Kids React to Old Computers

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PF7EpEnglgk

hilarious.

Ah, an old Apple 2 computer, it's similar to my old BBC Micro that I had when I was the same age as those kids. Accept that back then I had learned how type all the commands on on it and load games. Though the games I played were on cassette tapes rather than floppy disks because cassettes were cheaper then, apparently. Programs took about 5 minutes to load from cassettes and the data streaming was quite low.

I wonder what was the first computer that could edit audio? video?

This was the first computerized editor for video I am aware of:

CMX600

It wasn't until the 90s before it was something that became commonly available. I think on Apple MACS iirc. There may have been predecessors, but the MAC was the first mainstream computer that became an industry standard.

thank you for that what year was this?

I think 1970 or 1971, back before my teen years. And your welcome.

prego I bet back in the day that was considered GEE WHIZ WOW stuff.

Back in the day I learned how to program using key punches. Then feeding program into the card reader. If it happened to be humid or the reader was being a prick, it would eat some and jam. Then you had to reassemble the cards in order, identify the damaged ones. Then wait in line to use the keypunch, then again in line back at the card reader. Then you hoped the line printer was having a good day.

that sounds almost as laborious as manual video tape editing using ferrofluid and editing block.

"SYNTAX ERROR" God! I haven't seen that in a long time.

I love the way that those kids reacted to the old computers.

Sad that I remember that "PR#6" is the code to manually boot an external floppy drive on the old Apples (Slot 6 was the common interface slot for the external drive...Slot 1 was the common slot for a printer interface card).

I've done some programming on a Data General Supernova. It was all in the Assembly Language used by Data General.

First, you wrote the program and used the key punch machine to make the cards.

You would then go to another Data General machine and read the cards to compile the program and output that to a paper tape. It would also produce a listing of the program on fan-fold paper.

After that, you would turn the Supernova on and load the bootstrap program with toggle switches.

You would then mount the paper tape on the paper tape reader and toggle the "Run" switch.

The Supernova would then read the paper tape and execute the program contained on it.

I still have a copy of the listing and paper tape from a program for the Supernova sitting in a box somewhere.

Ya! I remember typing "PR#1" to send everything to the printer. Ever remember the Franklin Ace 1200 computer? It was a clone of the apple II.

Anyone remember that Star Trek film where they go into the past to get a whale. At one point they are in an aluminium factory and Scotty goes to an old PC and starts talking to it "Computer, ..." and is baffled why it doesn't respond.