[jayhanig]

I woke up this morning shortly before dawn and decided to go for a ride. It was cold out, I knew, but it wasn't until I came back that I realized it was only 25° F. I used to be tougher. I came back this morning with my toes cold, which never used to happen. I guess I'm just getting old.



My new heated grips did yeoman duty and I ended up having to turn them down to the intermediate setting because my palms were starting to smoke (at least it felt like they were). Full gauntlet gloves and my hands were cooking!



No Hippo Hands this year. If I installed them I'd need to go to the lowest setting and summer weight gloves.



One other thing: some moron in the next town decided it was a good time to clean the streets. Who washes down the road when it's going to be below freezing?



I know I'm rambling but you do that when you start getting old. The next thing you know I'm going to start drooling.



Merry Christmas, guys.

 

[DavidfromWisconsin]

I woke up this morning shortly before dawn and decided to go for a ride. It was cold out, I knew, but it wasn't until I came back that I realized it was only 25° F. I used to be tougher. I came back this morning with my toes cold, which never used to happen. I guess I'm just getting old.



My new heated grips did yeoman duty and I ended up having to turn them down to the intermediate setting because my palms were starting to smoke (at least it felt like they were). Full gauntlet gloves and my hands were cooking!



No Hippo Hands this year. If I installed them I'd need to go to the lowest setting and summer weight gloves.



One other thing: some moron in the next town decided it was a good time to clean the streets. Who washes down the road when it's going to be below freezing?



I know I'm rambling but you do that when you start getting old. The next thing you know I'm going to start drooling.



Merry Christmas, guys.

It might be cold ... but take a ride for me ... I have moved about 14 inches of snow in the past 7-10 days and more is coming tonight!

 

[marshallf3]

I know I'm rambling but you do that when you start getting old. The next thing you know I'm going to start drooling.



Yea, a lot of us probably sound like a kid's grandfather talking about the good old days when walking to school was 5 miles and uphill both ways. It matters not if they'll just take their I-Pods out of their ears and listen at times. We may tend to exaggerate a bit on some of our stories in their minds but we're just trying to tell it like it was. So many haven't a clue what an LP album was much less an 8-track tape and can't believe that we actually had to get up to change the channel then fine tune it all back in from the antenna to the vertical and horizontal hold just to watch a simple B&W broadcast. I do miss the days of amateur radio I was in for a while, try and teach a kid Morse code and you're going to lose him right from the start.



300 baud modems, DOS that had to be loaded from two 5-1/4" floppys (if you didn't have the luxury of two drives) and connecting to bulletin boards. All this new stuff may be delightful to them but the stuff we had in the days was every bit as delightful to us at the time. I even started out long before PCs were around, punch cards, paper tape and a remote connection to a mainframe writing in Fortran just to get a few pages back to the line printer with your (hopefully correct) output.



One of my favorite questions is how we got along back in the old days to which a valid response is that we grew up and invented all the stuff you're now working with today, so how are you going to contribute to the next generation?



Hard to imagine, if you told me 35 years ago I'd have a computer in my house and all this internet connectivity I couldn't imagine it, truth of the matter is I've got 4 high powered desktops, three laptops and the new (or almost new) parts to build a couple more modern ones as well as a ton of still perfectly functional old ones just sitting around. I seriously have to go through my piles of stuff, save what I want, build a couple for some less fortunate people I know then pass on the remains to someone young that's just getting into the hobby as they could probably make about 10 perfectly working PCs from the parts and cases I've got.

 

[jayhanig]

I know I'm rambling but you do that when you start getting old. The next thing you know I'm going to start drooling.



Yea, a lot of us probably sound like a kid's grandfather talking about the good old days when walking to school was 5 miles and uphill both ways. It matters not if they'll just take their I-Pods out of their ears and listen at times. We may tend to exaggerate a bit on some of our stories in their minds but we're just trying to tell it like it was. So many haven't a clue what an LP album was much less an 8-track tape and can't believe that we actually had to get up to change the channel then fine tune it all back in from the antenna to the vertical and horizontal hold just to watch a simple B&W broadcast. I do miss the days of amateur radio I was in for a while, try and teach a kid Morse code and you're going to lose him right from the start.



300 baud modems, DOS that had to be loaded from two 5-1/4" floppys (if you didn't have the luxury of two drives) and connecting to bulletin boards. All this new stuff may be delightful to them but the stuff we had in the days was every bit as delightful to us at the time. I even started out long before PCs were around, punch cards, paper tape and a remote connection to a mainframe writing in Fortran just to get a few pages back to the line printer with your (hopefully correct) output.

Don't forget: that five miles each way was in the snow... barefoot. Sometimes the details get forgotten.



And yes, I remember punch cards and "do" loops. And DOS. The old Commodore VIC 20 followed by that marvel of all marvels: the Commodore 64. No air conditioning in any of my family's cars or color TV at home until the 1970s when I was in high school. A 19" black and white TV was considered pretty nice in those days.



Hell.... I am drooling. <G>

 

[DavidfromWisconsin]

How about hardwiring (real wires, by hand) the removable panels that went into the mainframe that took up 2-3 rooms and all it did was card sorting of punch cards.

 

[marshallf3]

Yea, none of it is really new to me but I never even got to see the mainframes I was talking to until I got into my first years at the University and we had a state of the art IBM 360, recently upgraded from a 36 if I recall.



It wasn't so much people's poor programming but sometimes if you used the old 26 series keypunches the holes in the cards would get a bit off center and the only way an endless loop was stopped was from your programmed in limit on processor &/or printer time. I soon learned how to use the newer keypunches, only had to transpose a few keys and they were far more accurate.



I've got an old Digital 9-track tape drive out in my garage that I intend to make a subwoofer out of some day. There's tons of room in the huge stand-alone cabinet not needed by the drive so I intend to build an enclosure in the bottom part then illuminate the top including having a reel of tape on it just for the conversation piece.

 

[Blindstitch]

I was going to take a ride today but the road is full of morons looking for last minute gifts.

 

[DavidfromWisconsin]

Heck, if you want an 8-track for your collector car I can make one for you off the side of my reel to reel tape player. Radio Shack still sells blank 8-tracks. You can even tell me what speed you want it at ...

 

[Trickster]

I guess I'm just getting old.

I know I'm rambling but you do that when you start getting old. The next thing you know I'm going to start drooling.



Merry Christmas, guys.

Hey Jay, I have been getting old since the day I was born and started drooling then too.

Merry Christmas to ya too, have a good holiday.

 

[marshallf3]

Heck, if you want an 8-track for your collector car I can make one for you off the side of my reel to reel tape player. Radio Shack still sells blank 8-tracks. You can even tell me what speed you want it at ...

I've got around 400 8-tr tapes boxed up downstairs (some of them in that old quad) and nothing to play them on but a player is easy enough to find at a thrift shop. I've got most all that music on CDs or "stolen" via Napster when it was freely in operation. I've also got a good Akai 4-track R-R downstairs in the garage as well as a Teac but they'll only end up being for show with 10" metal reels on them when I finally build my own house which, with all I've collected over the years, will probably take up half of a wall behind tightly shutting smoked glass doors so I won't have to dust it that often.



My main systems are all Harman-Kardon with JBL or Infinity speakers, also have a bit of Onkyo and the old Optonica from ages ages ago when they built stuff right. I don't listen very often but when I do I love being able to crank it up to nearly painful levels without a touch of distortion.