[NSRCA-discussion] website back up

Sat Dec 4 14:22:08 AKST 2010

I must confess that in about 1970, a fellow engineer was raving about  
the CAD technology he was working on and I failed to see what the  
potential was.  I thought he was looney to think that complicated  
devices could be designed on a computer, before cutting the first  
piece of metal.   Oh well, nobody's perfect.

Ron VP

On Dec 4, 2010, at 5:10 PM, J N Hiller wrote:

> Interesting discussion. During my years in mid management I found  
> most knew
> what they wanted to know and were often offended when presented  
> additional
> information as if it complicated their world.
> As for computer development, when I entered engineering management  
> A 2-D CAD
> seat was around $50,000 ($25k software on a $25K workstation) which  
> was kind
> of unappealing for a small company. Within a very few years the  
> software
> price and support requirements both came in line with PC's having  
> greater
> capability and a lower cost at which time I added two seats for around
> $18,000. Within a few years 3-D became an affordable tool and I  
> tried to
> explain to the folks selling the stuff that they were  
> misrepresenting the
> produce selling it as a design tool. For years I designed drawing  
> freehand
> on placemats during lunch meetings. Prior to near photo quality 3-D  
> images
> prototype hardware needed to be built and presented to through  
> marketing
> folks to customers only to here "that's not what I meant". Needless  
> to say
> this pre-computer age development process was expensive and time  
> consuming.
> I found these tools to be extremely useful for creating new or  
> revising
> parts within existing assemblies and timely communication of  
> concept. The
> real benefit was in electronic filling and communication of  
> information.
> Today we seam to be restricted only by our imagination.
> I'm still only a user of computer technology and I miss it greatly  
> when it's
> broke.
> Jim
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: nsrca-discussion-bounces at lists.nsrca.org
> [mailto:nsrca-discussion-bounces at lists.nsrca.org]On Behalf Of Ron  
> Van Putte
> Sent: Saturday, December 04, 2010 12:35 PM
> To: General pattern discussion
> Subject: Re: [NSRCA-discussion] website back up
>
> I almost wrote, "As an engineer, I'm seldom surprised by what
> business types don't know."  However, I decide not to write it.
>
> Ron VP
>
> On Dec 4, 2010, at 2:29 PM, Phil Spelt wrote:
>
>> Yup, used those to teach business computing in the early '80s -- I
>> was amazed at what business types didn't know about computing back
>> then...
>>
>> At 02:06 PM 12/4/2010, you wrote:
>>> RS - TRS - 80   alias  Radio Shack TRASH80
>>> ----- Original Message -----
>>> From: Pete Cosky
>>> To: 'General pattern discussion'
>>> Sent: Saturday, December 04, 2010 9:16 AM
>>> Subject: Re: [NSRCA-discussion] website back up
>>>
>>> I went from that to an Apple IIe to an IBM clone. TONS of money
>>> for very little computing power in retrospect, but it paved the
>>> way for things like hackers......
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> Thanks again Marty for all you do keeping the website going.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> From: nsrca-discussion-bounces at lists.nsrca.org [ mailto:nsrca-
>>> discussion-bounces at lists.nsrca.org] On Behalf Of Lightfoot
>>> Sent: Saturday, December 04, 2010 9:07 AM
>>> To: 'General pattern discussion'
>>> Subject: Re: [NSRCA-discussion] website back up
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> Glad to see that I wasn't the only sucker that bought a DEC
>>> Rainbow. I couldn't afford the HD. Can you believe that we paid
>>> over $3K for that anchor? Of course that smooth scroll display
>>> made it worthwhile! I had a grad school classmate in '82 from IBM
>>> who said that the PC would never amount to anything.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> Jay Marshall
>>>
>>> From: nsrca-discussion-bounces at lists.nsrca.org [ mailto:nsrca-
>>> discussion-bounces at lists.nsrca.org] On Behalf Of Pete Cosky
>>> Sent: Saturday, December 04, 2010 8:48 AM
>>> To: 'General pattern discussion'
>>> Subject: Re: [NSRCA-discussion] website back up
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> I loved the Rainbow. CPM OS and dual 5 1/4 floppies in a single unit
>>> height....it was THE machine IMHO back then.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> From: nsrca-discussion-bounces at lists.nsrca.org [ mailto:nsrca-
>>> discussion-bounces at lists.nsrca.org] On Behalf Of Phil Spelt
>>> Sent: Saturday, December 04, 2010 8:38 AM
>>> To: General pattern discussion
>>> Subject: Re: [NSRCA-discussion] website back up
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> In 1983, I bought a 5MB hard drive for my DEC Rainbow for about
>>> $500, and wondered how I would EVER fill up the 5 MB!!!  'Course,
>>> we can do a LOTmore these days, such as Call Of Duty, etc, etc.
>>> lol...
>>>
>>> At 08:22 PM 12/3/2010, you wrote:
>>>
>>> Yep. My 1st hard drive was 10MB, and cost $450. Storage and RAM
>>> are crazy cheap these days. Consider that the software used to
>>> control the Command Module on the Apollo missions ran in 60K of
>>> memory. 2 blocks of ROM (24k and 32k each) and 1 block of RAM (4k).
>>>
>>> Doug
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> ---- Ron Van Putte <vanputte at cox.net> wrote:
>>>> A computer guy told me recently that he sold hard drives with one
>>>> terrabyte of memory for over $2 million several years ago, after I
>>>> told him I had just bought one for $69.99 plus shipping.
>>>>
>>>> Ron VP
>>>>
>>>> On Dec 3, 2010, at 5:27 PM, Bob Richards wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> Core memory, I bet!
>>>>>
>>>>> --- On Fri, 12/3/10, Phil Spelt <chuenkan at comcast.net> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>> Speaking of "knowing the whole thing", Ron, in 1972, already,
>>> when
>>>>> I was a college prof in Indiana, we had a relatively new Digital
>>>>> Equipment Corp. (DEC) PDP-11-20 mainframe computer in the comp
>>>>> center.  A DEC guy was there service the disk drives, and I asked
>>>>> him something about the memory modules.  He didn't know the
>>> answer,
>>>>> and when I expressed surprise, he indicated that there was no one
>>>>> at DEC that knew any of their computers from end to end!!!  And
>>>>> that was 1972 --think how complex things have gotten by now...
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>>> NSRCA-discussion mailing list
>>>>> NSRCA-discussion at lists.nsrca.org
>>>>> http://lists.nsrca.org/mailman/listinfo/nsrca-discussion
>>>>
>>>> _______________________________________________
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>>>> http://lists.nsrca.org/mailman/listinfo/nsrca-discussion
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> NSRCA-discussion mailing list
>>> NSRCA-discussion at lists.nsrca.org
>>> http://lists.nsrca.org/mailman/listinfo/nsrca-discussion
>>>
>>> --> There are only two types of aircraft -- fighters and targets.
>>>
>>> Phil Spelt, Past President, Knox County Radio Control Society, Inc.
>>>        URL: http://www.kcrctn.com
>>> AMA--1294,  Scientific Leader Member  SPA--177, Board Member
>>>       My URL: http://mywebpages.comcast.net/~chuenkan/
>>>       (865) 435-1476 v  (865) 604-0541 c
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
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>>> NSRCA-discussion at lists.nsrca.org
>>> http://lists.nsrca.org/mailman/listinfo/nsrca-discussion
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> NSRCA-discussion mailing list
>>> NSRCA-discussion at lists.nsrca.org
>>> http://lists.nsrca.org/mailman/listinfo/nsrca-discussion
>> --> There are only two types of aircraft -- fighters and targets.
>>
>> Phil Spelt, Past President, Knox County Radio Control Society, Inc.
>>        URL: http://www.kcrctn.com
>> AMA--1294,  Scientific Leader Member  SPA--177, Board Member
>>       My URL: http://mywebpages.comcast.net/~chuenkan/
>>       (865) 435-1476 v  (865) 604-0541 c
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> NSRCA-discussion mailing list
>> NSRCA-discussion at lists.nsrca.org
>> http://lists.nsrca.org/mailman/listinfo/nsrca-discussion
>
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