I could do without and go back in time. And even then a lot of what I produce professionally resides in text files, so I could originate them on an older system - the key to this is, of course, interconnectivity or a bridging technology. SCSI to USB stick anyone! As much as there is an alternative lifestyle to be had rooted in minimalism and contentment in simpler things (which I aspire to) I am tempted to stop the hyper-driven tech world and get off! Reading the work and enthusiasm of retro-computing people is actually quite inspiring.
  - rbanffy 4y ago
    > And even then a lot of what I produce professionally resides in text files, so I could originate them on an older system - the key to this is, of course, interconnectivity or a bridging technology. SCSI to USB stick anyone! One think I did a lot, which is kind of cheating, is to use X to run the heavy lifting on my Linux box while sitting in front of a Sun. A lot of what we do is just larger versions of what we did before. We call batch processing ETL and use tables instead of tapes, but the ideas are there. And, unlike some MacBooks, a BBC has an ESC key ;-)