tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8243351006478134285.post3032770467154993233..comments2024-03-20T12:34:55.100-05:00Comments on Stonekettle Station: Holy mutton chops!Jim Wrighthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11259550121437562338noreply@blogger.comBlogger12125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8243351006478134285.post-67105953465001694042008-04-14T17:18:00.000-05:002008-04-14T17:18:00.000-05:00michelle K, heck yes. We kept pointing to Arkansas...michelle K, heck yes. We kept pointing to Arkansas and Mississippi in a "at least we're not that bad" kinda way (Ohio ain't that far away form the bottom on a lot of things).Steve Buchheithttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12999709767641212586noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8243351006478134285.post-35958115110162439532008-04-14T12:10:00.000-05:002008-04-14T12:10:00.000-05:00Well, my experience is that Mississippi is strange...<I>Well, my experience is that Mississippi is stranger than most places in the world</I><BR/><BR/>(snort) (coughing)<BR/><BR/>As we say here in WV, thank God for Mississippi--they keep us from being last in everything!Random Michelle Khttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13817444379694818074noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8243351006478134285.post-52688999636868365402008-04-13T23:30:00.000-05:002008-04-13T23:30:00.000-05:00Well, my experience is that Mississippi is strange...Well, my experience is that Mississippi is stranger than most places in the world :)Jim Wrighthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11259550121437562338noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8243351006478134285.post-73718716026773621692008-04-13T22:08:00.000-05:002008-04-13T22:08:00.000-05:00And how cool is it to see your name and book in an...<I>And how cool is it to see your name and book in an article in the NY Times? Very cool, I'd say.</I><BR/><BR/>Very cool indeed.<BR/><BR/>I remember the Zenith Z series computers. And I also owned a Commodore 64, a computer in many ways far superior to the Apple II, especially if you wanted to program.<BR/><BR/>On a side note, I'm tinged a little green with the amount of the world you've seen. I have a younger brother who was in the Navy, and he still harasses me from time to time about all the world he saw while I was stuck at Keesler AFB in Mississippi my entire stint.vincehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16955307244053931069noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8243351006478134285.post-58577247018099341722008-04-13T21:32:00.000-05:002008-04-13T21:32:00.000-05:00Vince, I've got a pretty good memory - and I'm pos...Vince, <BR/><BR/>I've got a pretty good memory - and I'm positive it was an Apple II, with a green monochrome screen. The year could have been anywhere from 78-83. I specifically remember a guy in the crowd saying that Apples were a joke, and that people who were serious about computers bought the Commodore C-64 because Commodore built their own chips, Apple bought theirs. (Of course commodore made their own chips to keep costs down and <BR/><BR/>86 is way to late, by then I was living in Spain and I owned my third "serious" computer - a Zenith Z-248 (80286, 640 RAm, 1 Meg <I>extended</I> RAM, 20MB HD, Windows v1.03 woofuckinghoo!) bought through the government purchase program.<BR/><BR/>And how cool is it to see your name and book in an article in the NY Times? Very cool, I'd say.Jim Wrighthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11259550121437562338noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8243351006478134285.post-54231890632772576912008-04-13T18:50:00.000-05:002008-04-13T18:50:00.000-05:00Janiece, I also miss the good doctor.Jim, that wou...Janiece, I also miss the good doctor.<BR/><BR/>Jim, that would have been an Apple II with a mouse card and MousePaint, a MacPaint clone for the Apple II which was bundled with the mouse card. But this wasn't available until 1981. Or the Apple IIGS, which came with a mouse and a Mac-like GUI, but not until September of 1986.<BR/><BR/>In college we had one of the first Apple IIs, which all the geeks were always fighting over. And paper terminals with acoustic couplers. Later I was a lab assisitant part-time in a school lab with many, many Apple IIs, and I owned an Apple IIc. I even wrote a book about AppleWorks, one of the first integrated office suites for personal computers (see <A HREF="http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C0CE3DB133CF931A15756C0A966958260&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=all" REL="nofollow">a brief mention of my book towards the bottom of this NY Times article from 1990</A>).vincehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16955307244053931069noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8243351006478134285.post-7463291310584477792008-04-13T18:28:00.000-05:002008-04-13T18:28:00.000-05:00Hey now, I think I actually have a 75bps acoustic ...Hey now, I think I actually have a 75bps acoustic coupler/modem around here somewhere.<BR/><BR/>(what I <I>don't</I> actually have around here is a standard black Ma Bell handset that it'll fit on)Jim Wrighthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11259550121437562338noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8243351006478134285.post-10821637347928664722008-04-13T17:57:00.000-05:002008-04-13T17:57:00.000-05:00Oo, acoustic couplers! Back when we computed with ...Oo, acoustic couplers! Back when we computed with bear skins and flint knives.Steve Buchheithttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12999709767641212586noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8243351006478134285.post-43296913595282744902008-04-13T12:08:00.000-05:002008-04-13T12:08:00.000-05:00Actually, as I recall, Radio Shack sold the Apple-...Actually, as I recall, Radio Shack sold the Apple-II for brief time around 1977-78 or so, before they came out with their own Tandy line.<BR/><BR/>I remember seeing one at a Radio Shack in the Woodland Mall, in Grand Rapids, MI. As I recall it was strictly green screen, but it had all these cool icons and a mouse - that was the first time I'd ever seen a machine with a mouse. I thought it was pretty weird. But there was this little paint program where you could draw circles and squares with the mouse - that was pretty cool.Jim Wrighthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11259550121437562338noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8243351006478134285.post-2411440139902640632008-04-13T08:43:00.000-05:002008-04-13T08:43:00.000-05:00OK fine. I'll stand up and put myself on the fron...OK fine. I'll stand up and put myself on the front line to be pelted with monkey poo.<BR/><BR/>The folks at Apple are the ones who decided you should be able to use this stuff even if all you could do was type. Even hunt and peck.<BR/><BR/>I luvs me my mac.Nathanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00648438549121320566noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8243351006478134285.post-53932139597240856982008-04-12T23:55:00.000-05:002008-04-12T23:55:00.000-05:00It says a lot about the computer market in those d...It says a lot about the computer market in those days that Radio Shack thought that Isaac Asimov would grab potential buyers and that they were probably right. It's a little hard to imagine a SF author being <I>asked</I> to endorse a computer these days--and audiences would probably say something like, "Who the hell is Charlie Stross?" (No disrespect meant to Mr. Stross, I could have picked on anyone, and he's not exactly a household name... I'm not even sure Dr. Asimov was a household name. In my household, sure: but we had <I>nerds</I> in my household. Hardly typical at all.)<BR/><BR/>We had TSR-80s in the computer lab and library of my junior high school (and a few Apples in the library). They tried to teach us BASIC and LOGO. Everyone was going to have to learn a programming language because that's how computers were going to work--not only were you going to use your computer for things like grocery lists, but you were going to write the grocery-list-application all by yourself. They sure called that one wrong.Erichttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18275812152895151542noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8243351006478134285.post-63485024367899263612008-04-12T22:27:00.000-05:002008-04-12T22:27:00.000-05:00Yikes. Talk about a blast from the past!I miss th...Yikes. Talk about a blast from the past!<BR/><BR/>I miss the good doctor...Janiecehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14190655869710465713noreply@blogger.com