The deterioration of IT

Flinty997 · 13-09-2022 1:08am

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119610399#Comment_119610399

I think its worth pushing all these "facts" into the one story. Its greater than the sum of its parts. Bit like a render farm.

Flinty997 · 13-09-2022 1:22am

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119610404#Comment_119610404

LOL. That was entirely the point of a red herring.

Amiga's were popular/famous with 3D rendering crowd due lightwave/B5/Video Toasters.

Capt'n Midnight · 13-09-2022 1:35am

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119602008#Comment_119602008

Ray Kurzweil’s graph of Calculations per second per constant dollar.

An updated 2021 graph covers a 10,000,000,000,000,000,000 times decrease in the cost of processing using different technologies across 120 years. CPU's have given way to GPU's and ASIC. Likely to be at least another 20 years to go.

Flinty997 · 13-09-2022 1:46am

The modular PC demise, is nigh

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DPFblw4ybHE&ab_channel=ExplainingComputers

riclad · 13-09-2022 2:30am

Anyone who wants has acess to powerful laptops, pcs, right now might be the golden age of computing,, 1000s of people make a living making podcasts, streaming video, the thing I find sad is blogs are no longer popular, people use social media, YouTube or tik Tok, I used to have a few blogs I, d read every week. Pcs are cheap compared to the 80s, 90s, buying spectrums or an Amiga even to play games was an introduction to computing for most teens. It was a big deal when games started being released on cdrom or dvd, instead of expensive cartridges

Ray Palmer · 13-09-2022 10:31am

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119608997#Comment_119608997

No I wasn't and I repeatedly corrected you. Vic 20 in 81 was not what I used on accounts that was 6 or 7 years later with a CPC6128. I said children in my class of boys about 50% had computers by 86. Many had more than one child so it was a computer for the home. Really not hard to believe with others telling you that is their experience too. I was excluding pensioners and bedsit of households that would have a computers which would distort general household numbers with computers

Flinty997 · 13-09-2022 10:37am

Its hard to keep up with your stories they change so much. I have no idea what's your obsession with pensioners and bedsits. Obviously a sore nerve for some reason.

Maybe this will cheer you up... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EHzazhKIbzk&ab_channel=The8-BitGuy

Ray Palmer · 13-09-2022 10:45am

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119611170#Comment_119611170

It is only hard because you didn't pay attention and made up you own narrative. If somebody else can read what I said and get it the problem isn't me but you not understanding. What you could do is apologise for getting the details wrong and admit I didn't say what you claimed. Mentioning how stats work is the only reason pensioners to explain stats but you didn't get that either. You seemed to think I suggested they had computers in the early 80s.

You either through inability to understand or malice have misrepresented what I said. You have now been corrected yet again. At this point repeating your claims is just lying now

Flinty997 · 13-09-2022 10:56am

Guess it didn't cheer you up.

Ray Palmer · 13-09-2022 11:01am

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119611259#Comment_119611259

I guess you can't be honest

Flinty997 · 13-09-2022 11:07am

The development of ICT across the curriculum in Irish schools- A historical perspective (2008)

https://ulir.ul.ie/bitstream/handle/10344/2397/The+development+of+ICT+across+the+curriculum+in+Irish+schools-++A+historical+perspective+(2008).pdf?sequence=2

13-09-2022 11:08am

In the 80s I was in my 20s and working, with the beginnings of computerisation in progress. Salaries were small, taxation enormous, lots of unemployment about. A Commodore 64 was almightily expensive. I was flying light airplanes at the time, and the amount of hours I could spend flying over the midlands for similar money would have been considerable. I was curious about getting into that, but I knew computers were undergoing more standardisation and versatility. I couldn’t afford to be spending my salary on upgrading too often. At least when Windows 3.1 came about, that was the start of widespread home computing.

Ray Palmer · 13-09-2022 11:22am

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119611317#Comment_119611317

Home computers in the 80s were primarily used as games consoles so not much interest to somebody in their 20s but you also didn't need to upgrade as quickly. You could easily learn computer programing on these micros back in the day but not much use for businesses until later. It was really the move by IBM into the personal computer market that changed everything. That introduced the concept of what PCs are now with the noticeable change being internal storage.

Flinty997 · 13-09-2022 11:28am

Printing made a huge difference. Once Postscript and True type printing, lasers and inkjets, were available the DTP market exploded.

There doesn't seem to be the same joy or excitement in it anymore.

I know in our IT dept of about 40 there's only about 4 or 5 enthusiasts/gamers. The rest its just a job. The majority have no real passion for "Computing". They have no interest in discussing new tech.

Ray Palmer · 13-09-2022 11:29am

Worth watching to see how computers developed. I was lucky enough to have meet some of the Park Xerox developers

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=toSRmKKiosQ&list=PLAXA1ccaOnGdbStEwcKE56YzlYDYOx2Tx

13-09-2022 3:25pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119611393#Comment_119611393

I remember when using a Mac 2 for writing a book, it had a hard drive from which the software was loaded. It was an arts charity institution’a computer so I saved everything on floppies. But I saw an adjacent Mac with an A & B twin floppy drive and switched it on out of curiosity. In those times there were the two floppy types, the larger flimsier papery ones and the smaller ones which became standard.

I had absolutely zero curiosity about programming until I came across Basic on the first PC, and then it was only for mild amusement I wrote two programs, one simulating an interactive Confession Box which dispensed penance and the other a Doctor Consultation which calculated how likely you were were to die soon 😂 I gave a quick introduction to programming to a friend who ended up owning a tech company.

Now I’m learning a good bit of stuff in-depth out of sheer curiosity.

13-09-2022 4:51pm

Trinity’s first computer, the IBM 1620. Met Neville Harris, a really lovely man (RIP), he have a very moving eulogy at my cousin’s funeral.

13-09-2022 5:00pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119611315#Comment_119611315

I was recently looking at the Leaving Cert Computer Science curriculum/ test papers. I could Very likely sit that exam now, at least pass it, but to do well I’d want to focus a bit more.

Floppybits · 13-09-2022 5:01pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119611421#Comment_119611421

I remember when I started in Tech support in the mid 90's and there were some computer enthusiasts in the department. They'd have you bored to tears discussing the latest SCSI drive or whatever it was they read about in which ever computer magazine they had that week.

monkeybutter · 13-09-2022 5:06pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119610387#Comment_119610387

plus cost, a fortune back in the day

say 50% of UK homes had a colour TV in 1980 right

ireland less of course

nordside dublin less than southside etc

Ray Palmer · 13-09-2022 5:08pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119612859#Comment_119612859

Now that was an expensive computer in the 80s and only towards the end of the decade.

There were loads of other storage drive types about that the well known floppies 3inch discs were what I was using there were also 12 inch floppies. Then there were zip drives and other magnet tape systems used and still used in industry. As late as 2002 I was taking back up tapes home for an IBM main frame system. My current place still uses the same mainframe type but I assume they are backup into the cloud and SSDs.

13-09-2022 5:08pm

My late aunt took to computers in her 80s, died 2010 aged 88. She first went to Tallaght public library and ran through all the teach-yourself courses on the machines, also borrowed a lot of books for an in-depth know-how of hardware. She always lived a near self-sufficiency type lifestyle in the Dublin mountains do money was not available to spend on equipment, but she got discarded bits of hardware on a slip out there, shop rejects it seems, put them together with her book-led knowledge and shooed off help from her son as she said “good for my brain to work it out myself”. She was up and running on modern broadband whilst I was still just about on dial up. She taught her husband, a bit younger than she, how to play games on the pc, and even when he got dementia he was still able to enjoy these years later.

BrianD3 · 13-09-2022 5:20pm

Does anyone who was in school in the 80s or early 90s remember collecting supermarket receipts and other stuff (e.g caps from washing up liquid bottles) so that their school could get a computer. IIRC they were Apple computers and would have cost 3k+ punts to purchase. The stuff that you needed to collect was from Procter and Gamble products and a lot was needed to get a computer. Both my primary and secondary schools got computers from this, it was a bit of fun and generated some excitement at the time.

13-09-2022 5:23pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119613391#Comment_119613391

I still have a Zip drive and uploaded stuff sone months ago from it, loved how robust those disks were.

Yes I explored the possibility of purchasing a Mac 2 on a very modest public service income, and I recall it was an extraordinary price. Even basic used cars were prohibitive then too of course. So the decision to go for a Dell PC was very carefully calculated. I remember bringing it home and putting it together with really great excitement.

The hand scanner looked intimidating to install and I was terrified of wrecking my precious hardware. My mother, in her 70s and knowing zilch about computers grabbed the screwdriver out of my hand, and hand the port installed in a jiffy.“You do the software bit now”. It wasn’t quite as straightforward as modern times, but that hand scanner grabbed an image for my genealogical collection. Must dig it up if I can.

13-09-2022 5:46pm

Book on Prof John Byrne. Contributed a short chapter in rather a hurry to meet the deadline.

jmayo · 13-09-2022 6:21pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119585095#Comment_119585095

Mind telling us what type of car you had and where you went on holiday?

That will definitely confirm your credentials or not.

By my leaving in mid 80s I think only two people out of class of 25 had a computer of any sort (that was either BBC, Sinclair or Commodore).

I remember visiting family in what would be termed established middle class neighbourhood in Galway in 80s.

Most families had father working, mother at home, one car was norm with some not even having one.

And most families did not have computer.

I remember when starting college in mid 80s the computer most used was dumb terminals on VAX, with only a few IBM PCs with the two floppy drives.

There were a few Macs in a lab with the 3.5" floppy and they very sought after to write reports as actual GUI Word.

Even remember doing report when power went due to ESB strike (someone can work out the year) and lost hours of work because I hadn't saved to floppy.

The thing that revolutionised Personal Computers was fact other manufacturers bar IBM started making the PC and for much cheaper prices.

You had Wang, Compaq, Elonex, Amstrad, Tullip, Digital, Olivetti, with Dell and Gateway arriving to shake up the market by removing distribution arm.

And Windows 3.11 for Workgroups was giant leap forward to give something resembling a Mac interface.

Yeah yeah we know it sat on DOS.

Flinty997 · 13-09-2022 6:24pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119613459#Comment_119613459

Zip drives :)

Flinty997 · 13-09-2022 6:26pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119613369#Comment_119613369

You want to terminate those conversions properly...

Flinty997 · 13-09-2022 6:37pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119613459#Comment_119613459

Mac 2 were mad prices. US$5,498 (equivalent to $13,110 in 2021. We had IIfx in college.

I think the first one I had was the LCII with 68030. Loved that machine. But had access to various Quadra's etc. By the time they switched to PowerPC I was mostly PC.

I've been tempted to get a M1 Mac to play with. But I'm still locked into Microsoft for work.

14-09-2022 12:15am

I loved the fact I could be taught to use a computer within 10-15 minutes on a Mac to write a real book (biography of friend) published by Blackwater Press in 1993. I hadn’t previously the foggiest clue how to handle a word processor before that, not the foggiest. Just shows how absolutely user friendly Mac was instantly.,

14-09-2022 12:20am

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119613782#Comment_119613782

my memory said abt €2K+ here about 1992-3, but I did T quote it for fear of being way off the mark. Hence the decision to maybe get one was an extremely serious one and it was very hard to get reliable advice.

Flinty997 · 14-09-2022 8:31am

There was a range of machines and prices.

Floppybits · 14-09-2022 10:24am

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119613446#Comment_119613446

I remember collecting Tokens, receipts and I think at one stage collecting tokens in newspapers for all sorts of stuff for school. I remember when leaving school in 92 the school I was in had a computer room, if memory serves me there were 10 Wang computers but all they had on them was AutoCAD package but there were no computer classes at that time.

I remember 2 of my friends having a computer in their house, 1 had a commadore 64 and the other had a spectrum ZX. In my house there was no computer in it till 1998 when I bought a Compaq laptop when away in America, I remember going into the bank before going away and looking for a loan of £500 so that I could buy one. Can't remember what it cost me probably more than the 500 borrowed. But in those days there wasn't much you could do, getting set up on the internet was expensive and the telephone bills when connecting via a modem. :)

Hotblack Desiato · 14-09-2022 10:40am

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119613387#Comment_119613387

Renting them was affordable (plus you got it fixed for free when it broke down)

By 1980 a lot of people were renting VCRs as well.

The biggest video shop in Ireland opened in 1980 in Tallaght.

There were plenty of areas of the Northside better off in the 1980s than Tallaght, or where I lived

The beal bocht stuff is ridiculous, if anything the "middle classes" saw less need for this form of entertainment...

Hotblack Desiato · 14-09-2022 10:57am

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119615362#Comment_119615362

Apple's pricing policy in Europe was off the wall. The typical cost of an Apple II or Mac was the equivalent of about twice the US price in the 80s and 90s (despite being assembled in Cork). You were lucky to get free use of one!

Hotblack Desiato · 14-09-2022 11:16am

Tokens - at one point in the mid-80s there was some deal between our secondary school and the nearby milk bottling plant (NB this was Dublin city, there were still several of these in the city then).

At first we were encouraged to buy a small carton every day for 5 or 10p or whatever it was and cut off the token and save them up and eventually the school would get a computer. There wasn't much take-up but for whatever reason the quantity of cartons being delivered to the school went exponentially up and up and they started giving them away, we were encouraged to take home whatever we wanted and no need to bother saving the tokens. My mam didn't have to buy milk for ages.

Most of the cartons seemed to end up used as missiles, poured into somebody's schoolbag, or kicked around the playing field and left there... and for months to come rancid cartons were being found abandoned in all sorts of places around the school. But it seemed as long as the dairy shifted X units to the school then the box was ticked and in the end we got an Apple IIe.

Perhaps not too surprisingly that company went bust a year or two later, the brand was taken over by one of the big co-ops and the bottling plant closed.

Ray Palmer · 14-09-2022 3:16pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119613702#Comment_119613702

First off I don’t know what my father did would determine the area I grew up in and would effect the income of neighbours and who I went to school with. No idea what car he had other than a Renault and we didn’t always go on holiday at all. I remember going to Butlins/Mosney twice for a week and uk twice. I can tell you what the neighbours did plumber, manufacturing factory worker, chief (factory canteen), print factory worker, typeface worker in a print factory, van driver etc… all working class jobs. They were better off that then the local council estate but still working class and I went to school with the kids who lived in the council estates.

as neither of my parents drank they had some more money than others. I never wanted new sports gear so any money spent on that stuff went on other things mostly educational stuff. We did get tech earlier than many. Nobody on my street had only a black and white tv by 84 at the latest and a remote control tv was the big thing until VCRs became a thing.

you have relayed your memory but it doesn’t match up with mine because you were completely different age. When you were in college I was in primary school. The entire class were also my age and computers of the type I am talking about were mostly used for games. Why anybody of your peers would have them in their household would be odd unless they had siblings of my age and younger.

when I went to college in the early 90s there were 2 computer labs with over 50 PCs in them. That is how fast it went in a decade. The college only had one specialised 3d CAD computer in 1st year then by 2nd year the PCs were with AutoCAD.

one of a lecturers who taught materials planning was useless as he would refer to booking time on the mainframe and how it was quicker to do it manually. We had to show him how a PC could easily do it on a spread sheet but he insisted we did it all out manually for his class and assignments. Took hours but did make it easier to understand how huge mistakes could be made in construction

Capt'n Midnight · 14-09-2022 6:33pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119613702#Comment_119613702

Windows 3.11 wasn't a leap. It was Windows 3.1 with an extra disk for networking. Prior to that you could have network drivers through DOS. And Novell Netware servers.

And both Atari and Amiga fanboys will tell you their systems got to GUI's first. Acorn fans will argue that too. GEM was offering a GUI on PC's back in the days of DOS 3.3 so Windows 3.11 wasn't anything special in a technical sense. It was bundled with machines so got a large market share though.

Flinty997 · 14-09-2022 7:15pm

Might depend who or what you work with.

A lot of Windows Servers and Server Applications are have all lost their GUI's, its all PowerShell these days. Any developer, or Admin on Unix or Mac will be used to dropping out to shell or terminal as normal.

End users though have got dumber.

14-09-2022 7:57pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119618819#Comment_119618819

Naturally end users have, on average, got dumber, because almost every person is an end user. The earlier end users, maybe like some of ourselves here, were relative pioneers, and curious-to-learn types. It’s understandable most end users couldn’t be bothered learning about the underlying code or systems. However there does need to be a bit more education that none of it is beyond the grasp of the average person of ordinary intellect, if they do were motivated to learn. A lot of people imagine it would be beyond them, and could be put off delving in. Once you retain your basic mental aptitude it’s never ever too late to learn.

jmayo · 14-09-2022 8:11pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119615362#Comment_119615362

You should have tried the old Wordperfect for DOS.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119618644#Comment_119618644

Windows 3.11 looked nicer from my memory anyway. Ok maybe it was Windows 3 as opposed to old 2.

To me it was the first presentable GUI on PC as opposed to the very expensive Macs beloved of the graphics designers.

And yes I well know the GUI existed before Windows.

Shure we haven't even mentioned OS/2.

And yes you could network DOS machines using the old bat files after startup to load your network card and IPX drivers in order connect to Netware 3.11/3.12 shares.

I never recall Amigas and Ataris in a work environment.

I did have the dubious honour of programming a Commodore PET for label printing purposes in a factory.

Funny the thing all these old names remind is how Microsoft competitors who built better products than them lost out to them.

Even the versions of Lotus 123 and Wordperfect on Windows were miles ahead of Microsoft's office versions at the start.

Flinty997 · 14-09-2022 8:22pm

I messed around with OS/2, could never find anything useful to do with it.

Flinty997 · 14-09-2022 8:28pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119618969#Comment_119618969

I find a lot now are not interested. Maybe its coming from Phones and Tablets. I feel its deja vu from the 90s, trying to explain to people how to do basic things.

At the same in the development environment the tech stack is insanely complicated and constantly changing.

Maybe there no room for people in the middle any more.

pickarooney · 14-09-2022 8:34pm

The only time I ever 'used' it was to port some robotics software to Windows. Not sure how an entire factory ended up using OS/2 in the first place.

Capt'n Midnight · 14-09-2022 8:47pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119619017#Comment_119619017

Wordperfect 5.1 , Lotus 123 and dBase IV on DOS was a lot more stable than windows for a very long time. Each could be reinstalled separately. Worst case backup autoxec.bat and config.sys , reinstall DOS and away you go again.

I remember of one place that used Amigas for terminals because they were so much cheaper than real VT100's

Ah good old OS/2 AKA "half an operating system"