what tha.... [websites protest legislation - go dark]

[Mosca]

Write your representatives if you feel strongly about this issue one way or the other. I did, it only took a minute to email both of my senators and my congressman, and I got replies from all of them. Most telling is this response from Pat Toomey, who is very far to the right:

Dear Thomas,

Thank you for contacting me about online piracy, as well as two proposals about this issue (S. 968, the PROTECT IP Act, and H.R. 3261, the Stop Online Piracy Act). I appreciate hearing from you.

I understand your concerns about legislation pending before Congress that would address online piracy - namely, the PROTECT IP Act and the Stop Online Piracy Act. In my view, piracy of intellectual property is a legitimate concern that should be addressed. However, the PROTECT IP Act and the Stop Internet Piracy Act are flawed, and I cannot support them in their current form. I therefore look forward to working with my Senate colleagues on this issue and finding a better legislative approach for tackling online piracy. Please be assured that I value your input and will keep your thoughts in mind as work continues on this important matter.

Thank you again for your correspondence. Please do not hesitate to contact me in the future if I can be of assistance.

Sincerely,

Signature

Pat Toomey
U.S. Senator, Pennsylvania

This doesn't mean that the fight is over. Digital piracy is a real threat, and so is overreaction. We need to be PARTICIPATORY in whatever legislation is crafted, because it WILL be crafted; movie studios and record companies have a lot vested in their dying business models, and a lot of money to defend those interests. Stay aware, if you care; your representatives are at least listening.

 

[Makai Guy]

When your programming was ready to be executed, you connected the reader to a telephone line and ran the tape through the reader. The commands were then transmitted to a main frame via the phone line, and you got your results back in hard copy in the mail about two days later.

Yeah, I remember doing that. Also had experience using IBM punch cards. For any sort of long program, you'd hand in several full boxes of cards in at a window and get your cards and printout back in a few hours. Sure didn't want to trip while carrying those boxes of thousands of cards around ..

 

[ampaholic]

Back to the OP's issue:

My wife just noticed a Nebraska Cornhusker logo on a shirt shown on the 700 Club on CBS this morning.

So could Nebraska University shut down the 700 Club? or even shut down CBS?

Wouldn't that be "unintended consequences"?

 

[T_R_Oglodyte]

Yeah, I remember doing that. Also had experience using IBM punch cards. For any sort of long program, you'd hand in several full boxes of cards in at a window and get your cards and printout back in a few hours. Sure didn't want to trip while carrying those boxes of thousands of cards around ..

I also used punch cards when I went to college. But in high school we used the punched tape because punched tape was what was handled by the modems. So you used punch cards if you were physically at the location of the main frame, or punched tape if you were on dial up.

You could also ship your stack of punch cards to the main frame center and have them run the cards, but that added a couple of more days to the time when you would get your results. The advantage, though, was that if there was a mistake you could fix the card and resubmit instead of punching a new tape.

********

Currently I do air quality modeling with a Fortran program that was first developed in the heyday of main frames. The runstream files for the program are flat ASCII files that are the exact equivalent of punch cards. I open the files in notepad and it's exactly like looking at the printouts I used to get when I would have a card reader convert my cards to a paper printout.

 

[Blues]

Yup, I've used ASR-33's, Steve. But even before that, did my first programming on punched cards:

http://www-03.ibm.com/ibm/history/exhibits/vintage/vintage_4506VV4002.html


(didn't wear a suit with too-short pants, though)

 

[ScoopKona]

Before there was an internet, we did this:

Oooh... nice Atari 800. I learned to program on one of those. (Actually, I had the 400, with the POS membrane keyboard. What a pain. I still have the thing, but I just use emulation these days. A lot easier.)

 

[geekette]

yeah, I'm not seeing the cassette deck here, either. that's where my precious code got stored.

I also had the 400 model but don't think it had membrane keyboard. I recall it being..., well, a normal keyboard.

 

[T_R_Oglodyte]

Oooh... nice Atari 800. I learned to program on one of those.

Yer just a cub.

 

[artringwald]

Oooh... nice Atari 800. I learned to program on one of those. (Actually, I had the 400, with the POS membrane keyboard. What a pain. I still have the thing, but I just use emulation these days. A lot easier.)

It is an Atari 400. I bought a kit to replace the membrane keyboard with a real keyboard, and bought another kit to add more memory to it. It was a cheap way to turn it into an 800. I started with a cassette drive and bought the floppy drive later.

 

[artringwald]

I also used punch cards when I went to college. But in high school we used the punched tape because punched tape was what was handled by the modems. So you used punch cards if you were physically at the location of the main frame, or punched tape if you were on dial up.

You could also ship your stack of punch cards to the main frame center and have them run the cards, but that added a couple of more days to the time when you would get your results. The advantage, though, was that if there was a mistake you could fix the card and resubmit instead of punching a new tape.

********

Currently I do air quality modeling with a Fortran program that was first developed in the heyday of main frames. The runstream files for the program are flat ASCII files that are the exact equivalent of punch cards. I open the files in notepad and it's exactly like looking at the printouts I used to get when I would have a card reader convert my cards to a paper printout.

I remember going to the computer center with a box of punched cards. If there was a single typo, you'd have to make the change and then wait several hours for them to run it again. I didn't choose programming as a career because it was such a pain. Now that Visual Studio highlights grammatical errors instantly, I love programming.

 

[T_R_Oglodyte]

I remember going to the computer center with a box of punched cards. If there was a single typo, you'd have to make the change and then wait several hours for them to run it again. I didn't choose programming as a career because it was such a pain. Now that Visual Studio highlights grammatical errors instantly, I love programming.

My first word processing experience was in the basement of the computing center on the UC-Berekely campus. The computing center was migrating everyone away from punched cards and into ASCII flat files instead.

So they put in a bunch of terminals so you typed your data into a file instead of punch cards, and they also provided an editing program where you could search for text strings, make changes, and save. Some users then realized they could simply write text to the file, and then issue a print command to have the file printed on one of the line printers.

 

[artringwald]

My first word processing experience was in the basement of the computing center on the UC-Berekely campus. The computing center was migrating everyone away from punched cards and into ASCII flat files instead.

So they put in a bunch of terminals so you typed your data into a file instead of punch cards, and they also provided an editing program where you could search for text strings, make changes, and save. Some users then realized they could simply write text to the file, and then issue a print command to have the file printed on one of the line printers.

Nothing like the racket of a Centronics 101 printer.

 

[ScoopKona]

It is an Atari 400. I bought a kit to replace the membrane keyboard with a real keyboard, and bought another kit to add more memory to it. It was a cheap way to turn it into an 800. I started with a cassette drive and bought the floppy drive later.

I remember that kit. If I recall correctly, it was $100 advertised in Compute! and Byte. I didn't have an extra C-note when I was a kid. I did upgrade the memory and installed GTIA graphics. Ooh wee! GTIA graphics!

It did play reasonably good games of Pac-Man and Donkey Kong, though. And Star Raiders was the premier first-person shooter of the era.

 

[artringwald]

I remember that kit. If I recall correctly, it was $100 advertised in Compute! and Byte. I didn't have an extra C-note when I was a kid. I did upgrade the memory and installed GTIA graphics. Ooh wee! GTIA graphics!

It did play reasonably good games of Pac-Man and Donkey Kong, though. And Star Raiders was the premier first-person shooter of the era.

I spent way too much time playing The Seven Cities of Gold. Now days I'd rather play Test Drive Unlimited 2 on the Xbox 360.

 

[amycurl]

I had an Atari 400 with a membrane keyboard, and the cassette drive! I remember those short, silly programs in Atari Basic! My unit was mostly used by my mother and grandmother-type-person to play Frogger, Q-bert and the like. (I rarely touched it except for the bit of programming.) You've not lived until you've seen a 60something beat a 40something at Frogger.

Thankfully, Steve Jobs invented the Apple II shortly thereafter. The only thing I ever used in school/college was the Apple II/ Macintosh. When I was in college, only other college folks had e-mail. (It was probably like those first, early years of FB, when only other college kids had access...)

 

[carl2591]

what going on here.. this was started to highlight the website that went dark yesterday in protest of the SOPA..

now it's turned into the atari 400-800 forum... funny how that happens on tug.. all you old times get on and start talking about the good old days and tape drives and basic programing, and 8088 processor, and the .... oh crap i am one of you...


heard on news that support for the bill "Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA)" was pulled after the massive online protest mounted yesterday.

http://www.cnn.com/2012/01/19/tech/sopa-blackouts/index.html

still need to keep up with PIPA aka Protect IP Act, going forward.

man them were the good old days.. I remember this chick i dated that was a majoring in computer sciences.. she worked at the local hospital on weekends doing programming, backing up stuff. etc.. the hard drives were the size of plates and 18 to 20" tall.. i would help her take them out of the drives and put in the vault..

I don't know how much data they could store but i guess my old 40 meg HD could hold more and was 1/10 the size..

she got a job at Burroughs right out of school making 50K a year in '80. that was big money back then.. still some what big now..

 

[amycurl]

now it's turned into the atari 400-800 forum... funny how that happens on tug.. all you old times get on and start talking about the good old days and tape drives and basic programing, and 8088 processor, and the .... oh crap i am one of you...

.

Wow--I had no idea you were as young as me! (under 40)

 

[artringwald]

all you old times get on and start talking about the good old days and tape drives and basic programing, and 8088 processor, and the .... oh crap i am one of you...

We keep talking about the good old days because we're afraid we'll forget them. Nostalgia just ain’t what it used to be.

 

[hvacrsteve]

[no......]

 

[MuranoJo]

Before there was an internet, we did this:

DH and I were lamenting just the other night about how we sold our old Pong game years ago at a garage sale (or gave it away to someone who would take it away).

(Talk about boring today's kids if they saw that!)

 

[laurac260]

Here's the "law of unintended consequences" as it pertains to my house, and many of my friend's houses. We are TIRED of technology. My kids have forgotten how to play, how to interact. They have Wii, TV, internet, vizio tablets, laptops, DS, I'm so sick of all of it. When we tell them that they can't play any screens, they've used up all their screen time for the day, etc, they panic. What are we supposed to do with ourselves?? I have friends that are "unplugged". I'm so ready to go that route. I'm ready to invoke a black out in our house. Let's go outside and play. Call a friend on the phone. Write a letter for goodness sakes! As much as I appreciate texting, I am also getting weary of being instantly accessible 24/7. Text me, e-mail me, call me, if you can't reach me on my home phone call my cell, if you can't reach me via voice on my cell text me, or send me an e-mail, enough already!!

 

[bjones9942]

Ah, Steve - you're just a youngin! Dont'cha remember front panel switches? Who needs a keyboard when you can spend a few hours flipping switches a few (thousand) times?

Before computers I used a set of Funk & Wagnalls and the National Geographic magazines.

 

[bjones9942]

what going on here.. this was started to highlight the website that went dark yesterday in protest of the SOPA..

now it's turned into the atari 400-800 forum... funny how that happens on tug.. all you old times get on and start talking about the good old days and tape drives and basic programing, and 8088 processor, and the .... oh crap i am one of you...

I prefer the Z80. Dual registers are the wave of the future!!!

 

[dmharris]

Here's the "law of unintended consequences" as it pertains to my house, and many of my friend's houses. We are TIRED of technology. My kids have forgotten how to play, how to interact. They have Wii, TV, internet, vizio tablets, laptops, DS, I'm so sick of all of it. When we tell them that they can't play any screens, they've used up all their screen time for the day, etc, they panic. What are we supposed to do with ourselves?? I have friends that are "unplugged". I'm so ready to go that route. I'm ready to invoke a black out in our house. Let's go outside and play. Call a friend on the phone. Write a letter for goodness sakes! As much as I appreciate texting, I am also getting weary of being instantly accessible 24/7. Text me, e-mail me, call me, if you can't reach me on my home phone call my cell, if you can't reach me via voice on my cell text me, or send me an e-mail, enough already!!

I''m with you Laura, but I am addicted to my internet. I put a moratorium on on-line, computers, etc. for one day and everybody did fine but I HAD to check my e-mail. Right! I'm so lame.