Biggest Geek On Oesf? :)

[speculatrix]

jeez and I thought I was bored.....

yeah, it's a very quiet morning... I'm very bored, copying files from live servers to an archive server.

[Da_Blitz]

I think that the problem nowdays for ferret and people like myself (those young upstarts) is that it is no longer like "the good old days", now days someone who could be titled "the biggest nerd" is someone who sits at home playing computer games and can program in any microsoft .net language

its a real shame, i want to see the old days come back where things such as BBS was in style, people knew what the command line was and when talking to someone on the other side of the world over a PC there was a good chance that they knew somthing about computers

if i could have it my way you wolud have to pass a test to get a computing drivers licsence, when you bought that nice new quad core PC with 32GB of ram and a 20TB raid 6 array the first think they would ask you for is your S class computer licsence

but i guess i am a bit bitter when i get classed as knowing lots about computers because i can burn a CD without refering to notes and read a book during a windows XP install (thats not knowlage, thats bieng prepared)

i would say i am old and bitter but compared to most people here i am quite new, its a shame but bieng classed as a nerd dosent mean you know somthing these days

[speculatrix]

I think that the problem nowdays for ferret and people like myself (those young upstarts) is that it is no longer like "the good old days", now days someone who could be titled "the biggest nerd" is someone who sits at home playing computer games and can program in any microsoft .net language
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in the old days - before the term geek even existed - people into computers and electronics...
- used a soldering iron routinely and built their own peripherals
- knew hexadecimal (did you know if you read your car speedo as a hex number the result is kilometers per hour)?
- had to know some assembler and knew their computers memory and I/O address map
- probably understood interrupts
- knew about optimising code for size, speed and memory usage
- typed program listings in from a magazine, and thus learned new ideas in the process
- would spend a lot more time thinking about their programs because it was quicker to debug them rather than run, crash, fix like they do now
- went to computer/radio/electronics clubs and met people

[koen]

- knew hexadecimal (did you know if you read your car speedo as a hex number the result is kilometers per hour)?

If I read it in decimal it is in km/h as well

[Miami_Bob]

ah, you wanna play the languages game!
basic, noddy*, logo, forth, pascal, fortran, C, C++, java, perl, PL/M51, PL/M86, assembler (NEC75000, 6502, z80, 8051, 80x86, 68k, PIC), shell scripts, javascript... probably others.

* yes, there really was a language called noddy, on an obscure UK machine called the memotech.
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Ah, speculatrix, my dear - I do believe that I am in love - LOL! (and at my advanced age, too .... G)

Did you ever have the joy of patching paper tape?

If you want obscure programming languages - did you ever run across TUTOR? Used on the old University of Illinois PLATO community hardware? I still have my copies of Bruce Arne Sherwood's "The TUTOR Language" (aka the green book) & Ghesquiere, Davis & Thompsons' "Introduction to TUTOR" (aka the orange book).

Though it must be confessed that, as a "language", TUTOR makes the older versions of BASIC appear ....  robust, shall we say. But someone hacked a great game of DogFight (probably in machine code, I would bet) that kept the PLATO plasma panal terminals hot on nights & weekends.

Those who feel the need to nominate themselves for king (or queen, let us not forget all the strong female rulers, boys) of geekdom, usually are underqualified (IMHO).

Now, when your *peers* acclaim you an alpha geek (better than king or queen, yes?) THEN you really ARE one.

And, no, I am an old geek, at one with the Tao and no longer really interested in trying to prove my chops in this new day & age. Hell, I remember before transistor radios & pocket calculators were new tech (G). WAY before Cyber Punk was even vaguely possible as a genus.

And I can still whip most people's butts with a 14" slide rule. Slip Sticks once were manditory equipment for the admiration of one's peers.

BTW - don't forget Stubear's contributions only a few short years ago, when you consider the list of aces.

They were wonderous daze, but time always keeps marching & the old both paves the road for and gives way to the new. But .... programming nanobots! Now THAT could be *really* neat ..... (G)

Play - the whole key is to simply play in child like joy .... and to do "the neatest thing to do".

[Cresho]

you guys ever heard of I.T.R.O.N.  ?

Anybody mess with it before?  if you have, then I am your most biggest fan ever!

http://www.linuxinsider.com/story/31855.html

The TRON Project is not new; in fact, it was poised to its mark more than a decade ago, in Japan's PC industry, but the U.S. government intervened. In 1989, Japanese electronics giant Matsushita introduced a BTRON PC, a machine that stunned the industry with its advanced capabilities. The BTRON PC had an 80286 Intel (Nasdaq: INTC) Latest News about Intel chip running at 8 MHz and a mere 2 MB of memory, but it could display moving video in color in a separate window. Also, it had a dual-booting system that could run both the BTRON OS and MS-DOS.

When the Japanese government announced it would install BTRON PC in Japanese schools, the U.S. government objected. It called the Japanese initiative "actual and potential market intervention" and threatened the move with sanctions. The Japanese, dependent on the U.S. export market, quickly dropped the plan. The U.S. government later withdrew its threat, but the damage had already been done. Nearly all Japanese companies involved in TRON-related activities had canceled their projects.

[kopsis]

you guys ever heard of I.T.R.O.N.  ?

Anybody mess with it before?  if you have, then I am your most biggest fan ever!

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Yeah, back around '00 I was involved in estimating what it would take to port Visibroker (CORBA) to ITRON. What I learned from that exposure is that ITRON isn't really an OS, it's a specification ... much like Posix. There are a variety of Japanese RTOS implementations that claim varying levels of ITRON compliance. We abandoned our efforts when we realized that just targeting one particular reference implementation didn't offer much assurance in the way of compatibility with other "flavors". I haven't really followed ITRON since, but I doubt too much has changed.

Coming back on topic, my slide rule skilz are probably no match for Miami Bob, but I can use one and in fact my [a href=\"http://chris.gillings.com/collect/slide/ucsr.html]cylindrical slide rule pencil holder[/url] sits on my desk right next to my BCD LED clock

[Miami_Bob]

Coming back on topic, my slide rule skilz are probably no match for Miami Bob, but I can use one

Hummm. Naw, you are probably a shark & would whup my arrogant old arse for me if I considered accepting a challange ... (G)

and in fact my cylindrical slide rule pencil holder sits on my desk

Ohhh. NEAT! Any others available that you know of?

right next to my BCD LED clock

Seen some BCD clocks. Good page, though. BTW - some of the images in the yellow part don't seem to want to load.

I love remembering those old daze but, honest you young folks, the toys are SO much better (faster, bigger, neater!) today. I wouldn't go back even if I could (except, perhaps, to visit - LOL).

What is frightening is that, in 40 years or so, YOU folks will look back at right NOW as "those good old days"! Try that one on for grins (G)! ("we" folks will be some where else again)

And remember: It's the quiet ones that you have'ta watch out for! LOL!

[dz]

errr, ummm does a 230lb powerlifter who programs in a few "obscure" languages count? Along with some electronics stuff dealing with PIC's? Hmmm pehaps not, or perhaps a little 68K motorola series assembly code (palm api)...oh wait thats something else.
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ah, you wanna play the languages game!
basic, noddy*, logo, forth, pascal, fortran, C, C++, java, perl, PL/M51, PL/M86, assembler (NEC75000, 6502, z80, 8051, 80x86, 68k, PIC), shell scripts, javascript... probably others.

* yes, there really was a language called noddy, on an obscure UK machine called the memotech.
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Hmm.. you wanna play this game?  Ok (ripped from resume):

Assembler, C++, C, QBASIC, Visual Basic, OpenGL, XHTML, XML, JavaScript, Perl, PHP, ASP, SQL, Coldfusion, ASL, Lingo, Actionscript, VBScript, C#

That's just the tip of the iceberg and I have to admit, I haven't used ASM or C++ since my DARPA project two years ago.  Also, what better geek than one who runs a bbs that attracts many, many other geeks

[InSearchOf]

Wow... BBS's... When I was little kid and my mom wouldn't pay for compuserve for me... BBS's were my gateway to the world... well to my local town... Stimpys Sandbox... Memories

Late

PS.. I just googled it... and it is STILL online... I might have to pull out the ole'  Us Robotics (aka now 3COM) 56k v92 model a give them a ring...

[speculatrix]

basic, noddy*, logo, forth, pascal, fortran, C, C++, java, perl, PL/M51, PL/M86, assembler (NEC75000, 6502, z80, 8051, 80x86, 68k, PIC), shell scripts, javascript... probably others.

Hmm.. you wanna play this game?  Ok (ripped from resume):
Assembler, C++, C, QBASIC, Visual Basic, OpenGL, XHTML, XML, JavaScript, Perl, PHP, ASP, SQL, Coldfusion, ASL, Lingo, Actionscript, VBScript, C#

I think you're cheating slightly duplicating lots of variants of basic... XHTML is a superset of HTML is a specific instance of XML. But then, I kind of cheated with different variants of assembler

[dz]

Wow... BBS's... When I was little kid and my mom wouldn't pay for compuserve for me... BBS's were my gateway to the world... well to my local town... Stimpys Sandbox... Memories

Ya sorry.  I'm used to BBS rather than forums.

basic, noddy*, logo, forth, pascal, fortran, C, C++, java, perl, PL/M51, PL/M86, assembler (NEC75000, 6502, z80, 8051, 80x86, 68k, PIC), shell scripts, javascript... probably others.

Hmm.. you wanna play this game?  Ok (ripped from resume):
Assembler, C++, C, QBASIC, Visual Basic, OpenGL, XHTML, XML, JavaScript, Perl, PHP, ASP, SQL, Coldfusion, ASL, Lingo, Actionscript, VBScript, C#

I think you're cheating slightly duplicating lots of variants of basic... XHTML is a superset of HTML is a specific instance of XML. But then, I kind of cheated with different variants of assembler
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Ha yaa, I suppose it is cheating.  Ok, the throne is yours

[Miami_Bob]

Late

PS.. I just googled it... and it is STILL online... I might have to pull out the ole'  Us Robotics (aka now 3COM) 56k v92 model a give them a ring...

This reply is being posted via one of those USR/3COM 56k v92 modems & POTS, friend (G).

You should have tried BBSing at 300 - LOL. Makes 53.3k a joy.

[InSearchOf]

When I was old enough to use a computer and got my first computer it was a 2400.. but was back when "Promanade" was my first ISP... but 300... wow... I was prolly still craping in diapers then... :-)

Late

PS. For those he dont know "Promanade" was the ISP we now call AOL.. *gags*

[desertrat]

You should have tried BBSing at 300 - LOL. Makes 53.3k a joy.

I have. I also tried setting up a BBS on an Amstrad 6128 which had a massive 128K ram and 128K disk storage

In the UK we also had a non-standard 1200/75 baud "standard". I also racked up a fortune in phone bills playing the original Mud using my ZX Spectrum!

-- cheers