You know you've been around computers for too long if you remember when:
- For the original
"Computer Geeks"
- You know what punch cards were used for.
- 16k of memory was HUGE!
- We didn't mind waiting 10 minutes for a program to load from tape.
- You know that "Commodore" was not necessarily a nautical term.
- You know who made the short-lived "Orange" computer.
- You remember seeing "TRS-DOS LOADING ..." on a screen.
- You have ever written software in FORTRAN, COBOL, PASCAL, or APL.
- CP/M was the greatest operating system EVER!
- What's "UNIX"?
- The Z-80 processor was king and was not an upcoming Chevrolet truck!
- You remember trying to port assembly language from the Z-80 to the 8088.
- You know all the registers for the 80x86 processor family.
- You know that the statement 1010101 - 1101 = 1001000 is true.
- You understand the concept of "Code Optimization" (something Microsoft has now truly forgotten)
- You understand the concept of "KISS" (something Microsoft has now truly forgotten)
- "Programmers" wrote code; "Developers" built shopping centers.
- We could put our entire operating system on a 180k diskette and have space left over.
- Double-sided diskettes doubled our available storage space.
- 1.2mb diskettes quadrupled our available disk space!
- 1.44mb diskettes were even better!
- What's a "Hard Disk"?
- We thought we would NEVER fill up a 5 megabyte disk drive.
- You ever sat around waiting on a cassette drive to load
- You ever used a 9-track tape drive
- You ever used paper tape
- You know what a card reader is for
- 320x160 with 16 colors looked GREAT!
- Using a real monitor looked MUCH better than using the TV.
- Computers cost $3,000 and a Z-80 was considered fast.
- Computers cost $3,000 and an 8080 was considered fast.
- Computers cost $3,000 and an 8088 was considered fast.
- Computers cost $3,000 and an 8086 was considered fast.
- Computers cost $3,000 and a 286 was considered fast.
- Computers cost $3,000 and a 386 was considered fast.
- Computers cost $3,000 and a 486 was considered fast.
- Computers cost $3,000 and a Pentium-60 was considered fast.
- Documentation came in the form of printed books, was written in English, and did not contain translations to 10 other languages.
- VisiCalc was king!
- We had all the "Dot" codes for WordStar down cold.
- C was nothing more than an average grade in school and C++ was just a little better.
- You know what "QWERTY" means.
- What's a "Mouse"?
- You know what a "Math Coprocessor" did.
- You remember the "Pentium Floating Point Error" problem.
- You know what an "Accoustic Coupler" was used for.
- You could tell the difference between a 300 baud modem and a 1200 baud modem by listening to the training tones.
- You remember any of the physcal addresses for modem control in the PC-AT architecture.
- Keyboards didn't have those damned "Windows" and "Menu" buttons beside the space bar.
- Java was something you drank and not something you wrote.
- For Everyone
Else
- MS was what you called a woman if you weren't sure if she was married or not.
- Bill Gates was just a geeky kid.
- Intel meant Indiana Telephone.
- You thought a CPU was one of the extras in Star Wars
- Ink Jet was what a fountain pen did on your shirt from time to time.
- You thought Pentium must have something to with the Pentagon.
- Windows were just holes in the wall filled with glass and did not live in your computer.
- Mouse pads were also holes in the walls and did not live beside your computer.
- A mouse was a furry little critter than ran around the floor and did not have a wire hanging it off the computer.
- Cleaning our Mouse Balls was something we NEVER considered doing!
- Modems were something we did to lawns
- Internet was something that happened to badminton birdies, tennis balls, or fish and had nothing to do with computers.
- High-Speed Internet was when a really good tennis player dumped a serve into the net.
- Network was when you had to fix the net after you tore it up getting the badminton birdie, tennis ball, or fish out.
- Network Cables were what you used to fix the net during network.
- A Web Browser was just a spider, also known as a Web Developer, and a Web Site was where he lived.
- Download was when you ate as fast as you could.
- Bytes were something we got from mosquitoes and, like most things, had nothing to do with computers.
- Megabytes were when you got into the chiggers and REALLY got eaten up!
- Kilobytes meant nothing because we didn't use the metric system for anything.
- Keyboards were where we hung the car keys when we came in the house.
- A Hard Disk was better than a Paper Disk (or floppy disk) for eating off of.
- The only place you could find Windows 2000 was in the Empire State Building.
- Multi-Tasking was when you ate chips and drank beer at the same time!
- Hardware was the stuff you bought at hardware stores. Screws and nails and tools and such.
- Software was a soft, fluffy robe.
- Programs were on television.
- Folders were Directories
- Folders were things that held Files and then got stuffed in file cabinets.
- Directories were what you used to look up telephone numbers.
- Monitors were things parents did to their children's activities (a concept that appears to have been lost in the mists of time).
- Objects were things of desire and did not live in computers.
- A Sound Card was something you stuck in the spokes of your bicycle.
- Multimedia referred to two-ply toilet paper
- Deleting Multimedia Files meant simply flushing the toilet.
- The closest thing we had to Graphics Files were the pages in a child's coloring book.
- JPEG and MPEG were what old Jack and Mary Peg had as the name on their mailbox.
- Audio Files were the racks we used to store phonograph records in. You do remember phonograph records, don't you?
- Video Files was not a known term and did not refer to anything.
- Music was something we listened to without benefit of a $1,000 computer.
- Pictures were everywhere, and like Music, did not require a $1,000 computer to enjoy.
- Zip Files were those soft-sided briefcases that zipped up.
- Zip It meant shut your mouth and Stuff It was a derogatory come back.
- Dot was short for Dorothy and Dot Com was Ed Com's wife.
- History was something you studied in school, and did not refer to someplace you "Visited" yesterday.
- Visiting meant going to someone else's house.
- Clearing Our Cache meant cleaning out the closet we kept all our junk in.
- A Crash was something that airplanes or stock markets did.
- Rebooting meant getting a new pair of boots.
- A Cold Boot meant that you had been out in the snow
- A Warm Boot meant that you had been sitting in front of the fire.
- Memory was just something you lost as you got older.
- URL was pronounced Earl and he was the postman.
- Email was Easter cards that Earl the postman delivered.
- There was no [Send] button, you actually had to get out and go to the post office.
- A Printer was a person who owned a printing shop (and printed the Email cards that Earl delivered)
- A Personal Digital Assistant was a secretary who could count on her fingers.
- A Digital Camera was a specialized piece of medical equipment for photographing fingers.
- Connected meant bolted together.
- A UPS was nothing more than a brown truck full of packages.
- A Screen Saver was what you put over the window screens when they got holes in them.
- A Word Processor was someone who wrote speeches for a living.
- A Spreadsheet was something you did when you made up the bed.
- Excel was what your kids did in school and Word was something spoken or written.
- Gateway was a portal into another dimension, Dell was a quiet spot in the woods, and Compaq was when you made something take up less space.
- USB meant Upper Sideband (most people probably won't understand that one!)
- A Laptop was a quiet place for the cat to sleep.
- A CD was something you got from a bank and a CD Drive was when you drove to the bank to get a CD.
- A "help file" was be something people posted in a newspaper when they wanted to hire someone, or entries in the Ann Landers column.
- Video files (videophiles) were the guys hauling around 4 or 5 video cameras and who were always saying, "Could you do that again? I missed it the first time."
- Audio files (audiophiles) were the guys that had could hear the slightest phase shift from the 75 loudspeakers in their houses.
Thanks for the contributions:
Wes L.
Robert H.
David A.
Steve W.
This is a work in progress. Some of the comments here may have been provided by other readers, so as much as I'd like to I can't take credit for all of them. Check back from time to time for new ones. If you have a good one to add, email it to me and I'll include it.
Created on December 23, 2001
- Last modified on September 25, 2009
| Copyright © 1997-2024, Scott A. Craig, All Rights Reserved |