The Internet and Hot Rod's

I was a junior high shop teacher until I retired a few years back. When the school got online many years ago and I figured out how to work the thing, I was hooked. I even taught classes to the other teacher, so that they could use the internet. My first experience with computers was in college about 1972 when we used punch cards and then a year or so later we had remote terminals. We tried using the college computer to design tuned pipes for 2 cycles. The computers were so slow that you could almost build the pipe while it was trying to do the math.

 

When my daugthers started going to school in the early 90's we were forced into it. Stilll don't care for them very much...there seems to be too much crap to sift through ...for me anyway.

 

Back in the '80s, as we were entering the computer age at work, I tried to get up to speed on a PC. I never mastered that damned thing. Then we got a a little Mac Plus in our department and I took to that thing like a duck to water. Well, almost. I'm still computer impaired, but a diehard Mac fan.. Every now and then I have to move from a Mac to a PC at work. It's still a struggle for me, even with Windows. At home, I dabbled with dial-up for a few years, then a hail storm beat up our TV antenna. We were probably the last people in the neighborhood to get cable, but it didn't take too long after that to get the computer on cable. That's when the internet really took hold of my life. I have to say though, I've learned more about flatheads on the computer than I did back in the day when I was racing them.

 

My first contact with computers was trying to keep them cool back in the 60's. They had special computer rooms for the monsters. The room had a raised floor. All the cabling ran under the floor. We had special A/C units designed just for computer rooms. The amount of cables under the floor was amazing. All I really remember about the computers was the tractor feed printers. It seemed like they never stopped spitting out paper that must have been 18" wide.

Yeah I was building hot rods then too but "transistorized ignition" was high tech state of the art back then.

 

You gotta admit, the internet has become a great resource for finding old parts. The worlds biggest swap meet from the comfort of my own home. Ofcorse you usually have to pay more for the convinence... but still...

 

First computer use at 7, I wrote my first program at age 8 (1984) for an Apple IIc. It was in an elementary school class. Messed around with them since then. Didn't get online till 1993-1994 though.

Computers like all things, have their place. But you're right they shouldn't replace reality.

 

Me too- we were at a swap meet and someone mentioned EBAY- the wigfe is really computer savvy (does websites and stuff for me) but we went home to check what EBAY was..
wow- now we buy and sell there
Its alws' ehck EBAY ' before we look anywher else- its like the best swap meet near your house and you can still have beer

 

I bought my own computer about a year ago, before that i was using my sisters.
Never liked them, and never had an interest in them..sometime's i still don't..

I started using one just about the time i became a member here, maybe a month before.
Just got on it and started playing around. Hell i didn't even lurk here, i just joined a day or two after i was told about it.
Now i enjoy getting on here and checking out the HAMB and a couple other boards i'm a member of, plus my emails.
I rarely hit much else, maybe eBay on occasion, but thats it.

I find using this to keep in contact with friends from other states is easy, and having places like the HAMB and the Jockey Journal keep me interested in stuff.
Plus i've learned a lot and made great friends.

Tony

 

Well, I wrote my first game in basic when I was eight... my Dad taught Unix for Control Data, and so we had computers around the house. I got to fly navy flight simulators at Silicon Graphics when I was twelve, and then in my rebellious years, didn't want anything to do with them. I now am lead web developer for a reasonably large retail mail-order company... I like computers... they are paying for parts for my F-100!

Ben

 

never had computers when i was in school. if i didn't have kids with computer knowledge, i'd be lost or more lost than i am

 

My first contact with a computer was in February of 1965 when I was hired at Kaiser Jeep as a programmer. The entire company ran all of its business on three NCR 315's -- two were 10 K machines and one was still a 5 K box (upgraded to another 10 K box after I was there a few months). The 315's were decimal-based and had no operating system -- you had to program EVERYTHING yourself in assembler. We ran all accounting, inventory control, manufacturing, payroll, the whole shebang on those machines, By 1967 we progressed to the ultimate 2nd-generation NCR box -- a 315RMC Mk II with 80 K. NCR furnished a communication package that took the lower 40 K and we wrote an on-line, real-time, inventory management system we'd developed in house in the upper 40 K. The system communicated with model 35 ASR Teletype machines at the various Jeep distribution centers.

 

I HATE computers. But I like youz guyz alright, so I stick around.

the most important thing I have learned so far is SCAT and SCAT PERFORMANCE PARTS
will lead you in two different directions. I assure you that you want the performance parts.

 

The 1st PC we had in our home was in the early 80´s it was a Timex Sinclair...was an tiny little POS...had to use a tape recorder for the drive...and the screen was a black and white tv....
Later I was given a 486 in late 90´s...had no math-coprocessor...when I used desktop dyno on it it took almost 10 minutes to get the final results.
Not too much later I stepped up and started putting my own computers together....been on the internet since 97, Cant stand to start the day with out checkin out the HAMB
James

 

First experience was with an old Atari 4000 with a tape drive to load the program. Early 80's.

Took most of the day to get it to run a flashing screen advertising my sign business. Told the guys at the electronics store it cost too much. Then we started using it to cut the early vinyl signs that were about an inch in height. Had a whopping ten fonts if I remember. Cost as much as the computer to run it. Nah I'll wait..

Anyway left that alone and did various other things till 90 and got gave and old 386 with a 80 MB hdd and 2 megs ram. We was the shit...

Then when I got a 2400 baud modem, and found the local BBS's ... a couple of $200 phone bills and that was the end of that. Had someone give me a 9600 baud modem and used it till I could afford a 14.4 $265 for that one.

Moved into the real puting world in 93. 486 sx16 with 4 megs ram, 275 mb HDD and a two speed CD and a soundblaster.

I ran all my stuff, and a local BBS at the time, with 16 mb ram the same HDD and a 486 dx50 processor in the same box. Ran OS2 Warp Win 3.11 and Dos 6.22 all on the same machine; all at the same time. Could have someone on the single node BBS and me on the machine working at the same time. Sometimes it slowed down and most it didn't. Me and about 8 other guys were the shit around this burg till local internet was offered. Till then everything was long distance. Then BBS'n went by the way side.. Specially single nodes like ours.

So eBay here I came. Back when the servers we all named for lizards. Remember that one. And it would hang up in the middle of the day cause too many people were trying to use it. Anybody else remember that?


Told Fraz that the future was workin on these things and he's been busy ever since fixing them. Not rich, but most of the time a living.

Then we found the Jalopy Journal and the HAMB and everything went to crap. We quit being puter junkies and now are true CAR GUYS!

Sorry bout that shout there, old iron and thinking about it gives me a chubby and gets me all cited. Puters are now only a means to an end. Does it work? Can I get on the net? I'm good.

Now Where's that article on the nailhead we were looking for..

Later
VonDad

 

Been through the whole sill gammit of computers........Pong Game, Commadore 64, 286, 386, 486, WOW...Pentium............at about 2 grand a crack. Gotta upgrade, ya know.......Guess who made Bill Gates the richest dude in the world?.....ME........


Now we have 2 desktops, my laptop, digital cameras, Blah, Blah, Blah..............it never stops......................But, I love it.

 

Computers and hot rods are a passion for me, and I can remember when Howdy-Doody was king. Although I was a technology junkie all of my life. I didn't resist anything but the draft and even that didn't work out. It seems the older one gets, the appreciation for all things old and new matures with these years. In fact, I was elated to learn that I can hot-rod computers just like anything else. Now, when I have an overheating problem, my flathead 'A' might not be the issue.

I admit to being somewhat intimidated by electronics, but when I finally realized that I could really press the envelope before actually killing a computer, I was less afraid to push its buttons. My wife contends that my original fear originated in a time when computers were the size of our front room. Nobody would be happy if you blew that sucker up.

Nowadays, I am in the hot rod build business which consumes my days, and at night, . . . well, I park in my easy chair and cruise the cyber circuit, just as I did in my earlier years going from one hot-spot to another. Sure is a lot easier on the gas mileage.

Now then, this HAMB business is all new to me . . . but I like it too!

 

The 1st PC we had in our home was in the early 80´s it was a Timex Sinclair...was an tiny little POS...had to use a tape recorder for the drive...and the screen was a black and white tv.... I bought a 486 in late 90´s for my business...had no math-coprocessor...when I used desktop dyno on it it took almost 10 minutes to get the final results.
Not too much later I stepped up and started putting my own computers together....been on the internet since 97, Cant stand to start the day with out checkin out the HAMB

Almost the same story as mine, I type with 2 fingers so I stole yours. Bill

 

Back around 1981, a computer geek that I knew told me I needed to go downtown to see the introduction of the Apple Lisa.

My first computer was a one-meg Macintosh Plus, with a 20-meg hard drive and a 2.4k modem. With that system I was able to write and submit articles through a BBS to magazine publishers, and I also wrote two automotive books on it which sent to the publisher on discs.

After upgrading to two other beige Macs and being involved with several bulletin boards in the '80s and early '90s, I went online in early 1996, and started making bookmarks and saving them to disc. After wasting an hour with Microsoft FrontPage, I learned how to do my own HTML code, and then launched my own Web site in the summer of '96.

I will always support Apple. Their new 20-inch G5 iMac looks good, and it may be my next system. A few days ago on Craigslist, I bought a rust-free, never-raced iMac with system 10.2.4 and an external floppy drive for $120.

Dave
(602) 233-8400
http://www.roadsters.com/

 

i've been on the internet since 1992. been on computers since 1982, since the commodore 64. was a die-hard 8086 pc guy since 1985, then switched over to a mac in 1999, after deciding to go into graphic design.

 

Had zero experience with computers prior to 1989. That year, at age 49 and in my own invention/design business, I decided that I needed to get current and bought a Mac for word processing & graphics.

Discovered the internet aroung '94, and the HAMB in 2001.

It just occurred to me the other day that, as a retired guy, if I didn't have the computer and the HAMB I would be lost -- I'd have to watch daytime TV!

 

I really can run a sliderule; it was the weapon of choice when I was in school ('63 to '67'). The university had an IBM mainframe that ran FORTRAN and used punch cards. We also had some analog machines in the engineering department. I hated tham all, and hoped I had escaped them forever. Soon after I went to work, desktop machines became standard, and it was compute or die. I was surrounded by guys that could make the damn things stand at attention and whistle dixie, so an expert was as close as the next office. My wife and I have four machines between us, counting laptops. Mom and I surprise my computer-age kid every once in a while with what we can do. The real hotshot is my nine year old grandson. I was informed yesterday that my machine is too slow to run the games he likes on the net. Fighting obsolescence one byte at a time..............Slide

 

My dad was/is of just the same opinion, but I see the internet as an access to the biggest constantly updating library in the world, and also a way to send a letter to people in just seconds.

And anyone who says "I hate the internet" is being embarrassingly ignorant.

 

I am a greybeard, and a design engineer. When I started into the workforce in '65, calculations were done with a sliderule and engineering drawings were done on drafting boards. I remember the first pocket calculators, around '68 or so---they cost over $350 and were chained to the drafting tables so no-one could steal them. I heard about computers in the 70's, but figured they would never catch on. In the eighties, the big companies were trying to pressure me into becoming computer literate, but I resisted like Hell-----a drafting board, sliderule, pocket calculator, and logarithmic tables were all I was ever going to need. Then in the mid 90's, I decided to open my own design consulting company. Wow!!! what a shock!!! The perception was "if you can't do it on a computer, you must not be any damned good"
So off to college I went, at the tender age of 50, to learn about computers and Autocad. Since I wanted to eat, and had to work to make that happen,I quickly mastered Autocad (a computerized drafting software for mechanical engineering) and bought a state of the art computer system.
About 4 years after that, just when I was really comfortable with it, the market perception changed again and became "if you cant do it (engineering) with 3D models with full parametrics and associativity, you must not be any good".----So---back to school to learn Solidworks, spend $9000 for my own software license, spend another $3000 because now my "state of the art" computer is obsolete, and away we go again.
Now my computer skills are damn good, my software is cutting edge, and I have been dragged kicking and squealing into the 21'st century.
And, damn, I love it.
Brian, owner of www.rupnowdesign.com

 

well to me technology is just like hotrods. when i first got into computers, i was more interested in HOW they worked and how i can "modify" technology to make it do what it wasnt meant to do.

now i work in computer security/forensics for a living

 

Well, I'm kinda like some of these other older guys on here. We just got our first computer about a year and half ago. I had literally never touched one before that! I read about the HAMB , I think in Rod and Custom, and started lurking .I still don't know much about using one but I'm trying to learn. Picture posting is still kind of a mystery. Anyway, thanks for providing us with this place to go .

 

been fumbling around this thing for about a year.but share it with 3 others in the house so my time has been really short.Other than I'm using a pawn shop Compaq Presario I have no clue what I'm using !I'm reading that off the front of this thing.Actually since finding HAMB I've spent more time here than I have in the whole year!It's funny but I actualy know where a full panel is from the first computer ever made an older engineer friend and his father were part of the group that built it in washington. when it was scrapped he kept an entire section the size of a fridge the father was responcible for making the vacuum tubes it ran on this section has mabey 100 tubes, anyway the smithonian kept a face panel and they took the workings their stored in a barn near here.

 

I'm not that old and still don't care for them that much, however they are good for a few things, like the HAMB