Any tech-spotters in?

[sted]

Not forgetting a sound, modem and possible LAN card.

No wonder they used to be so heavy!!

 

yup a nic with bnc and 15 pin (joystick) port modem i always had externals, will of had some soundblaster or other iirc at the time an awe64 5 1/4 bay mounted speakers to make it more portable (so a blanking blate with a hole in it to loop the headphone cable back inside) lol

Edited February 4, 2017 by sted

[Matt_NetSupport]

 

From the early 80's

 

(probably before most of you on here were born!)

[synaesthesia]

Is that the back of one of those Kempston spectrum addon things?

[Matt_NetSupport]

Close (similar era) but not Sinclair!

[DJ-1701]

Additional RAM for a Commodore?

[Matt_NetSupport]

Well done DJ-1701

 

8K!

[Norphy]

8k... you could barely fit a text file in that these days!

[Matt_NetSupport]

Crazy - when you think about it - developers had their work cut out back then I guess!

[Matt_NetSupport]

The photo I took wouldn't have fitted on it! (Around 500 of them for a single 4Mb photo!) Edited February 5, 2017 by Matt_NetSupport

[DJ-1701]

Crazy - when you think about it - developers had their work cut out back then I guess!

 

Programmers were much more efficient with coding back then that's for sure!

[elsiegee40]

Programmers were much more efficient with coding back then that's for sure!

 

Crazy - when you think about it - developers had their work cut out back then I guess!

 

We certainly did. You learned to code very efficiently - I remember training others in coding optimisation especially for database design and access.

 

We had to be quite careful about which data tables went on which disk volume as well to help the compiled code run at its best too. In we had one table that was split over 3 volumes!

 

My employer, a big insurer, bought code generating software that was supposed to help us create programs quicker. The code was junk though - spaghetti code, massive when compiled and very inefficient. Humans were much better at writing fast code.

Edited February 5, 2017 by elsiegee40

[Matt_NetSupport]

I was a techie back in the days of DOS/Windows 3.1 and we had to juggle programs loading into memory using EMM386.EXE and HIMEM.SYS (for those of you old enough to remember) - you have it easy nowadays

[jinnantonnixx]

Here's a good one. I've had this for a while. It still works.

 

[Matt_NetSupport]

Merlin

[Matt_NetSupport]

Parker Bros I believe

[jinnantonnixx]

Well played. My old Merlin from 1979 still works! It had nine quite playable and enjoyable games - quite a piece of engineering with very primitive equipment.

 

Edited February 5, 2017 by jinnantonnixx

[Matt_NetSupport]

I had one as well

[Dos_Box]

I'll just leave this here:

 

 

Edited to add, I've shown a bit more with this pic to make it 'easier'

Edited February 5, 2017 by Dos_Box

[synaesthesia]

Is that a Nokia Bananaphone?

[Matt_NetSupport]

I think your right - are you still using it Dos_Box?

[Dos_Box]

Yup, it's the Nokia 8110 as featured in The Matrix.

A bit of trivia for you all, the 8110 did not have a spring loaded cover but they added one to the movie versions for dramatic effect.

They did add a spring to the follow-up 7110 which, IIRC resulted in many a slider shooting off the bottom of the phone!

I, unfortunately, never had one, but I'm sure they are a 'must have' for phone collectors.

Edited February 5, 2017 by Dos_Box

[synaesthesia]

I was selling those things like hotcakes back in the day - along with the first lot of DVD players (Sony for the rich, Samsung for the intelligent) and copies of The Matrix - which was very much responsible for a lot of their popularity!

[Dos_Box]

I was selling those things like hotcakes back in the day - along with the first lot of DVD players (Sony for the rich, Samsung for the intelligent) and copies of The Matrix - which was very much responsible for a lot of their popularity!

 

The Matrix was for DVD players what Dire Straits Brothers in Arms was for CD players!

[synaesthesia]

Indeed! And Samsung hit the nail on the head by putting out a decent, well priced DVD player that could be made region-free easily.

[Dos_Box]

My first DVD player was a CyberHome model (as sold by Richer Sounds), a German(?) designed unit which too could be made region free very easily indeed.