[daacon]

We started to highjack the Photo Scavenger Hunt Game! with stories of days gone by as compared to today so I thought what the heck let's put in some memories from days gone buy in a new thread ! Does not matter how young or old you are just some things that by todays standards are archaic and you have memorires of. Compare that to what you have or use currently I will start :

TV
Latest - 42" 1080p LG LCD
Earleist B&W 19inch - 3 channels (one French) - manual knob turn only

Car
2006 Kia Sportage 4WD
My Earliest 1963 Pontiac Laurentian - more metal than plastic for sure

Job
Paper Router / Pin Setter
Independent Oracle DBA Consultant

Style
Whatever fits ! (haha)
3 color (Red White and Blue) tight pants that flared out (Bell bottoms)

Hair
Becoming less of an issue
Shoulder length long hair bushy and curly

Computer
Curernt - custom build duo core Pentium , raid sata drives , current as of 2 years ago ...
Vic 20 Casette Mode 3,582 bytes free - PC 386 with a 'math co-processor' cause it was an option then, 2mb ram , opted for the huge 120mb hd , 24 pin dot martix color rainbow printer total package in late 80's ran about $5k - took me years to pay it off hahah


Toys (most memorable present)
Fastback 100 3 speed bike , Slinky, Spiro-graph, Bobby Hull Hockey puck with a speedometer (to register just how hard your slap shot was!)
Pentax K10D and as many lens as I can justify hahah

That's a start - let's see what others come up with

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Last edited by daacon; 01-03-2008 at 03:48 PM.

[craftsmansky]

i'll play


TV
current - philips 27" tube screen
earliest - whatever was around in 1950

car
1953 chevy bel air. i paid $60 for it in 1966
2007 Malibu

Job
drummer 1962 (first paid gig) joined musicians union in 1965
Utility design/construction project manager - freelance museum exhibit designer

style
60's-70s bellbottoms, ponytail, beard, whatever, man
jeans/tee or polo, shorter hair, but not cropped, gray beard

computer
ibm keypunch, first pc was at work, an hp150, 9" green screen, two floppys, no HD, 64k ram. added "winchester hard drive" 10mb that cost $5000.....
Compaq/ AMD athlon, 160mb drive hp scanner and photo printer

toys
jon nagy learn to draw set, first drum set (1960)
K100d, table saw, planer, drill press, etc

[Nesster]

TV -
then - 13" B&W, 2 channels in evenings only, cartoons only on Boxing Day.
now - got three, two hdtv digital, and more channels than I can use

car -
then - '52 jeep with plywood top and carburator that flooded if there was more than 1/4" of water on the ground
now - 2000 camry

camera -
then - instamatic and dad's Nikon F, first real camera of my own was a Pen FT 1/2 frame
now - '37 Franka, '38 Bessa 66, '52 Retina IIa, '50's Bessa I, a Ricoh Diacord, a Spotmatic SP1000, Nikon EM, Olympus OM2s, Pentax Pgm Plus, Yashica Electro GSN, Yashica T4, Pentax zx-10, Pentax k100d, and I'm probably forgetting something, each of which I use in rotation, or at least a couple of times a year.

computer / job -
then - IBM mainframe, MICR reader. Was a Cobol IMS programmer. Had PC anxiety. First PC was a 486.
now - kids have 3 Macs, somehow I ended up with an AMD dual core set up last year.

Toys -
this seems to be a recurring cycle: hi-fi to camera to short-wave to hi-fi to camera to short-wave to hi-fi in a big way to camera in a big way. Of course it was all about the Music, the Pictures and the Mystery of Radio rather than the equipment

[jfdavis58]

TV
Latest - 25 in Panasonic Home theater in family room+19 inch Sony in Bedroom+17 inch 'cheapo' in kitchen+23 in Sony in living room.
First viewed: B&W TV, Bradford about 15 inches, Came in a faux wood cabinet that swiveled; TV could be removed and used 'portably'.

Car
Today: 2005 Toyota Sienna.
Earliest: 1963 Volkswagen Beetle.

Job
First job other than yard work: tube-jerk/testor in TV and radio repairshop.
Currently engineering consultant.

Style
Then: flared Levy's, t-shirt, pocket knife.
Now: relaxed fit Levy's, polo (golf) shirt, handgun, jacket, vest or sweater. Australian Outback waxed cotton hat or Tilley Endurable hat-yes, printed my name inside and registered it with company.

Hair
Then: short (1.5 inches), combed with part on left, very curly if left to grow, reddish blond.
Now: short, combed with part on left, very curly if left to grow, sun-bleached, blond.


Computer
First: Original Macintosh; 128kB RAM, 400kB internal and external drives, 3.5in floppy.
Current - Toshiba Laptop, Centrino duo, Vista, 2GB RAM, 160GB HD internal, 1.0 and 0.5 TB externals, dual density DVD burner.


Toys: garage full of power tools, electronic gadgets like IPod/mp3 player, GPS, two-way radio; home weather station; several rifles, shotguns and pistols & associated reloading equipment. Leather working tools. A couple of large shelving units holding camera and darkroom paraphernalia spanning 35 years. Several thousand books.

OK, nere's mine

TV

Then: None until 1953 then 21' Crosley Console
Now: 35" Flat Screen Panasonic

Car

First: 1953 Plymouth Rust Bucket.
Current: 2003 Ford Mustang & 2005 Ford Ranget P/U

Job

First: Paper Route and Pinsetter in Bowling House
Current: Director of Corporate Security for National Forest Products Distributor

Style:

Then: Jeans and T-shirt or Western Shirt & Western Boots
Current: Jeans and T-Shirt or Western Shirt & Western Boots

Hair

Then: Over the Ears with Mutton Chops
Now: Above the ears and still a head full

Computer

First Computer I ever learned to use/operate/program: IBM 360

Current: Run of the mill PC

Toys: Ham Radio, Part Ownership in Cherokee 140. More Craftsman Tools than I'll ever need or use. And...... K10D Pentax with a bunch of lens and accessories.

[J.Scott]

Safety in numbers, they say! Sure, I'll show my age, too.

TV
First: 12"B&W Panasonic complete with rabbit ears
Now: 32" Panasonic

Car
First: 1967 Austin Mini - 50 HP, 5 Gal tank, 50 MPG, gas .50 cents / gal (Canadian gallon = 160 ounces)
Now: 2005 Chev. Impala - many more HP, 50 liter tank, 8 liters / 100 km and gas is $1.10 / liter (equals about $5.00 / Canadian gal!)

Job
First: first job after college (1974) - Forestry Technician for Lands and Forests
Now: Cable Repair Technician

Hair
Then: Man, I had hair! Long, blond and over the shoulder!
Now: Where the hell did my hair go?! Very thin and very short brush cut.

Computer
First: Patriot (brand) 486 DX w/ 40 mb HDD
Now: 3 year old PC sadly in need of upgrading & a newer Lappy

Toys
Then: 12.3 HP Skidoo Elan - flat out, down hill = 30 mph!
Now: Tracker bass boat

Camera:
Then:Praktica SLR w/ 50mm f2
Now: K10D, *ist DS, many film cameras and lenses

[m8o]

lol! Pretty neat reading everyones.

Ok, I'll play. Some of these are from the 70s, some from the 80s, some the 90s, which ever makes sense for the context...

TV
then (early 70s): Not exactly "mine" but my dads. My dad's Heathkit TV using mostly (all?) vacuum tubes he made himself while working through all the @home courses.
now: almost too many to list; 6 in the house with 5 cable boxes, 3 of them hi-def DVRs, and only two of us. from 36" hi-def Sony XBR, to TV card in the computer using a hi-def monitor for computer or cable box, to a 52" big screen soon to be replaced by a 65" hi-def LCD.

Car
then (late 70s): well, not exactly 1st but close to it. A totally ratty 1969 Road Runner.
now: a highly mod'ed 1998 C43 AMG, stock but mint and mechanically restored 1989 560SL, 1997 Jeep Wrangler daily driver / foul weather vehicle.

Job
then (mid 70s): illegally working in my dad's factory from 14 every summer cutting & drilling aluminum or cutting & punching stainless steel, and assembling plastic bagging & sealing machinery.
now: senior systems architect for a major e-commerce EDI service company. originally employee #6 (then) of the public parent company that's now becoming a power-house through so many acquisitions; just me and my then boss left of the original company! (I know where all the bodies are buried)

Style
then (mid 70s to 80s; the teenage years): derelict; flannel & blue jeans until the 'kewl' 80s when I finally stepped out.
now: yes

Hair
then (most all the 70s again): derelict; long and unkempt
now: still gloriously and full. Sadly, now I'm also talking about my back.

Computer
then (only the early 90s; seems like a lifetime away surprisingly): IBM Model 70 - 386 with what? originally about 10 - 30 Meg HD, I forget how much RAM but not a lot loads of upgrades and modz.
now: too many to mention, older IBM laptop, very brand new powerful Dell laptop, kinda powerful Sony laptop with TV built-in, another Sony "laptop on a stand" type with TV built-in, a near top of the line (over the summer) AMD based system, with two NVidia GT8600 graphics cards, 1.5 TBytes of on-line storage in two RAID arrays.

Toys (most memorable present)
then (starting in the early 60s): absolute favorite was my AFX set. I'm still mad at myself for throwing the tracks away, but I kept the cars & components to soup the cars up.
now: Yes, oh yes... see "Cars>now" above...
- C43 got an engine transplanted from an E55:
Birth of my C55 AMG album | m8o | Fotki.com
and suspension from a road racing car:
Speedybenz On Board album | m8o | Fotki.com
and many interior modz, many that only came on Euro cars, or not on my model at all:
MBenzNL On Board album | m8o | Fotki.com
- Had an SLK but gave the lease up, and recently bought a classic SL instead: 560SL album | m8o | Fotki.com
- Audio/Video, Horns, and Tube Amps: My Toobz | m8o | Fotki.com (so many more pix of custom horns I had made and customizations I'm making to come)
- High-end Headphones & tube Head Amps: Headphone / Headamp | m8o | Fotki.com
- ohhh, I forgot, Mtn Bikes! Photo: CIMG1620 | The Fleet album | m8o | Fotki.com
- Should I list all the expensive exercise equipment as toys? nah! maybe my wife would but I don't.
...and of course, Camera Gear and LBA...

Looking back @ all this... I think I took it too seriously... But you can see I know where my priorities lie. (big boy toys!)

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Last edited by m8o; 01-05-2008 at 09:55 PM. Reason: bad typo

[GaryML]

TV
Then: My first TV was some ancient B&W monster-maybe a Philco- all vacuum tube, VHF only, in a black Bakelight case. It must have weighed 75 lbs. It got knocked to the floor one day and the case broke and the chassis was bent like a potato chip, but it still worked!
Now: An old 27" CRT Panasonic inherited from my wife's great aunt when she died about three years ago. We're not big on TV here.

Car
Then: 1969 Toyota Corona with a 1600 cc engine and 2 speed automatic transmission.
Now: 2003 Saturn L200 4 door sedan.

Job
Then: Stockboy at my dad's "hif-fi" store from about 9 years old until college.
Now: Attorney specializing in real estate and construction disputes.

Style
Then: None. Free t-shirts from the hif-fi store, Sears workshirt, and Levis.
Now: Not much. Still wear the Levis. Most of the rest comes from REI. But I do have some fine suits, ties, shirts and shoes for the courtroom.

Hair
Then: BIG. Long (half-way down my back). wavy, frizzy, and sometimes in a pony tail.
Now: Lots of grey, pretty short, but still wavy.

Computer
Then: The first computer I wrote programs for was the IBM System/360, using the venerable IBM Card Punch/Verifier. Later I moved up to an Amdahl 470/V-8 (System/370 clone designed by former IBM designer Gene Amdahl and built by Hitachi, I think) and an IBM 3278 programmable terminal. Programming language of choice was ALGOL (invented by Nicolas Wirth, and similar to PASCAL that appeared some years later).
Now: IBM ThinkPads, starting with a 701 running IBM's OS/2 version 3 and WordPerfect 6 for DOS (and it still works). Now I use a T42 with docks at home and the office, 3 scanners and three printers, and a home network with a NAS backup device with RAID drives. The next machine may be an Apple MacBook Pro since I've never been comfortable with Microsoft software and its only getting worse with XP, Vista, and Windows Genuine Advantage.

Toys:

Most Memorable: I was a guitarist in a lot of bands, from blues-rock, country and later jazz bands, starting in junior high school through the first two years of college. An old Gibson SG guitar and an old Fender amp gave me The Sound, but practicing every free hour did more than having the right gear.
Now: My favorite "toy" is my Palm Treo 700. It does everything an iPhone does and has been doing it for years in a smaller and more convenient package. I spend a lot of time playing my piano (mostly classical music (Bach through Chopin) but with a little jazz thrown in). I also spend too much time obsessing over the right photography gear.

[daacon]

Some neat replies - appears to be a few programmers in the lot or at least a few that have programmed - I recognize allot of the old mainframes / minis' - at one point in my 20+ years in IT I have used Assembler , JCL, RPG,TACL, Scobol, Cobol (nope never knew Grace Hopper ), Fortran 77 , Mark IV , etc . I have seen card readers , never actaully used one (just missed by a few years!) ..... worked on IBM'S, CDC, Tandems , RS600, HP's , Sun's sounds like another memory lane thread!

[GaryML]

I have used ... Scobol

Do you mean "Snobol" by chance? My first programming language (using the Spitbol 4 compiler).

[daacon]

Do you mean "Snobol" by chance? My first programming language (using the Spitbol 4 compiler).

Hi Gary - while I am amoung one of the worst typist and suffer from fatfingeritis along with wordmissing syndrome as my brain is much faster than the 4 fingers I use for typing (haha) ... I do mean Scobol. Google Tandem Scobol

This was a Tandem text based “green screen” front end programming language used before client server became popular. It was very similar to Cobol - I cut my programming teeth in a hospital, where the screens for Admissions, Pharmacy, Payroll, etc were written in Scobol while the back end processing was written in Cobol. Tandem was and likely still may be a big player in areas where up time was critical like hospitals, stock markets, etc ... While I have not worked at the hopsital in over 10 years the Tandem is still there - most fault tolerant hardware I have ever worked on.

Tandem used to be based in Cupertino - not sure HQ is still there. (I had a visit in '87 was a cool place ) - they were bought put by Compaq whom HP bought out ...have not followed them very closely. I would assume now that either Microsoft, Walmart or Disney owns them

[weatherwise2]

I'll try:

TV -
then - B&W about 20 in
now - several biggest is about a 36 in projection TV

car -
then - 1968 Superbeetle VW
now - 2007 Audi A4

camera -
then - polaroid instamatic, then a Minolta X370 (still have but not used), Olympus P&S digital (forgot model #)
now - Pentax K10d with assorted lens

computer
then - Commodore 64, original Macintosh
now - Microvelocity w/200 GB

job:
then - Maintenance assistant in factory to bench top scientist
now - biotech, run clinical trials

Hobbies:
then - skiing, hiking
now - hiking, woodworking, photography, (skiing slowed down), traveling

Toys
then - my beetle
now- all kinds of woodworking toys, camera and lens

Pretty boring all in all.

[GaryML]

Hi Gary - while I am amoung one of the worst typist and suffer from fatfingeritis along with wordmissing syndrome as my brain is much faster than the 4 fingers I use for typing (haha) ... I do mean Scobol. Google Tandem Scobol

...

Tandem used to be based in Cupertino - not sure HQ is still there. (I had a visit in '87 was a cool place ) - they were bought put by Compaq whom HP bought out ...have not followed them very closely. I would assume now that either Microsoft, Walmart or Disney owns them

Thanks for the info. I'd heard the name Tandem but I have no experience with the system. It appears that little remains of the company, but HP is still making something with the "NonStop" product name:

HP Integrity NonStop Server Evolution

[-=JoN=-]

I havnt been around much..so i'll give it a try...

TV:

Then - No name 19" tv my grandpa gave me (i had to smack it every now and then for it to get a clear picture...)
Now - 32" Samsung LCD TV

Car
Then - 1995 Plymouth Neon
Now - 2007 VW Rabbit

Job
Then - Whatever got me paid
Now - Sprinkler/Plumbing draftsman/lite-designer

Computer
Then - 486 PC w/ "HyperDOS" 8MB of RAM, 40MB of HDD, 12" VGA monitor
Now - Intel Pentium D 3.0 GHz Dual core, 2 GB DDR2 RAM, Radeon HD2400 pro, 19" dell main monitor, 17" mitsubishi secondary monitor (both lcd's), 800GB total hdd space (spanning accross 3 hdd's)

Camera
Then - My first bought was a vivitar APS P/S
Now - 3 Pentax Bodies, about 15 lenses and various other accessories

Hobbies
Then - Rollerblading, rollerhockey, lite photography, drawing, video games
Now - Photography, video games (job+commute really does not allow me to have much time to do other stuff)

Toys
Then - GI joes, transformers, legos
Now - Camera's, PC's, GI Joes, Transformers, Legos

wasnt too bad... nice trip down memory lane

[PDL]

TV
Latest – 27inch Maxent LCD (Bought it back 2001-2002 time frame)
Earleist B&W can’t remember – hand me down from grandma – I held the antenna in the living room while we watched Bonanza

Car
1995 Eagle Talon TSI AWD – wife has a 2002 Jaguar X-Type
My Earliest 1964 ½ Ford Mustang (a generator, 5 bolt 13” wheels)

Job
Literally pickup rocks, putting them in a wheelbarrow and moving them to the side (next door landscaper gave me about $50 for a weeks work – I bought my first 35mm Rangefinder – still have it too)
I used to be a Archaeologist – but I went back to college, got a degree in CS and I am now a Windows System Administrator.

Style
Jeans - short sleeved button shirts – walking shoes – t-shirts when not at work.
Jeans – t-shirts – hiking boots.

Hair
Balding – still a random hair or two on top – grey – had a beard since 10/20/76 – buzz cut.
Used to have it – let it grow for one year – got it cut for what ended up as my first date with my wife.

Computer
Current –#1 P4 (3.0 GHz), 2GB RAM, two 100+GB hd, #2 Dual PIII Supermicro server 1GB RAM, #3 Toshiba Tablet PC 1.6GHz, #4 2.6GHz Celeron, 15 GB hd. #4&5 POS from work Compaq Armada 700 & Dell something. Running Vista Ultimate, Server 2003, XP Pro Tablet ED, SUSE Linux and XP PRO respectively.
First Computer - at college - Xerox Sigma 7
First PC – (which I still have out in the garage) 1978 Radio Shack TRS-80 Model I. 8K memory and cassette storage – upgraded to the expansion box -> 16K and a Epson MX-80 printer. I was one of the first people in grad school to have my own computer/printer and was one of the first to use a personally owned word processor for all my work.

Toys (most memorable present)
16th birthday – my mom and dad got me a Goldstar flash for my first 35mm camera. (yes I still have it too)
*ist Ds and K10D – the Ds is used by my son – he is very good.

The Elitist - formerly known as PDL