Any Real Geeks Here?, Does anyone remember DOS?

I curious to know how many real computer geeks are here. I mean those lost souls that started toying with computers when PC's weren't mainstream.

My first computer was due to a girl and a beer. The love of my life sent me a "Dear John" letter breaking it off. A got a friend to take me out on a drunken binge, and the next day I woke up to a room full of computer equipment and my wallet $2000 lighter. It was 1982, and the computer was a Commodore 64.



After you flipped the ON button all you got was a READY prompt. You fast-forwarded your cassette tape drive to a particular place and hit PAUSE. You then typed "LOAD LUNAR LANDER" and hit ENTER. Then you released the PAUSE button on the cassette drive and the program would load (sometimes) into the computer's memory. You could now play the game.

I toyed with the CP/M language but found it cumbersome.

My first program was written in BASIC and it graphically simulated rolling a pair of dice.

My first contact with the Most Holy Bill Gates came as I bought MS DOS 3 to run on an IBM XT. Later would come the powerful IBM AT systems and the release of MS DOS 4 and 5. I would later bow in awe to the immensely powerful MS DOS 6.22.

I saw the hideous Windows 1. Then came the long-awaited Windows 3 running on my 8 meg RAM machine. I wondered how in the world I could fully load my 20 meg harddrive.

Today I oversee a mixture of Win95, NT, 2k, and XP. I visit servers and workstations that do millions of calculations per second. I monitor TCP/IP connections across the globe. But I still miss the most beautiful sight there ever was:


Remember when email was done via 300 baud modems and a BBS?
Remember Spry Mosiac?
Remember before FTP there was FETCH?
Remember when VGA gave us 16 colors?
Remember going from 8" floppies to 5.25", and buying them from companies called 'Gorilla', 'Elephant', and 'Banana'?
Remember booting from a floppy instead of a hard drive?
Remember seeing your first mouse on an Apple and saying, "These will never catch on"?
Remember programming FORTRAN on punch cards?
Remember when you printed something you had to go to the server room and wait for your print job to get spooled to the dot matrix printer
Remember configuring the Heads and Cylinders in the BIOS before you could format a hard drive?
Remember when the entire universe was stored on CompuServe servers?

Ahh, the Kingdom Of The Geek. Are you a member?
 

I remember DOS and GWBasic. That was all we had in high school. :O_o: The thing is, that was only six years ago, and we finaly got some modern PCs in senior year (like four), while all the rest of the computer class was using old monochrome dumb terminals. they were all running DOS though.

I remember some that. I didn't get real serious about computers until about 12 years ago. I do remember though, as a Comp. Sci. major in the early '80s, using punch cards for my PL/1 programs, handing them into the server room and waiting an hour for my output. I got kinda unenthused about computers after that. It wasn't until I went into the Army that I re-discovered them. I took a BASIC and a COBOL course at the local community college. We wrote and ran our programs on a VAX mainframe. No punch cards this time, though.

I remember well working on DOS 6.x. I knew it pretty well. When Windows first came out, I thought it was great. It wasn't until I started working with UNIX (how geeky is that?) that I saw the error of my ways. I learned then what a real OS is. I learned to write shell scripts and Perl programs.

I work as a UNIX admin and have in the past worked as a Linux admin. Since my current job is temporary in nature, I would love to find another job working with Linux.

Punch Cards, Dos, Basic, what is a modem, RGB color..... ah I remember them all to well!!!! lol

I started programming with Fortran on a Univac 1108 "super pig". Weeks of typing punch cards and seconds for the reader to turn the deck into confetti.....

dos was a BIG improvement.

I'm old enough to remember . I'm a member since 1982 and started with a Commodore 64 as well. I know the "pioneer days" so very well...

Anyone remember WANG? Some of the WANG glossaries I wrote back in the early 80's are still around, having migrated through WordPerfect, and various version of Word macros.
One of the techniques I used when writing glossaries to manipulate text on the WANG system was to temporarily store text on the work page. If I needed more than one work page, I would also temporarily store text on the header page. So, one day I decided to print a rather large document after running a glossary that used both the work page and the header page. What I didn't realize was that the entire document had been copied into the header page, and a copy left there. A bit later the person in charge of running the system comes running up to tell me what an idiot I am for wiping out all system resources and wasting a lot of paper printing the document over and over and over . . . .Fortunately, the glossaries saved the company enough production time that I didn't get into too much trouble.
I remember using MOSAIC and similar programs to navigate the web. Then it was the brave new world of Windoze 3.1, with its frequent freezes and crashes.I also remember the mainframe punch card days from my time at UC Bezerkeley in the early 70's. I suspect many of us have more computing power in our wristwatches than we had in our computers back then.

I remember those days! I started programming when I was 3 years old. Basic was my language!

I had an atari 2600 that played a mean game of pong, but I did not get my first computer till my senior year of college. Unfortunately since then I have become obsessed.

I wish I could entertain my love of confuzers. I would be the Java, Linux, Perl, C, Apache, php, CGI uber geek extrodinaire. My wife just doesn't understand how important it could be to my career to play with this stuff. She wants me to do unimportant stuff like fix broken stuff, clean, do laudry, and other ungeeky stuff.

It ain't fair! About the only really geeky thing I got to do lately is setup a wireless network in my house. I just need to figure out how to get my laptop and PC to speak. They don't see each other despite being on the same subnet and in the same work group. Windows. BAH! If it was UNIX or Linux I'd have had that done already.

Terminology trivia: Does anybody know the difference between a nerd and a geek? There is a difference.

Todd,
To get them to see each other, you have to enable file sharing on each machine. On my Windoze ME desktop, it's Settings>Control Panel>Network>File and Print Sharing, then check each box. Similarly, on other versions of windows. You have to be careful though, because, unless you enable encryption on your router, you are opening up your files to anyone within range of your network, which can be up to a quarter of a mile or so. Unfortunately, there are people who drive around looking for open networks they can tap into.
Good luck.

As I recall, a geek used to be the fellow in carnival sideshows who bit the heads off live chickens and similar bizarre acts, but now refers to socially inept techies. "Nerd" started out meaning square, but has morphed into a term for socially inept techies. So, I suspect they differ more in derivation than current usage, but there are no doubt local variations.

I grew up on the Commodore 64! We used to play the best games on it.. actually i think we still have it. Thanks for the memories

Didn't someone post somewhere that a nerd likes technology, and a geek both likes it and knows how to use it?

Myself, I started loading Bowling from Datasette on a Vic 20 at 3 years old. I spend weeks loving

READY.
LOAD "IMPOSSIBLE MISSION",8,1

SEARCHING FOR IMPOSSIBLE MISSION
LOADING.
READY.
RUN

And playing many different games on a C128, which stayed in 64 mode (Always with a Mach 64 cart plugged in) until I first used Wordwriter 128 on it (by TimeWorks) to start doing homework in middle school (~1990) Then I remember my introduction to "Hello World" was in Qbasic on a 286 based IBM PS/2. I came hope, slipped it into my Commodore, and when it worked I was hooked. I was 12 then. At school, we used Apple II's, Mac Classics, and the omnipresent IBM PS/2 (crumby pink video, instead of the nice 16 color I was used to for a *real* computer)

Then, the Library at school installed two new PCs running Windows 3.1! WOW! these things could read of these new disk carterages called CD-ROM =) With a complete encyclopedia on one of them, including maps and cool pictures! And as if that weren't enough, there were video demos too!

Then, in 1994, we got a 486 SX/25 with 8 MB of ram, and what's this? a 2400 bps modem in it?? I had heard of these mythical things, but never had access to play with one. Ohh wow! And, ohh cool! it comes with a version of BASIC, maybe I can move my Commodore programs over to it (never did so)

Bow I'm open to a whole new world, what's this Internet thing? Ohh cool! I can get information, and programs, for free, from all over the world! How cool is that!

I taught myself to use Dos and Windows 3.11, then they came out with this new system called Windows 95 that was supposed to be radically different. When dad upgraded and got his PII 200, I got the 486, and put it on the 486 which now had 12 MB ram, a 14.4 modem (or was it 33.6 by then...), a 1.4 GB HDD (up from 210 MB)
It was great! I taught myself to use it, and was set to go. Sure it wasn't the speediest thing in the world in 1996-1997, but it worked fine for me. And I recorded a few songs to 22khz WAV by hooking a tape deck into the line in. I've still got a cassette of Iasos that I streamed over 33.6 to a cassette with this setup.

Eventually, I got tired of Windows, and asked my now brother-in-law "what else is there? How can I learn some of this UNIX thing I keep hearing about (this is ~ 1997) He pointed me to Minilinux. I DL'd it, installed it, and hated the guts out of it. They keyboard mapping was funky, and I couldn't find the help.

A while later, I'm walking though Waldenbooks in the mall. I see this Linux book, and consider giving it another try. It has a copy of RedHat 4.2 in the back, so I figure that for the price, I'll give it another try. I take it home, and with a few pointers, get it installed, dual booting alongside 95.

WOW! this boots fast! Who needs a Pentium? I just octupled my CPU Watch this 486 SX 33 (OC'd now) match my dad's PII 200. And ohh fun, plenty to learn. The uphill battle begins.

ok...
dir
it works, ok
cd

OK, I might be able to navigate this thing. now how do I do anything?

After a lot of time, a lot of l "Ohh, what's this do?" *TYPE* *TYPE* ohh, it does that. ok. next k... And a lot of bugging the local guru (Who is now my Bro-in-Law), and getting him to built my first two custom kernels for me (I was petrified I would fry the whole thing) The uphill battle began to level out. I was hooked, Linux officially rocked!

In 1998, I got a 233 Mhz Cyrix box. The first computer I could call mine! Dual booted Linux and Windows 98 once I got it set up, and I used one as much as the other

Went through college, Got an AS in Computer Programming and MCSE cert. I introduced several people to Linux (I was now running RH 5.1 in 1999, moving on then reluctantly out of ingorance, to Mandrake 5.2)

After college, I was programming in VB for a company, and administering the network. Tried to start my own company while there, and set up my first Linux server using RH 7, as well as getting practical experience with NT 4 and the new Windows 2000.
it was also during this time that I rebuilt my unstable PO* Cyrix box to a much better Celeron 500. Hot stuff, I m set =)
I left that in March of 2001, I had to get on with my life, and I couldn't do that spending 10 hours a day managing a network and trying to code for this little fence company running out of an old farm house. I quit, got my driver's license (finally, at 20 years old), got my life streight in my head, and went looking to get seriously started in the IT industry.

*Brick wall, and stupid &*)$@**#_*@_%*@$)^%&$)^%*%_*!*#_*%$!#() corporation alert!!*
I might have been doing cat ~/resume.doc > /dev/null instead of sending them out for the response I got (see the pet peeves thread for what opinions I formed during this time)
A brief stint as a temp in inventory at a electronics manufacturing facility from June to November of 2001 kept me from being unable to pay my $20 ISP bill a few months and allowed me to finish building my home theater. Then I was out again. And getting no better answers this time around. My computer Died a couple of times. first time I upgraded to a AMD XP 1900, and the second time to a 2400. I hate having to do things in a rushed, can't afford it, but have to have my computer to find a job, time way. Worked though.

Then my sister started looking as well, and found a job she got me connected with. Phone support, yeeech! But it's a job. It'll help pull me out of the pit of Hell that I'm in before I find myself in even one of the deeper levels. I walked in the door on 12/09/02. Sure I look back, as I've done here. I'm still raw about what I am just now comming out of, And this story is one that is still forefront on my mind (in case you haven't figured out how much I hate Corporate America with a passion right now)

However, I just went from temp to full-time at the job I started on 12/09/02, I'm still in phone support, which really sucks, but I like my co-workers, and I feel like I am on the right reack to be able to find a way off of the phone and into a real IT job with the company I now work for. I'm still working at home on my network here, playing with technologies and just having fun with it in general. Waiting for the bait, studying, and re-evaluating that age old question, "Where do you want to be in five years?"

the 2400 died, as did the Cyrix 233, when a screw fell unnoticed behind the motherboards of both of them on the same night. I forget now which thread I posted my current specs in. And no, I didn't do that deliberately as I was frantically running around Lexington that next Monday building two new computers and spending $1200 when the bank's systems were down and I couldn't get at my money (I love my parents ofr letting me use their credit card and letting me pay them back -- Which I have done -- )

Wonder what kind of luck I'll have if I could buy a good laptop, go see Heather Dale in concert something like a month from now, and still be able to afford to enjoy a trip to Ireland in September....

Geeky enough? I could post geekier if need be... How about Tetris in COBOL, booting lux on my C-128 (real hardware) last month, or having a 5.25" floppy drive in my 2275Mhz AMD XP2800 (2700 OC'd a hair)

I send out resume