Comic Discussion > QUESTIONABLE CONTENT
WCDT: 25-29 October 2010 (1781-1785)
Carl-E:
--- Quote from: celticgeek on 29 Oct 2010, 20:08 ---When I bought my first personal computer, I went for the FULL MEGABYTE OF RAM. None of this 640 KB stuff.
And I went for the GIGANTIC 10 Megabyte hard drive, too.
--- End quote ---
That was the same computer I had at my first job!
--- Quote from: peterh on 29 Oct 2010, 22:50 ---While I wasn't *paid* to operate or program it, the first computer I "had access to" was when I was in school, and... well, let me just say that "access to" was in the form of handing over a batch of punched cards, and we'd have to wait a week for the output. Made for some interesting debugging sessions. :D
--- End quote ---
Same here! We must be of a similar age...
The first PC I had was a Commodore 64, which was named for its 64K of Ram. Found the bumper sticker in my parent's basement a couple of years ago, "I adore my 64".
--- Quote from: zadojla on 29 Oct 2010, 22:26 ---First mainframe computer I was paid to operate had 64K of memory and 10 megs of disk storage, It ws the size of two refrigerators side by side.
--- End quote ---
Got ya beat...
My dad was maintenance manager at the Carborundum abrasives plant in Niagra Falls. They were based there for the cheap electricity, making silicon carbide by running tens of thousands of volts through a pile of sand and ground coal. They had a 25-year-old UNIVAC from the early 50's controlling the voltage.
As maintenance head, my father decided it couldn't be supported anymore. He brought it home before he could find someone to take it. It came on a truck, and took up a bay in the garage, it was about the size and shape of a VW bus. I'm pretty sure it had all of 1 kilobyte (1000 words) of processing power, and the boot storage was a tape drive - punch tape, about 50 feet of it (we unspooled it to see). Output was directly connected to three large voltage regulators - you had to watch the meters to be sure it was running correctly!
We powered it up once. If you took off the side panel and turned out the lights, you could watch the relays arc in the dark...
It was replaced with a cupboard sized mainframe (this was still way before desktops) that had a VT100 to monitor the output. That decision alone saved the company thousands of dollars, making my dad a minor celebrity and the company's "tech geek"...
I tell this story as often as I can, young people (my students) just don't believe it. I'm not as old as celticgeek, but in my lifetime the developments have been mindboggling. This is the kind of accelleration that make people believe a singularity is "just around the corner". But really, it's pretty normal. My grandfather was born the year Henry Ford started making cars, and watched them develop all the way to the front wheel drive, fuel injected, computer controlled boxes of the 80's (he still preffered his caddy convertable with the fins). He used to tell me stories about his first car, with the crank start, the accellerator and "spark" levers on the steering column, and the brake lever between the driver and passenger, allowing my grandmother to stop the car if necessary!
And his grandfather peobably saw the development of guns from flintlocks to revolvers through the 1800s... technology always progresses whatever civilization thinks is important.
Plus ca change!
pwhodges:
I'm not as old as Celticgeek either, but I remember my great-grandmother, who was born in 1850 - so was already my age now when the First World War started, and then lived through the second and beyond.
The first two computers I used were both EELM KDF9s... One was Oxford University's computer (yes, just the one), and the next was Culham Laboratory's (mentioned in that article).
raoullefere:
--- Quote from: bhtooefr on 30 Oct 2010, 02:58 ---Of course, you all are assuming that the CPU and RAM reside on the motherboard.
Back in ye olde days of personal computing, the motherboard was a backplane. All it had was a bunch of slots. Then, one of the cards for that slot was the bus master (controlling all of the other slots,) and had your CPU. It might have also had RAM, and if you were really lucky, it also had I/O other than the slot interface.
I think Pintsize's body is a backplane, and his head like a card with a CPU, RAM, and minimal I/O. Note that it can be attached to the body in any position: http://questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=465
--- End quote ---
You're likely correct. That comic, btw, makes me wonder even more how cake gets in the body. *whack* Or I would, if it weren't just a comic.
And how does he taste anything? *whackity whack* Sorry, I can't seem to help myself
celticgeek:
Tasting Stuff
Olymander:
--- Quote from: raoullefere on 29 Oct 2010, 23:05 ---Edit: the more I think about it, the more I wonder how Pintsize does get the batter down or even eat in the first place. I probably need to consign that to 'it's just a comic," though.
--- End quote ---
Not really an explanation, but #212 mentions that there's a holding tank in the torso. I guess maybe there's a channel or passageway down each of the tube-like attachment points for his head, hands, and feet (neck, arms, and legs)? Or maybe just the neck... unless you got in the habit of attaching his head to his arms, there's probably no good reason to make room for said channel other than because it'd be easier to manufacture neck-style appendages for everything.
Edit - Got beaten to it. Sort of.
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