Livaslou AkohNov 29, 2022
Another Angry Woman

"waah waaah mastodon is slow and glitchy sometimes, how can you bear it"

bitch I grew up with dial up. I scrolled endlessly through the hampster dance, half the jpegs broken. I spent an hour looking for and downloading a simple mp3. I waited my 54 minutes to continue watching a ropey stream of true blood with unsynced audio. I still use tumblr. you are like tiny baby

Nov 29, 2022 at 3:11pmWeb
Show threadAnthonyUplandpoetWatkinsNov 29, 2022
@stavvers
Yeah, programming with punch cards was a bear…:) >old guy here
Show threadAbraNov 29, 2022
@AnthonyUplandpoetWatkins @stavvers UCI got rid of cards the year before I took a computer class. I’m still grateful.
Show threadmarkfrombethesdaNov 29, 2022
@AnthonyUplandpoetWatkins @stavvers JCL here
//FT08f001 blah blah until col80
Show threadAnthonyUplandpoetWatkinsNov 29, 2022
@markmorgan @stavvers pretty much:) in fairness i got the tail end of punchcards, but i did spend my college years with a typewriter phone cradle interface to the mainframe. somehow i bet my laptop is much more powerful than that whole building full of tape machines...
Show threadmarkfrombethesdaNov 29, 2022
@AnthonyUplandpoetWatkins @stavvers absolutely. Things have advanced pretty quickly.
Show threadPugthugNov 30, 2022
@AnthonyUplandpoetWatkins @markmorgan @stavvers When I first started in IT half the computer room was taken up by one mainframe computer that had less power and speed than my cell phone.
Show threadAnthonyUplandpoetWatkinsNov 30, 2022
@cjcrew @markmorgan @stavvers
I never saw our main frame. I just dialed it up with the telephone cradle.
Show threadRain EricksonNov 30, 2022

@AnthonyUplandpoetWatkins @markmorgan @stavvers yes.

My phone is more powerful today.

Show threadLeon BambrickNov 30, 2022
@AnthonyUplandpoetWatkins @stavvers oh luxury what I wouldn’t have given to put my code on decks of punch cards. When I was a youngun we wrote our laws on stone tablets, straight from Yahweh Himself!
Show threadAnthonyUplandpoetWatkinsNov 30, 2022
@secretgeek @stavvers
but did you live in a shoebox in the middle of the road?:)
Show threadLeon BambrickNov 30, 2022
@AnthonyUplandpoetWatkins @stavvers 😂 We showed that sketch to our kids when they were quite young…. And in the years since it’s derailed so so many conversations in our house.
Show threadAnthonyUplandpoetWatkinsNov 30, 2022
@secretgeek @stavvers
just in case anyone is following along and dont know what the hell we are talking about:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y-LoF6WI9PY
Four Yorkshiremen (Live)

YouTube
Show threadRain EricksonNov 30, 2022
@AnthonyUplandpoetWatkins @secretgeek @stavvers classic
Show threadPugthugNov 30, 2022
@AnthonyUplandpoetWatkins @secretgeek @stavvers No but I did live in a shack by the woods that flooded every hard rain and my older brothers would have to go out in the storm to dig a trench to divert the water draining into the house because the back yard was pure clay. Some of us did have to walk to school in the snow, uphill, both ways.
Show threadRain EricksonNov 30, 2022

@cjcrew @AnthonyUplandpoetWatkins @secretgeek @stavvers

anyone who hasn't dug a swale in the black gumbo in a hard rain hasn't lived.

Show threadDanNov 30, 2022
@AnthonyUplandpoetWatkins @secretgeek @stavvers LUXURY!
Show threadAnthonyUplandpoetWatkinsNov 30, 2022
@secretgeek @stavvers
I really am that old...
Show threadShoe_flyNov 30, 2022
@secretgeek @AnthonyUplandpoetWatkins @stavvers lol thank you, stop me from rolling out the punch card and sequential batch processing on *tape* stories
Show threadLeon BambrickNov 30, 2022
@shoeflyin @AnthonyUplandpoetWatkins @stavvers just want to say you’re still welcome to share stories from ages of yore. I’m a keen historian and think recording such stories is a crucial part of the cultural historiography etc.
Show threadShoe_flyNov 30, 2022
@secretgeek @AnthonyUplandpoetWatkins @stavvers 😎yeah it's fun to read about but four yorkshiremen is an apt comparison, get all the old computer geeks trotting out their war stories about how they wrote code with only 64 bits of memory to work with or whatever
Show threadAnthonyUplandpoetWatkinsNov 30, 2022

@shoeflyin @secretgeek @stavvers

Punch cards, punchcard. No biTd:)

Show threadAnthonyUplandpoetWatkinsNov 30, 2022

@secretgeek @shoeflyin @stavvers

Most of my ancient history is recorded in my poetry

Show threadShoe_flyNov 30, 2022
@secretgeek @AnthonyUplandpoetWatkins @stavvers Oh, and this is a *very* Mastodon reply...made a joke but then made sure no one felt shut down by it 😎
Show threadAnthonyUplandpoetWatkinsNov 30, 2022

@shoeflyin @secretgeek @stavvers

By today’s standards, we really did program in a shoebox in the middle of the street back to 150 programmers in the same shoebox :-)

Show threadShoe_flyNov 30, 2022
@AnthonyUplandpoetWatkins @secretgeek @stavvers it still amazes me how much more advanced and powerful my phone is, compared to the computers I originally worked on. Like a mainframe that ran a fortune 100 company.
Show threadPugthugNov 30, 2022
@AnthonyUplandpoetWatkins @stavvers Try running those damn things through a reader and card punch. Or better yet, dropping an entire tray of punch cards and having to put them back, in order.
Show threadAnthonyUplandpoetWatkinsNov 30, 2022
@cjcrew @stavvers
There are two have been a name for dropping your stack of cards but I don’t recall it
Show threadAnthonyUplandpoetWatkinsNov 30, 2022
@cjcrew @stavvers
Out of sorts? :-)
Show threadRain EricksonNov 30, 2022

@AnthonyUplandpoetWatkins @stavvers same

Lol

Show threadJack Yan (甄爵恩)Dec 1, 2022

@AnthonyUplandpoetWatkins @stavvers Younger than you, but I kept some of the punch cards from school …

As to software delivery, I remember that coming on cartridges or disks. By boat.

Show threadAunty Miche🛡🇺🇦Dec 1, 2022
@jackyan @AnthonyUplandpoetWatkins @stavvers Delivery? You didn’t type it in yourself?
Show threadAnthonyUplandpoetWatkinsDec 1, 2022
@micheinnz @jackyan @stavvers
earlier software. i remember how exciting it was to get a disc with ms-dos and be able to load the software right into the personal computer (many years later, of course, when i bought my first state of the art PC with a meg of ram and 10 megs of harddrive!
Show threadAunty Miche🛡🇺🇦Dec 1, 2022
@AnthonyUplandpoetWatkins @jackyan @stavvers Saw my first USB stick in 2001. I forget the capacity, something like 64 MB? A couple of years later I was given one that had 128 MB and thought all my Christmases had come at once.
Show threadJack Yan (甄爵恩)Dec 1, 2022
@AnthonyUplandpoetWatkins Fancy stuff! Much faster than tape drives! @micheinnz @stavvers
Show threadAnthonyUplandpoetWatkinsDec 1, 2022

@micheinnz @jackyan @stavvers

it was pretty amazing when we started using 8" floppies that could hold thousands of punch cards worth of info!

Show threadAnthonyUplandpoetWatkinsDec 1, 2022
@micheinnz @jackyan @stavvers
80k, if i remember
Show threadJack Yan (甄爵恩)Dec 1, 2022
@AnthonyUplandpoetWatkins That sounds right, as those newfangled 5¼-inchers were 160 kbyte IIRC. @micheinnz @stavvers
Show threadJack Yan (甄爵恩)Dec 1, 2022
@micheinnz Did my share of those! @AnthonyUplandpoetWatkins @stavvers
Show threadLoukas (They/Them) 🏳️‍⚧️Nov 29, 2022
@stavvers My pupils asked me how old I am in class the other day. I told them I'm eeeEEEEEEEEiiiiiiiii wrgglllyyyyy kkkhhhhhhhhh BAM BAM BAM old
Show threadnonstickNov 30, 2022
@stavvers @Loukas hahahahaha. That will be my answer next time someone asks my age
Show threadMario Stylianou Nov 30, 2022

@nonstick @stavvers @Loukas "I'm fax machine old."

I told my wife my credit card used to be manually imprinted on carbon paper before electronic terminals, and it just did not compute. ​

Show threadKuma Chan 🧸Nov 30, 2022
@supermjr @nonstick @stavvers @Loukas dude remember pagers and brick phones?
Show threadLoukas (They/Them) 🏳️‍⚧️Nov 30, 2022
@kumachan @supermjr @stavvers @nonstick I had a pager when they started to get cheap, around 1999. Before that they were just for doctors and drug dealers ;)
Show threadConfiscated Pillow PhoneNov 30, 2022
@Loukas @kumachan @supermjr @stavvers @nonstick I remember when they FLOODED my high school. Then came the two-ways. NOBODY older or younger than Millennials really even know what two-ways ARE anymore 😂
Show threadKitty (she/her)Dec 1, 2022
@officialunofficialjdc @Loukas @kumachan @supermjr @stavvers @nonstick does that make me a millennial then? 😄 I remember (and wanted one so bad, minutes were expensive!) but I'm right on the edge of X and Millennial.
Show threadConfiscated Pillow PhoneDec 1, 2022
@kitrona @Loukas @kumachan @supermjr @stavvers @nonstick There's always some wiggle room on the fringes of generations, so I'd say yes 😀
Show threadKuma Chan 🧸Dec 1, 2022
@kitrona @officialunofficialjdc @Loukas @supermjr @stavvers @nonstick

No one even knows what Gen X even is.
Show threadConfiscated Pillow PhoneDec 1, 2022
@kumachan @supermjr @stavvers @Loukas @nonstick @kitrona Including Gen X, themselves! 😆
Show threadBigPappaDec 1, 2022
@Loukas I had a pager in the early 80's when I was working in advertising, which was essentially MadMen with vast quantities of cocaine.
So yeah, a drug dealer kinda sorta
Show threadNatalie FieldsNov 30, 2022
@kumachan @supermjr @stavvers @Loukas @nonstick I remember we had a single cell phone for the family, and the plan was 10 min/month. One time I went for a walk with it, and jabbered to my friend Dusty for 30+ min and hoo buddy when Mom got THAT bill… 😬😬😬😬
Show threadKuma Chan 🧸Nov 30, 2022
@natalierfields @supermjr @stavvers @Loukas @nonstick

https://youtu.be/ITfQGEASYvU?t=40
@randomhero2501
Hack The Planet!

YouTube
Show threadNatalie FieldsNov 30, 2022
@kumachan @randomhero2501 @supermjr @stavvers @Loukas @nonstick 🤣🤣🤣
Show threadnonstickNov 30, 2022
@KumaChan @supermjr @natalierfields @Loukas @stavvers I had a cell phone for calling my bf in diff area code. Waiting until 7pm every night to talk because that was when minutes were unlimited 😂
Show threadLoukas (They/Them) 🏳️‍⚧️Nov 30, 2022
@supermjr haha!
Show threadLoukas (They/Them) 🏳️‍⚧️Nov 30, 2022
@nonstick good!
Show threadjust adrienneDec 1, 2022
@Loukas @stavvers fun fact: i could once, and can probably still, sing a 1200-baud carrier tone well enough that a modem will try to connect to me.
Show threadjust adrienneDec 1, 2022
@Loukas @stavvers actually this would be fun as hell to test. @ncommander do you have hardware we could use for it?
Show threadNCommanderDec 1, 2022
@adrienne @Loukas @stavvers Uh, I actually might, although it might only be 300 baud ...
Show threadjust adrienneDec 1, 2022
@ncommander @Loukas @stavvers we could do it as a silly party trick on your next charity stream? :D
Show threadSalt and Vinegar ChrisNov 29, 2022
@stavvers Was talking to someone the other day about the bad old pre-internet days when we would see someone in a film and think "I know them from something else... What was that?" and then would just never find out.