(FROM ANOTHER POST IN ANOTHER FORUM - but better suited here - AND DEE CAN HAMMER ME AGAIN ABOUT COPPER, AMMO, AND GAS - if he wants
)
When you got your PC you didn't have to solder the printed circuit board together?
Using the back of your hand, check the output from the high voltage Capacitor?
Self-program the Operating System, and I don't mean load the disc?
Experiment with the command DELETE *.*?
You must have come "on-line" during the easy(ier)-going MicroSoft days.
Well let me tell you, it was WAY differnet in the DOS days. We punched cards, made chad, created code, and had a technician feed the cards into a light source card reader which transposed the english language into machine language of 1's and 0's. We used those chads at football games and left the stadium looking like it had just snowed (hehe). The cleanup crew hated us if it rained the evening after the home game.
Later you had to use IBM machines or the "Apple", whatever that was. And there was no Hard Drive. You had to manipulate 5.25-inch floppy disks into the machine with about a 0.00025 Kbps "baud rate" and the speed of a snail across a linoleum floor for input/output. The computer had about 125 KB of TOTAL storage capacity. Programs had to run EFFICIENTLY and not use eggregious amounts of high memory storage or the CPU would just sit there and cook - and spend all of your tuition money on CPU connect time.
And the phone would do that ringading-ding-ding-dong.....thingamajig when connecting (oh that was the modem and later in the story...sorry).