my life pretty much revolves around school and homework. I haven't have any time to sit down and blog, which I really miss. But the good thing is, I only have 4 weeks left of school! The majority of my time has been going into homework and working on tons of stuff for the Unit Expo (which is on the 19th), but once it passes I am pretty much home free! There's so much that goes into the Unit and I still have a shitload to do. I know I can do it, but 7 days doesn't seem like a lot of tiiiime! AAHHHH. I'll update after the Unit Expo and post pictures. x]
But other than school, life is great. Not much of a social life past few months, but that will change soon I hope. I miss my friends. :*)
And 34 more days til I leave for Holland. <33
What was your favorite class in high school? (And no, lunch doesn't count.)
Well, learning wise, my favorite class was always English/Literature. But a lot of good memories and hilarious moments in Chemistry class. xD Oh man, good ole days.
Oh, well - I've forgotten the model numbers. This is what happens when you take the time at a party to learn someone's name - you learn their name and make the whole evening special but you sacrifice some other random piece of information. In this case, model numbers.
As far as I can tell, I used a PDP-10:
(Taken by Ed Thelen of material owned by Computer History Museum under the non-commercial rule.)
Followed shortly by a VAX 11/780:
Talk about good times. I had access to these only because I was friends with the system administrator at school. He set me up (I think I basically whined a lot until he did) with a user name and password. My first user name and therefore email address ever was "tomato". I don't know why I chose that. He said "What do you want for a user name?" and I spouted out "Tomato". So I was known as "tomato" for a few years. Whenever I logged in I'd hear "Hey, there is a Tomato on the system!". I had email and was able to send/receive with a few friends that were online also - mostly right there at the school.
A few years ago a customer was walking through my company and he was talking about how he had made all of his money in the "internet" and how he had his first email address in 1988. That's how he started his conversation. It was like "How did you get rich in the internet?" and his first statement was "I had my first email address in 1988". Obviously there was something else involved because I had my first email address in 1983 and I didn't make it big in the internet. Of course, the internet wasn't really there yet so much back then. I think there was ARPANET, etc - but I'm not going to go into all of that.
I didn't do anything really constructive on either of these systems at the time besides read newsgroups. Later, maybe around 1987 I had to have a "real" account because I had a class on the VAX so the "tomato" account went away and I moved to something like just "wilso_d" or something else mundane. At that point I was taking an operating system class and we had to write our own OS in something like C or Pascal. It's all vague at this point, but none-the-less, this was my moment to both PDP and VAX systems. Both were pretty good considering the time frame. All text-based as I recall with dumb-terminals. I think the world really was faster before the advent of fancy graphical user interfaces (aka Windows).
You can read more about the VAX here.
I realised that if there was ever a time for me to update the shop, just before Christmas would be it.
I have new prints in a range of sizes and prices. Soon I will have Christmas cards and copies of Meow Magazine for sale as well. Watch this space. :)
Can you tell I'm a Londoner?
These are for the new issue of the zine the students on my course produce (Meow Magazine). This month's theme is I Love London so this was what I did. I'm also on the editing team this year and we have big plans for it.
What's the longest you've ever waited in line?
15 hours. Black Friday. In below freezing temperature. Yes, I'm crazy. xD
Is it "Write A Blog Every Day For A Month" again? Because I'm already 10 behind. So here is a post from about two years ago where I said "Oh, I'm going to post about every computer I've ever used!" and then I stopped, right after this one. Lord Kalvan has been posting about a bunch of old computers and it reminded me of my original intent.
So here goes - I'm going to take a few posts to talk about the different computers I've used. I'll start with the very first one. This is the Commodore CBM-8032. This came out around 1980 and had a massive 32k of RAM. It had an 80 column by 25 line green monochrome screen. The CPU was a 6502 2Mhz.
This was owned by the science department at my high school. 1980 (10th grade for me) was well before the school had computer labs, etc. This was the ONLY computer in the school and we found it in the back of a store room where it wasn't being used.
It was beautiful. I used this from 1980 through 1982.
The base model used tapes, but the school actually had a dual floppy drive for it. I sent a letter to Commodore to see if they could send me any information on it, and they sent me a copy of their Commodore magazine. It was cool because it was filled with source code you could key in and also had instructions on how to do things with the system - like print. Yeah, this was before all of the magic we rely on today. Internet? Ha! I don't think so.
My first program was in BASIC and said something like:
10 PRINT "DEWITTE"
20 GOTO 10
and I'd run it... and run it.. and run it... There were three of us who started hanging around the back of the science room every chance we had - before school, after school, during lunch. We'd write programs and key in games and play them. One I recall the most is StarTrek (where you were a big E (for enterprise) and it moves around looking out for K (Klingons). Ah, good times, good times.
I would send a note to Commodore and when I received a reply, it would come from a different address. I thought something was up - they kept moving. Eventually I think they went away, but that wasn't until after the Vic-20, Commodore 64, and the Amiga. The only one of these I seriously used was the Amiga, but that's for another post.
I used to sit in the back of the classroom and just write mindless programs and listen to Supertramp on a cassette boom-box that I built (yes, built - and sad really because I don't have a single picture of it).
Wow it's been 5 days since my last post!!! I've never gone that long!
I've been crazy busy... Lets see where to start?
Ryan was in Texas watching a NASCAR race for the weekend with his Dad. Meanwhile I was at home with the little chicklings. There was ZERO down time. Our weekend consisted of Drunko Bunco, Nutcracker rehearsal, a friends 30th Birthday out of the area, a Tea at my house for 12 ladies, Church, My sister flying into town, dinner at my house for 17 family members.
Breathe.
Today I'm off work to pack and hang out with my Sister and Mom, before we leave tomorrow to MALL OF AMERICA! Yep thats right a girls trip, no husband and no children, just 16 girlfriends...... YAHOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
So what have I packed so far? Um, lets see a pair of jeans a few pairs of jammies and a scarf. Yep I apparently still have alot of work to do.
Some new things have come to light in regards to the Nook.
A) You can only lend a book once - IN THE LIFETIME OF THE BOOK. Not
only that, but not all books are lendable, it's up to the publisher.
B) You can't use B&N giftcards to purchase eBooks, because they have
to be associated with a credit card. That means I can't be gifted
during the holidays.
C) I already knew this, but it's coming back repeatedly to bite me in
the ass. Kindle has MUCH better prices on eBooks - period. They also
have more. I'm sure that B&N will eventually catch up, but until then
I'm screwed.
But...but... the Kindle is UGLY. Watching the videos of it doesn't
make me want to use it at all but when I watch the videos of the Nook
I do. So, do I pay more for the books now and limit myself to
selection because the device is better - and HOPE that B&N catches up
- or do I go with the Kindle and hope that the Kindle catches up in
regards to hardware?!
Oh, and I found out that the Nook is selling out like hotcakes,
they've already pushed the preorders (well, if you preorder now - mine
hasn't been pushed back) to the second week in December from the last
week in November. Maybe I can sell it via eBay and get all my money
back and then some?
Yesterday we finally made it to Disneyland! Paul & I have season passes, we
bought them in June, but we hadn't gone back since because we needed someone
to come along and help us with Evy. Paul & I decided to gift my sister early
this year for Christmas with a one day pass to Disneyland - so she could get
a season pass too. It was a lot of fun, I'm glad my sister went because she
kept reminding me not to stress out (like I always do) because we had season
passes. Our trip was filled with a lot of bumps, but just laughing through
them.
We got a late start, good traffic though. Once in Anaheim we stopped at a
Burger King for something to eat - but they wouldn't take our credit cards
so we had to go across the street to another place. We got a bit lost on the
way to the parking because Disneyland was redirecting to a different parking
structure and the signs they had were confusing. Then once we'd parked we
had to ride a bus to the park. Then we got to the park entrance and
discovered that Paul had left his wallet (and his season pass) in the car so
he had to go back. That took awhile because he had to wait for a bus, get to
the parking center, wait for another bus, and then come back. My sister & I
decided to go into the park and get her season pass, but then I discovered
I'd left HER ticket in my purse which was in the car. Luckily Paul was able
to grab it and we got into the park around noon.
We didn't ride very many rides, but we still had a really good day! Pirates
of the Caribbean, Indiana Jones, Haunted Mansion, Space Mountain - bit of
the Christmas parade. We ended up leaving pretty early because we just got
such a late start, but since we have season passes we'll be going back :)
