Old Heads: Tell me bout the good ole days

[Boyd01]

Yeah, I believe that. My first computer was when I was 10 in 1980. I wasn't even aware they existed before that. 1978 would have had me preoccupied with Star Wars, Battlestar Galactica and Wonder Woman.

Actually, there was a Star Wars game on the flip side of that Startrek tape. Note the "16K" label on the tape, that meant you needed 16k RAM to play. The standard Apple ][ only had 4k, which was very limited, you could only use integer BASIC. With a 16K computer, you could load floating point BASIC from tape.

The Apple ][ had these games from the beginning and others became available soon afterwards. They were amusing, but I have never been all that much of a games person. Certainly not a reason why I wanted a personal computer.

 

[opeter]

First computer I used was a C64 at my school friends house with a casette recorder/reader. The first computer, our family bought was much later in beginning of 1993 a PC with Intel 486 DX2 CPU.

The first Mac I had the chance to use sometimes was a Macintosh Centris 610 in 1994.

 

[VulchR]

I have had the displeasure of writing code on computer punch cards (one card per line of programming code) - that's how old I am and I still have PTSD from it. There's nothing like a box of punch cards inadvertently dropped and sliding across a floor, messing up the sequence, to make you want to end your life. That happens once, then you learn to number the punch cards manually with a pen.

My first computer was a 'transportable' Compaq:

Image: link

It was a fantastic computer that I used for the final year of my undergraduate work and the first two years of my PhD.

During that time I also had access to a Lisa (before the Mac XL). I can't say that I found the Lisa very exciting. It was very IBM, with a huge number of volumes of user manuals clearly written with anything but creativity in mind. Then I saw and bought a MacPlus (and a 20 MB CMS SCSI external hard disk that was considered a profligate luxury at the time) and Apple has been my preference ever since. The thing is, people go on about Steve Jobs, but really what made the Mac was QuickDraw burned into ROM and PostScript-based printing. The user interface was fine, but the graphics and the quality of printed output was beyond that easily available on the PC.

EDIT: Oh, back then the way we scanned documents (or in my case, microscopy pictures) with a device called Thunderscan - a cartridge that replaced the ribbon cartridge in an Imagesetter II and bounced a laser off the target document to measure its light absorbance (and hence darkness) rather than printing pixels. It had amazing resolution for a device at the time, but it scanned one pixel at a time, so one document could take 45 minutes.

 

[MrCheeto]

In fact, there was quite a bit of skepticism about why anybody would need a computer back then. One of the reasons that was often mocked was "organizing your recipes"

Because of what you mention, during that time period, she thought computers would be a fad that was going to pass quickly.

This was my experience even in the Windows NT/upcomming 95 days. Even my dad fought my love for computers every step of the way because all he ever saw them do was play games and sit on the desk of receptionists.

It's quite funny that no matter how resistive people were to tech, they've relented and can't put down Facebook because they've just GOT to argue with 11-year-olds in other countries. Quite the turn-around.

When I got the iPhone 3Gs, I handed it to my dad to show him how he wouldn't have trouble adding numbers to contacts and keeping track of texts in a conversation. If you guys remember, very few phones organized texts into conversations. They normally just listed them in order they were received. He used it for about two seconds then threw his hands up and said "there's nothing wrong with my phone". By the time the iPhone 8 came out, he had learned to shoot pics and email them, FaceTime, and make YouTube playlists.

If you aren't aware of how slowly some people pick up on the changing world around them, I can tell you that I've experienced some award winning ignorance. A work-acquaintance, probably approaching 50 at the time, saw me using a MacBook. He said "Apples? I haven't seen on of those in a long time. What's so special about them?" I went on to describe how easy the UI is and how the machines are always so thin and minimal with top-shelf quality batteries and displays. His eyes glazed over before responding, "Oh hey, don't they have that problem where they can only do one thing at a time?" I almost couldn't believe what he was saying so I clarified, "You mean no multi-tasking like in the 80's?" "Yeah". This was around 2008...

 

[eyoungren]

This was my experience even in the Windows NT/upcomming 95 days. Even my dad fought my love for computers every step of the way because all he ever saw them do was play games and sit on the desk of receptionists.

…

If you aren't aware of how slowly some people pick up on the changing world around them, I can tell you that I've experienced some award winning ignorance. A work-acquaintance, probably approaching 50 at the time, saw me using a MacBook. He said "Apples? I haven't seen on of those in a long time. What's so special about them?" I went on to describe how easy the UI is and how the machines are always so thin and minimal with top-shelf quality batteries and displays. His eyes glazed over before responding, "Oh hey, don't they have that problem where they can only do one thing at a time?" I almost couldn't believe what he was saying so I clarified, "You mean no multi-tasking like in the 80's?" "Yeah". This was around 2008...

I get it. I worked with one ad rep from 2004 to 2018 and she was willfully ignorant of technology. Her primary mantra and one which she issued proudly was "I do not DO computers!" When I first started working with her she had to be in her early 60s.

It was extremely frustrating because she was also a pathological liar and narcissist. The only person she cared about was herself. So for the first few years, I actually had to handle her email. This was eventually reduced to three times a day and eventually my weak-kneed coward of a boss shoved a computer in her office over a weekend.

Oh, the knockdown-drag out fight that ensued between them over that!

About this time you're wondering why she was never fired, especially for treating the boss like her vassal. Essentially that was because she brought in the majority of the profit for the business, but there were some other things that over time we employees reasonably made assumptions on.

She did manage to change, but only because it was forced on her. Now, you're probably thinking this supports your last paragraph and in a way it does. But part of my job was also as IT for the company. In her case, this meant her making the same mistakes and my fixing those mistakes over and over and OVER again for 14 years. She may have been forced to use technology but no one could force her to remember how to use it. I could explain something to her, and then in five minutes I'd have to explain the same thing again.

She absolutely refused to retain anything that was taught or shown to her. It wasn't because she was dumb, it was simply because she didn't want to learn it - any of it.

And why not? All of us working for the company were there to serve her and her alone. We were all her servants and would all do what we were told. At least this is the conclusion everyone eventually reached about her. It never changed because my boss was too much of a coward to fire her.

I know there are others like her out there - she can't be the only one.

 

[Boyd01]

Definitely worth a watch if you haven't seen it before, Robert X. Cringely's 1996 documentary about the history of the personal computer. Especially fun to see Steve Jobs, who was "in exlile" from Apple at that time.

 

[Middleman-77]

I have had the displeasure of writing code on computer punch cards (one card per line of programming code) - that's how old I am and I still have PTSD from it. There's nothing like a box of punch cards inadvertently dropped and sliding across a floor, messing up the sequence, to make you want to end your life. That happens once, then you learn to number the punch cards manually with a pen.

Though I never used them, I know what you mean as older friends of mine have told me too about them. Talking of punch cards there's a new book authored by Ken Williams of Sierra On-Line where he describes his experience of using them exactly as you said. His book is called 'Not All Fairy Tales Have Happy Endings' and it covers his time at Sierra which is a fascinating read (both for me as a fan and collector and probably for you too). He covers so much ground, it provides a really deep insight into how things went on at Sierra (and others) at the time. He also goes into depth about how Mystery House was created (which was done on an Apple II). It's a great read for Apple fans.

During that time I also had access to a Lisa (before the Mac XL). I can't say that I found the Lisa very exciting. It was very IBM, with a huge number of volumes of user manuals clearly written with anything but creativity in mind. Then I saw and bought a MacPlus (and a 20 MB CMS SCSI external hard disk that was considered a profligate luxury at the time) and Apple has been my preference ever since. The thing is, people go on about Steve Jobs, but really what made the Mac was QuickDraw burned into ROM and PostScript-based printing. The user interface was fine, but the graphics and the quality of printed output was beyond that easily available on the PC.

Yes that's right. And let's not forget the daisywheel printers also around that period (which for those who don't know used a rotating print head on a ribbon that typed out letters like a typewriter did, but was for computer use only. It was great for creating letters or documents but terrible for outputting graphics unlike dot-matrix or early inkjet printers). I remember having a very noisy Ricoh daisywheel that lived in my dad's office at the time. From what I remember in the 80s-90s Postscript based machines remained very expensive ie. HP Laserjet 2, 3, 4 & 5 until the likes of NEC brought out their Superscript Windows based laser printers around 1995 which dramatically cut the way Postscript-type technologies were implemented on the PC.

 

[BigMcGuire]

Though I never used them, I know what you mean as older friends of mine have told me too about them. Talking of punch cards there's a new book authored by Ken Williams of Sierra On-Line where he describes his experience of using them exactly as you said. His book is called 'Not All Fairy Tales Have Happy Endings' and it covers his time at Sierra which is a fascinating read (both for me as a fan and collector and probably for you too). He covers so much ground, it provides a really deep insight into how things went on at Sierra (and others) at the time. He also goes into depth about how Mystery House was created (which was done on an Apple II). It's a great read for Apple fans.

I wonder if that Sierra On-Line is the same Sierra that made Aces of the Pacific (old airplane dos game). Played that a lot as a kid.

Gah, book not available on Apple Books! Thanks for the recommendation.

 

[VulchR]

...
Yes that's right. And let's not forget the daisywheel printers also around that period (which for those who don't know used a rotating print head on a ribbon that typed out letters like a typewriter did, but was for computer use only. It was great for creating letters or documents but terrible for outputting graphics unlike dot-matrix or early inkjet printers). I remember having a very noisy Ricoh daisywheel that lived in my dad's office at the time. From what I remember in the 80s-90s Postscript based machines remained very expensive ie. HP Laserjet 2, 3, 4 & 5 until the likes of NEC brought out their Superscript Windows based laser printers around 1995 which dramatically cut the way Postscript-type technologies were implemented on the PC.

Daisy-wheel printers ... yet more PTSD. 😖 For the first two years of my undergraduate degree I word processed on a mainframe, which was OK, but the daisy-wheels on the university printers were always broken. It got so bad most students just bough their own daisy-wheel with them.

Having to use centralised shared facilities managed by lazy Stalinist IT support curmudgeons is why I became a neuroscientist and not a computer scientist. Personal computing couldn't arrive early enough for me - people now have no idea. I once spent 48 hours straight doing a CS assignment in the University's mainframe building. I tried 4 different algorithms, all of which I knew worked. However each time a program was changed it meant typing new punch cards, for the implementation of Fortran we used required paragraphing (indenting statements in loops or logical structures), so if you raised statement out of a loop or if-then-else structure, you had to type everything over. Finally, exhausted, I surrendered and went to the IT help desk to have them check like the 40th version of the program I wrote. The totally soulless response was "Looks right to me. Oh wait, I think some Master's student was given a project of optimising the compiler and clearly there are bugs in it. Hard luck.' I walked out of the building and never returned.

 

[eyoungren]

Yes that's right. And let's not forget the daisywheel printers also around that period (which for those who don't know used a rotating print head on a ribbon that typed out letters like a typewriter did, but was for computer use only. It was great for creating letters or documents but terrible for outputting graphics unlike dot-matrix or early inkjet printers). I remember having a very noisy Ricoh daisywheel that lived in my dad's office at the time. From what I remember in the 80s-90s Postscript based machines remained very expensive ie. HP Laserjet 2, 3, 4 & 5 until the likes of NEC brought out their Superscript Windows based laser printers around 1995 which dramatically cut the way Postscript-type technologies were implemented on the PC.

I had a Star Micronics SG-10 in 1985. That enabled many years of Broderbund PrintShop cranking out 'Happy Birthday' banners in glorious dot matrix gray!

It also meant cutting my time in half for getting term papers and essays printed during high school. But almost shortened my life by the same amount. It was noisy enough to wake my dad, who didn't want to hear a dot matrix printer at 1am. I learned to muffle the noise.

It was all great though until the spool mechanism decided it didn't want to work anymore. That meant standing at the printer slowly spinning the spool with a finger so the ribbon would advance during printing. Yay, fun times, Not!

 

[Silencio]

The daisy wheel printers were letter quality printers. For a while we had one, looked like a big metal typewriter without keys on it and connected to your Apple ][ series computer via a parallel card. This is back when monospaced typewriters were the highest quality typography most people could achieve. I had gotten pretty good at typing simply by programming a lot and, later, writing on BBSes and such. Writing my papers on a word processing program like Homeword or AppleWorks was a logical next step, though I definitely stood out in high school in the 80s by submitting neatly printed and formatted term papers. I was doing my teachers a favor, as my handwriting was never very good.

In college, it was all about getting a work-study job that afforded me access to a laser printer. That was a privilege I used... very heavily.

 

[WriteNow]

And let's not forget the daisywheel printers also around that period (which for those who don't know used a rotating print head on a ribbon that typed out letters like a typewriter did, but was for computer use only. It was great for creating letters or documents but terrible for outputting graphics unlike dot-matrix or early inkjet printers).

I remember these printers, although I don't recall any direct experience. All the printers I ever saw in the 80s were dot matrix printers, which were cheaper. And could do graphics. But (for those who don't know) the daisy wheel printers were important for those who needed good text printing. I think at one point, the only acceptable common printer for serious business use (where the goal was to look it had been typed on an IBM Selectric) were daisy wheel printers. Dot matrix printing was often too rough. Some dot matrix printers were "letter quality"--but they were probably $$$. And I think I heard the Apple ImageWriter model that was letter quality had a problem with print heads wearing out faster.

From what I remember in the 80s-90s Postscript based machines remained very expensive ie. HP Laserjet 2, 3, 4 & 5 until the likes of NEC brought out their Superscript Windows based laser printers around 1995 which dramatically cut the way Postscript-type technologies were implemented on the PC.

I think I recall this, too. I seem to also recall hearing that a big reason for TrueType was the cost of PostScript licensing.

I think I recall printers at one point that could be used as PostScript printers, but didn't have official PostScript. No idea how well they worked--I'd almost have to guess a real PostScript printer would work better. But "OK, but not as good" at a lower price probably would be appealing to some.

And, of course, any laser printer was expensive. I remember seeing the big fuss over any new printer that brought laser printing down to a lower price point. Back then, I'd have never believed there would be a day when one could buy a laser printer for $99 on sale at Office Depot!

 

[WriteNow]

A couple more 1980s printer memories...

There were printer ribbon re-inking machines. A way of fighting the $$$ of new ribbons.

And there was some software for the Apple II series that would allow it to print to a dot matrix printer, using Mac-like fonts. (I think it mgiht have been intended to be used with AppleWorks.) One high school teacher had this, and used it all the time--even though it took forever to print a page.

 

[BotchQue]

I have had the displeasure of writing code on computer punch cards (one card per line of programming code) - that's how old I am and I still have PTSD from it. There's nothing like a box of punch cards inadvertently dropped and sliding across a floor, messing up the sequence, to make you want to end your life. That happens once, then you learn to number the punch cards manually with a pen.

I was in the first engineering class that went to VAX/VMS and a mainframe, so I missed punchcards by a semester. I lived in 11-story dorms (4 buildings, "The Towers" at Iowa State) and I DO remember, at the end of each semester, the grounds between those buildings turning white, due to all the punchcard programs being dumped out the windows when classes were finished. Oof-dah!

 

[WriteNow]

My first computer was one of those 80s Macintosh models with the built-in screen. I remember many people saying to get something else. One of my teachers said you can do everything on a PC--and it's cheaper! He also pointed out it was the business world standard.

But...I didn't listen, and got the Mac, anyway. I could probably have gotten by with something cheaper--even a Apple II clone could have done what I absolutely needed to do. But the Mac was fun, and it did let me do things I might not have been able or willing to do otherwise.

Funny thing, too--the business world might have used DOS--but it was soon using a Mac-like interface. It was easy to adapt to Windows (apart from the cursing and screaming, due to Windows issues...). And a few years later, i saw that one teacher--and he had PowerBook. I reminded him of what he'd said about the Mac, but he conveniently had forgotten. (Although he was a Window user at retirement--mainly because the school had heavily computerized by that point, and Windows was the standard.)

 

[eyoungren]

I think I recall this, too. I seem to also recall hearing that a big reason for TrueType was the cost of PostScript licensing.

One of the main reasons for TT was that it dealt with a particular postscript font problem. Early PS fonts required that you have both the screen font (so you could see it on screen) and the printer font (so you could print it).

If you didn't have one or the other you either couldn't see what you were typing or you couldn't print what you saw on screen. Both had to be included when you sent your job to a printer.

TT solved that issue by being a singular font, for screen and for print. Later PS fonts adopted this from TT but by then TT fonts were dominant.

Still, PS fonts have the reputation of being quality, well-designed with full feature sets. TT fonts are often…not. A lot of freebie fonts are TT. Plenty of apps available out there to design your font and you don't need to be a fontographer.

It's not always true, there are plenty of well-designed and full featured TT fonts. But the initial flooding of the market with bad TT fonts didn't help.

 

[satcomer]

Definitely worth a watch if you haven't seen it before, Robert X. Cringely's 1996 documentary about the history of the personal computer. Especially fun to see Steve Jobs, who was "in exlile" from Apple at that time.

What came next, it was rise on Internet. That's the larger documentary:

 

[WriteNow]

Early PS fonts required that you have both the screen font (so you could see it on screen) and the printer font (so you could print it).

If you didn't have one or the other you either couldn't see what you were typing or you couldn't print what you saw on screen. Both had to be included when you sent your job to a printer.

I'd half forgotten that. (During much of the the time I used Classic MacOS, I used either an ImageWriter or a StyleWriter. When I did move to a LaserWriter, it was used only for very simple documents. The only thing that mattered was having crisp printing, with a fairly basic typeface.)

One other thing I think I now recall hearing gripes about-- screen fonts that were bad and gave a poor approximation of what the printer font would be like.

 

[eyoungren]

I'd half forgotten that. (During much of the the time I used Classic MacOS, I used either an ImageWriter or a StyleWriter. When I did move to a LaserWriter, it was used only for very simple documents. The only thing that mattered was having crisp printing, with a fairly basic typeface.)

One other thing I think I now recall hearing gripes about-- screen fonts that were bad and gave a poor approximation of what the printer font would be like.

I'm a graphic designer with 19 years in newspapers and a total of 23 years in print design. So, I don't exactly remember screen fonts/printer fonts fondly. Either one or the other was missing when you got stuff from a customer.

ATM (Adobe Type Manager) was made to smooth fonts on screen. Usually if you have a screen font, but no printer font you'd have the 'jaggies' (where the font looked jagged). If you didn't have the screen font (but had the printer font) the Mac usually didn't show the font in the font list.

ATM was garbage and I'm sure Extensis Suitcase and other font managers were the response to it.

 

[MrCheeto]

It was extremely frustrating because she was also a pathological liar and narcissist. The only person she cared about was herself.

I know there are others like her out there - she can't be the only one.

There are, and I'm well accustomed to pushing their every last button. It's easier than kicking a one-legged dog except it's actually fun and better when your friends watch.

Being that she was in her 60's, she's probably dead and those around her are probably able to breathe again.

"Fame of them the world hath none, Nor suffers; mercy and justice scorn them both. Speak not of them, but look, and pass them by"

Definitely worth a watch if you haven't seen it before, Robert X. Cringely's 1996 documentary about the history of the personal computer.

GAH! Thanks for posting the AI up-res'd version! I thought I was having a mild stroke.

The part where the guy demonstrates changing one value in VisiCalc to get the whole algorithm updated instantly gave me chills. In my whole life, I have never witnessed such a PARADIGM SHIFT. iPhones and thinner laptops are incremental developments. Taking computation and giving them to something that is never wrong and can literally do the job before the light from the CRT even hits your eye is...well..there are no words. We can't yet imagine the next revolution on that level.

The totally soulless response was "Looks right to me. Oh wait, I think some Master's student was given a project of optimising the compiler and clearly there are bugs in it. Hard luck.' I walked out of the building and never returned.

Ah, so you, too, are familiar with "Quitting stupid"? I do it on a daily basis now. There are NO experts or even competent reps in any industry. I've had to learn to do everything myself and I easily do it better than the people getting paid to throw their hands up and say "eh you know, stuff happens".

But...I didn't listen, and got the Mac, anyway. I could probably have gotten by with something cheaper--even a Apple II clone could have done what I absolutely needed to do. But the Mac was fun, and it did let me do things I might not have been able or willing to do otherwise.

I think that's really the point of Mac OS. I feel like, since the birth of Macintosh, the philosophy is: it just feels better, it's fun, it makes me want to do and explore more. That's why I still use them.

 

[Middleman-77]

I wonder if that Sierra On-Line is the same Sierra that made Aces of the Pacific (old airplane dos game). Played that a lot as a kid.

Yes that's the same Sierra. In fact Ken and Roberta just announced they are returning to making games under a new name - Cygnus Entertainment > https://www.techspot.com/news/93882-sierra-online-founders-announce-their-first-new-game.html

Gah, book not available on Apple Books! Thanks for the recommendation.

No worries!

 

[eyoungren]

Being that she was in her 60's, she's probably dead and those around her are probably able to breathe again.

I worked at that job from 2004 to 2018. In 2018, the boss finally had enough and sold the business. Only a few employees were retained because the new owner already had people in positions like mine.

She was one of the ones that was retained. Frankly, as I said to my coworkers there, one day someone will walk in to open the office in the morning and find her dead at her desk. From all accounts she was highly in debt (which was perhaps a motivator, beyond her narcissism) so I don't think there will ever be retirement for her.

 

[Silencio]

I'm a graphic designer with 19 years in newspapers and a total of 23 years in print design. So, I don't exactly remember screen fonts/printer fonts fondly. Either one or the other was missing when you got stuff from a customer.

ATM (Adobe Type Manager) was made to smooth fonts on screen. Usually if you have a screen font, but no printer font you'd have the 'jaggies' (where the font looked jagged). If you didn't have the screen font (but had the printer font) the Mac usually didn't show the font in the font list.

ATM was garbage and I'm sure Extensis Suitcase and other font managers were the response to it.

Actually, the oldest versions of Suitcase were meant to replace Apple's Font/DA Mover in the mid to late 80s. ATM was still required if you wanted to render the printer fonts as rasterized type at whatever point size you specified. Suitcase actually existed well before ATM, but you were limited to whatever point sizes were available in the screen fonts suitcase if you wanted to avoid the jaggies on screen.

Later in the 90s, Adobe came out with ATM Deluxe, which incorporated both font rasterization and font management. I thought it was quite good for the time — far better than the contemporary version of Suitcase, IMO.

 

[eyoungren]

Actually, the oldest versions of Suitcase were meant to replace Apple's Font/DA Mover in the mid to late 80s. ATM was still required if you wanted to render the printer fonts as rasterized type at whatever point size you specified. Suitcase actually existed well before ATM, but you were limited to whatever point sizes were available in the screen fonts suitcase if you wanted to avoid the jaggies on screen.

Later in the 90s, Adobe came out with ATM Deluxe, which incorporated both font rasterization and font management. I thought it was quite good for the time — far better than the contemporary version of Suitcase, IMO.

In one of my jobs we sent a collected QXP file with fonts and graphics. The production guy was using a G4 in OS9 with ATM Deluxe. He claimed that one of our fonts (Optima) was corrupt. It was not.

What was happening was that he had a job before ours where that customer had Optima as well. And that font from that customer was corrupt. But every time he opened our font with ATM Deluxe, the app actually loaded the PREVIOUS corrupt version.

I found all this out through testing and it's a bug in ATM Deluxe. With fonts of the same name, it will open a previously loaded version and NOT the version you want it to load. No matter what you do.

I hated the app and it was a major reason we switched to Suitcase in that job.

Note, I should have been more specific above. I meant ATM Deluxe and not ATM.

 

[satcomer]

I also remember being beta tester for the first OS X disk! One benefit to being a beta tester I got the10.1 disk free from the Virginia Apple Store! To men that was really cool of them!