# Ever wonder how they did computing before computers?



## Peri (18 Apr 2022)

I found this fascinating - how fire control computers worked in navy battleships in WW2.

Using cams, gears, differentials and other types of mechanics to do maths - some of it pretty advanced.



Part 2


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## OldGreyDog (20 Apr 2022)

My first job after leaving school was in a structural engineering office - we used slide rules for calculations. Other names for them were guessing sticks and logs’ on a stick. I still have my full size one and two or three half size ones in nice leather slip’s which the company used to give to clients.


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## AES (20 Apr 2022)

Yup, me too. And we called them guessing sticks or slip sticks too.

But I'm talking early '60's when I started my apprenticeship.

But back in the same era as the Naval gunfire vids (thanks for posting those BTW, fascinating) various things on WWII bombers and fighters (bomb sights, gun sights, etc) were also all mechanical - gyros, cams, gears, springs, etc, etc) As was the famous Top Secret American Norden bomb sight.

And if you go back further - 1920's & '30's, and read Nevil Shute's "Slide Rule" (just one example), all the stress calcs on each structural element of the UK's R100 airship framework (the "caplitalist airship" that didn't crash!) were all done by a team of "calculators" working with circular slide rules and mechanical adding machines ("Computators" I think they were called - they weren't even electric, you had to turn the handle "X" number of times).

And now apparently, my smart phone has more computing power than NASA had for putting men on the moon in 1969.


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## OldGreyDog (20 Apr 2022)

AES said:


> Yup, me too. And we called them guessing sticks or slip sticks too.
> 
> But I'm talking early '60's when I started my apprenticeship.
> 
> ...


Very interesting stuff. I can only go back to 69’ as thats when I first encountered a slide rule. We all had them and used them for almost everything. There was a basic electric-mechanical adding machine in the office which was used for adding up the total length of reinforcing steel in concrete units. I also had a little brass pocket abacus thing (operated with a small brass stylus) for basic adding up! One of the guys in the office had a circular slide rule - the envy was real!

I’m vaguely aware of gyroscopic sights/controls in old military equipment and ordnance, fascinating subject, but I have no real understanding of how they work.


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## kinverkid (20 Apr 2022)

AES said:


> And now apparently, my smart phone has more computing power than NASA had for putting men on the moon in 1969.


Talking of computers and the moon landing. An excellent read and very good film to watch is Hidden Figures written by Margot Lee Shetterly about the black female human computers that helped in the NASA programme.


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## Stuart Moffat (20 Apr 2022)

My Aunt, Isobel Moffat born in the 1920s had the job title “computer” at the local council.


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## J-G (21 Apr 2022)

AES said:


> read Nevil Shute's "Slide Rule"


Just ordered a copy from eBay.


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## Devmeister (21 Apr 2022)

I date to the HP41CV. Best damn eng calculator ever! My buddy who has past used slide rules. He was a surveyor on the 14 mile Adams Tunnel under the continental divide of the Rockies. They had two bores: one on each side of the divide. When the bores met, he was off by less than 3/4 of an inch!


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## Devmeister (21 Apr 2022)

kinverkid said:


> Talking of computers and the moon landing. An excellent read and very good film to watch is Hidden Figures written by Margot Lee Shetterly about the black female human computers that helped in the NASA programme.


 Crazy! MIT designed the moon landing computer and Raytheon built it from discrete 74 series TTL chips. Damn thing spit out overload errors in middle of moon landing. Had to switch off long range radar to get a bit more poop in the pants to complete landing. But Armstrong was one of the best throttle Jockies out there. A real sled driver! A pilots pilot! Proof we still need spam in a can when the bits go on vacation!


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## MorrisWoodman12 (21 Apr 2022)

I remember at school and college having slide rules for all my calculations back in the early 60s.
My mother, grhs, was a comptometer operator and worked for many a year at a quantity surveyor in Braintree in Essex. I remember seeing the comptometer occasionally when she brought work home. It's basically a mechanical adding machine with row upon row of keys numbered 0 to 9 on the front. She would bang away at the appropriate keys for the correct number of times to add and/or multiply things for the correct calculation. She knew the decimal equivalent of all fractions at least to 64'ths and maybe further - just knowledge needed for the job. With all the sophisticated computer programmes these days people don't know the're born.


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## MikeK (21 Apr 2022)

I used to travel a lot and listen to history-related podcasts. One of the best Apollo program documentaries I remember is Kevin Fong's 13 Minutes to the Moon by BBC World Service. 

Episode Five is "The Fourth Astronaut" and goes into detail about the first portable digital computer developed by MIT.


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## DBC (21 Apr 2022)

AES said:


> Yup, me too. And we called them guessing sticks or slip sticks too.
> 
> But I'm talking early '60's when I started my apprenticeship.
> 
> ...



Interesting, they used some low tech solutions for bombing too. I think I am right in remembering from Paul Brickhill’s book that the bomb aimer knew it was time to let go of the bouncing bomb on the Mohne Dam raid when the two towers on the dam parapet lined up with two nails that had been hammered into a peice of timber. All this while the pilot was judging his height off the lake water using two converging spotlights hung under the plane.


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## AES (21 Apr 2022)

DBC said:


> Interesting, they used some low tech solutions for bombing too. I think I am right in remembering from Paul Brickhill’s book that the bomb aimer knew it was time to let go of the bouncing bomb on the Mohne Dam raid when the two towers on the dam parapet lined up with two nails that had been hammered into a peice of timber. All this while the pilot was judging his height off the lake water using two converging spotlights hung under the plane.



I've read the same. Not only in Brickhill's book, but others too. "Obvious" and "simple" really - once someone else has thought of it!

If you haven't done so already, I'd strongly recommend those interested in this thread to go and look - again? - at the OP's two vid links. Quite remarkable really how complex calculations were mechanised, and a prime example of "Oh, that's pretty obvious - to start off with anyway - so why didn't I think of it?"!


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## shed9 (21 Apr 2022)

MikeK said:


> I used to travel a lot and listen to history-related podcasts. One of the best Apollo program documentaries I remember is Kevin Fong's 13 Minutes to the Moon by BBC World Service.
> 
> Episode Five is "The Fourth Astronaut" and goes into detail about the first portable digital computer developed by MIT.





Have you seen Apollo 11 yet by Todd Douglas Miller? Utterly outstanding film and just incredible use of actual footage.


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## Fergie 307 (21 Apr 2022)

AES said:


> I've read the same. Not only in Brickhill's book, but others too. "Obvious" and "simple" really - once someone else has thought of it!
> 
> If you haven't done so already, I'd strongly recommend those interested in this thread to go and look - again? - at the OP's two vid links. Quite remarkable really how complex calculations were mechanised, and a prime example of "Oh, that's pretty obvious - to start off with anyway - so why didn't I think of it?"!


So often the case with some genius ideas, they seem blindingly obvious once someone has done it. How many hundreds, or even thousands of years did people roll things on logs before someone had the idea of cutting off a slice of log and calling it a wheel?


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## shed9 (21 Apr 2022)

Fergie 307 said:


> So often the case with some genius ideas, they seem blindingly obvious once someone has done it. How many hundreds, or even thousands of years did people roll things on logs before someone had the idea of cutting off a slice of log and calling it a wheel?


I'd argue it was the axle that was the game changer. As you point out, they already had the wheel naturally.


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## Pedronicus (21 Apr 2022)

AES said:


> ..... and mechanical adding machines ("Computators" I think they were called - they weren't even electric, you had to turn the handle "X" number of times).


I think they were called "comptometers". My mum was an operator of one in the late fifties.


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## AES (21 Apr 2022)

Yup, I think you're right, thanks.


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## MikeK (21 Apr 2022)

shed9 said:


> Have you seen Apollo 11 yet by Todd Douglas Miller? Utterly outstanding film and just incredible use of actual footage.



Not yet. I see it is available on Sky Documentaries.


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## Sandyn (21 Apr 2022)

An early example of an analogue processor is Stonehenge and other stone circles. It comprises a bit of hardware (the stones) which has an input (the sun) shining through an aperture to cast a shadow (the output) which indicates the mid winter sun. It has an iterative program, where someone checks each day to see how far the shadow is from the midwinter marker. It is one of the finest examples of Ubiquitous computing because it is a processor which sits in the background doing it's main function, but the builders of Stonehenge had no idea they had built a processor.


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## dizjasta (21 Apr 2022)

Before calculators and computers almost all precise mathematical calculations relied logarithmic tables. In GB engineering relied on 7 figure log tables for accuracy. The tables enabled ship builders, railway builders. civil engineers, military engineers and most other engineering activities to produce accurate results. John Napier [around 1615] promoted the use of the logarithm. His investigations enabled the production of the slide rule which provided an easier but less accurate method of calculation compared to log tables. School children up to around the advent of the calculator had technical books that would include 4 figure log table for calculations.


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## Spectric (21 Apr 2022)

Some things were better before the electronic's were added, we have now got to the point where some functions are controlled by a module, done on the cheap and now can make things dangerous. Any level of complexity can be perfectly fine but it incurrs an oncost, a good example is the body control modules used on some cars. On my Peugeot it started with the wipers working completely at random, at the same time all the instruments such as the speedo stopped working. Now it is also the brake lights, indicators, hazzard warning lights and electric windows. This is already becoming unsafe as other road users are unaware of you braking or having any intention of turning, I am not sure how such systems pass the use and construction of motor vehicle regulations because at one point systems such as hazzard warning had to function if all else fails, simply done by a good old fashioned switch with a fused supply direct from the battery. The latest is that the vehicle now locks you in and you cannot turn the engine off, it takes around six minutes and I suspect it is when the tank mounted fuel pump drops out.

At other times it just cuts out without warning, so all in all it has become unsafe to use, to repair the garage cannot give a firm quote because it is in their words electrical and they do not know what will need replacing or how long it may take or if it is worth fixing. This is according to the garage becoming a nightmare with some cars where relatively new cars are just becoming not economical to repair.


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## Sandyn (21 Apr 2022)

Spectric said:


> The latest is that the vehicle now locks you in and you cannot turn the engine off, it takes around six minutes and I suspect it is when the tank mounted fuel pump drops out



Technology is great when it works, but when it doesn't it's worse than useless. It absolutely drives me insane, because the designers have never experienced the frustration caused when it fails. I have a saying 'Whoever designed this never actually used it.' I drove around for about 3 years with a failed 'comfort control processer' which was about £900 to replace. The windows wouldn't open and none of the heating/ventilation worked. On really hot days in summer, I was tempted to drive around in my underwear, lol. My daughters Citroen developed a random fault with the alarm. What a nightmare, so took the car to the dealer for them to fix under warranty. Returned to pick the car up and was told they couldn't find any faults. These things happen. The receptionist said they will just bring the car round from the rear of the garage. A minute later, I could hear an alarm going off and saw this young mechanic sheepishly driving the car past the window, alarm blaring. The perfect time for it to fail. I couldn't stop laughing.
Hopefully the 'right to repair' will eventually lead to more fixable technology


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## AES (21 Apr 2022)

Yeah, being an old fogey I do get the feeling that we add some things (e.g. automation) "just because we can": IF any cost/benefit analysis is done at all, I BET it doesn't get beyond the manufacturer asking "Does this new widget make it easier/cheaper/faster to make?" If YES, then it's IN, and forget the rest of the chain - servicing and repair people, end users, buyers, etc, etc.

OK, as above, I AM an old fogey!


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## Peri (22 Apr 2022)

Fergie 307 said:


> So often the case with some genius ideas, they seem blindingly obvious once someone has done it.



My workmate used to say "Any id1ot can come up with mark 2 - coming up with mark 1 takes the brains"


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## JimJay (22 Apr 2022)

This is a very interesting thread. I'm 72 apparently, though how that came about so quickly is a mystery to me, and I certainly remember using Log Tables and still have my fancy German slide rule. I was never a mathematical wizard, hence my choice of reading Law at uni.

However, my wife is a mathematician who became a telecommunications engineer and is now a professor of telecommunications at the Technical University here. As with most/all of the countries behind the Iron Curtain, in the Commie days there were special schools for children with an aptitude in areas which were deemed important to the state: mathematics, physics, chemistry, biology, languages, finance, sport etc all had separate schools where all the other usual school subjects were also taught (including the compulsory Russian, of course) but with advanced classes in the childrens' specialism. There were slide rules and log tables at her Mathematics school but the pupils weren't allowed to have such things in exams: all calculations had to be done in their heads, as even using paper was considered a sign of weakness. Failing an exam meant instant expulsion to an ordinary school and a drab life of boredom.

I should add that my wife is a couple of decades younger than I am. That's just to set the scene for what comes next. She can do mathematical marvels in her head while she's lecturing and write them up on the whiteboard without thinking but she always likes me to do the shopping because she has a real problem with things that I find simple (because they are, I'm no genius), such as which butter is the cheapest per kilo. She can also design complex electronic circuits in her head but calls me every time her PC won't turn on or her smartphone does something weird. 

She's an amazing mathematician but she's hopeless at simple arithmetic.....


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## MikeJhn (22 Apr 2022)

Many years ago (too long to remember) I could do simultaneous quadratic equations in my head, now days I have problems just adding up three numbers, I now have to write everything down, also stopping halfway up the stairs, was I going up or coming down.


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## JimJay (22 Apr 2022)

MikeJhn said:


> Many years ago (too long to remember) I could do simultaneous quadratic equations in my head, now days I have problems just adding up three numbers, I now have to write everything down, also stopping halfway up the stairs, was I going up or coming down.



Amen to that! I mean the stairs bit, not the equations.  

My wife worries about her old parents, as do I - although they're only a little older than I am. I do wonder how she'll fare when we're all gone..... probably very well!


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## Fergie 307 (22 Apr 2022)

Sandyn said:


> Technology is great when it works, but when it doesn't it's worse than useless. It absolutely drives me insane, because the designers have never experienced the frustration caused when it fails. I have a saying 'Whoever designed this never actually used it.' I drove around for about 3 years with a failed 'comfort control processer' which was about £900 to replace. The windows wouldn't open and none of the heating/ventilation worked. On really hot days in summer, I was tempted to drive around in my underwear, lol. My daughters Citroen developed a random fault with the alarm. What a nightmare, so took the car to the dealer for them to fix under warranty. Returned to pick the car up and was told they couldn't find any faults. These things happen. The receptionist said they will just bring the car round from the rear of the garage. A minute later, I could hear an alarm going off and saw this young mechanic sheepishly driving the car past the window, alarm blaring. The perfect time for it to fail. I couldn't stop laughing.
> Hopefully the 'right to repair' will eventually lead to more fixable technology


My dad worked for Renault for many years, and I was a great fan of French cars. Unfortunately they don't seem to be very good at electronics. Since cars have become increasingly dependent on ecu controlling everything, their cars have taken a dive as their electronics just don't seem to be at all reliable or have any great life expectancy. No idea why this should be, the French have always had some fine engineers.


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## carpenteire2009 (22 Apr 2022)

When you think about it isn't it amazing how things were designed and built before the advent of powerful computers! I'm (only!) 50 and work in the design/ construction industry and when I graduated from college in around 1992/ 93 CAD was really just in its infancy. I spent the first few years of my working life as a junior technician/ draughtsman in a small architects office, where everything was drawn by hand using pen and ink (Rotring/ Staedtler- 0.18, 0.25, 0.35mm etc) and the finished drawings were reproduced on a dyeline machine which used ammonia as a developing agent- it stank! When drawing up large housing schemes with road layouts we used a set of large radius curves which came in a well made mahogany box- it was Victorian! Occasionally we would be asked to draw up designs in imperial scales- 1/8" to 1' etc. Areas on maps (for conveyancy purposes) were calculated by breaking up (irregular shaped tracts of land for example) into triangles, which were then calculated for area and added together. All lettering/ labelling was done by hand or with stencils. Some of the draughtsmen were particularly good at hand lettering, each had their own style. I draw everything (except for the occasional quick hand sketch) with CAD now and while I wouldn't like to go back to the days of scratching out errors and making revisions to sheets with a razor blade there was some art/ craft in the draughting of old which is missing now.


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## paulrbarnard (22 Apr 2022)

Sandyn said:


> Technology is great when it works, but when it doesn't it's worse than useless. It absolutely drives me insane, because the designers have never experienced the frustration caused when it fails. I have a saying 'Whoever designed this never actually used it.' I drove around for about 3 years with a failed 'comfort control processer' which was about £900 to replace. The windows wouldn't open and none of the heating/ventilation worked. On really hot days in summer, I was tempted to drive around in my underwear, lol. My daughters Citroen developed a random fault with the alarm. What a nightmare, so took the car to the dealer for them to fix under warranty. Returned to pick the car up and was told they couldn't find any faults. These things happen. The receptionist said they will just bring the car round from the rear of the garage. A minute later, I could hear an alarm going off and saw this young mechanic sheepishly driving the car past the window, alarm blaring. The perfect time for it to fail. I couldn't stop laughing.
> Hopefully the 'right to repair' will eventually lead to more fixable technology


What you actually say here is that you decided not to replace or repair the fault because of cost. That is a different situation that it not being repairable or replaceable. The right to repair will possibly make it more economical to repair but don’t expect it to make that big a difference for something with a complex PCB. As an example you can get a battery replaced in an iPhone by apple for £100, by a fix it shop for £50 or as a DIY kit for about £20. This is a reasonable savings expectation where a part can be replaced. If the problem is with the logic board then the equipment needed to diagnose and repair a fault plus the labour could actually have the opposite cost impact. The DIYer having to spent £1,000s on test equipment and rework stations to achieve the repair.
The area where I think right to repair really needs strong legislation is in end of life software. The ability to modify, bug fix and patch obsolete products would make a big difference to the life of many electronic products. However with something like a car which undergoes type approval for safety systems there are also arguments against that.


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## Jonm (22 Apr 2022)

Spectric said:


> Some things were better before the electronic's were added, we have now got to the point where some functions are controlled by a module, done on the cheap and now can make things dangerous. Any level of complexity can be perfectly fine but it incurrs an oncost, a good example is the body control modules used on some cars. On my Peugeot it started with the wipers working completely at random, at the same time all the instruments such as the speedo stopped working. Now it is also the brake lights, indicators, hazzard warning lights and electric windows. This is already becoming unsafe as other road users are unaware of you braking or having any intention of turning, I am not sure how such systems pass the use and construction of motor vehicle regulations because at one point systems such as hazzard warning had to function if all else fails, simply done by a good old fashioned switch with a fused supply direct from the battery. The latest is that the vehicle now locks you in and you cannot turn the engine off, it takes around six minutes and I suspect it is when the tank mounted fuel pump drops out.
> 
> At other times it just cuts out without warning, so all in all it has become unsafe to use, to repair the garage cannot give a firm quote because it is in their words electrical and they do not know what will need replacing or how long it may take or if it is worth fixing. This is according to the garage becoming a nightmare with some cars where relatively new cars are just becoming not economical to repair.


I can understand having electronics to control the engine for efficiency/pollution reduction and to control an automatic gearbox. I have a leased car obtained via a relative who works for a major manufacturing group. Get a new car every six months and they are fabulous to drive in terms of performance, efficiency and gear change. The other complicated electronics are OTT as far as I am concerned. Your experience is one reason why I have gone for this lease arrangement, cannot get a load of hassle and bills for thousands because some chip has gone faulty.

My understanding is that wiring on cars became so complicated that they reduced it by say, having one power wire going to the light clusters then when you “switch” on a light it sends a signal to a computer which in turn sends a signal to the light clusters which has another electronic box which turns the relevant light on. Then put the lot in a sealed unit, what could possibly go wrong? Widely reported in 2018 that some small popular family cars cost over £800 to change a bulb. System is called CANbus.


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## Spectric (22 Apr 2022)

Jonm said:


> My understanding is that wiring on cars became so complicated that they reduced it by say, having one power wire going to the light clusters then when you “switch” on a light it sends a signal to a computer which in turn sends a signal to the light clusters which has another electronic box which turns the relevant light on. Then put the lot in a sealed unit, what could possibly go wrong? Widely reported in 2018 that some small popular family cars cost over £800 to change a bulb. System is called CANbus.


The question to ask is why did it become so complicated and centralised! I have worked for a major OEM in their R&D on vehicle electrical systems and these sort of questions were being raised back in the nineties when the worry was that even the main dealers would struggle to rectify some faults. The actual CAN bus is a very robust network protocol but once you introduce cheap automotive interconnects and cost saving bean counters, then add in a company whose philosopy was aimed squarely at design for manufacturing and not long term repair then it all starts to go wrong. Some electronics were essential in order to meet EURO emision standards but do you really need a display to tell you that a door is open? It does all come down to cost, cars are not classed as essential but more of a luxury unlike say a tractor which can also have very complicated electronics but done in such a way that the fault finding is built into the system because when it goes wrong farmers are not very happy and want it fixed yesterday. 

Have we all become lazy and got what we thought we wanted but now in hindsight it is just a horrendous problem, are we really now incapable of using car windows that have a handle, cannot insert a key to lock our cars, need to be told to close a door or the handbrake is not fully off , it really takes me back to when we called the warning lights "silly person Lights". 

So the next phase, electric vehicles and maybe driverless ones some day, that will be interesting because they will have to put in proper safety systems otherwise would you want to be in a vehicle with no steering wheel that is just automated, imagine if it decides to turn off the motorway at sixty miles an hour but overshoots the sliproad or reacts to something and just changes lane in front of a lorry!


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## Jonm (22 Apr 2022)

Back in 1973 I was working on a construction site for a major contractor. Computerised, co-ordinated highway alignments were provided by the client. Head office had a programmable calculator for calculating setting out angles for the tangent points. On another site I set out an industrial unit, had co-ordinates for the building corners and setting out stations. To get angles and distances would mean sending the co-ordinates by post to head office then waiting for a reply by post. No time for that so I went in one Saturday, did the calculations using seven figure logs, checked them and set out three corners of the building and checked for 90 degree corner, took about 6 hours from memory. On the Monday I set out the fourth corner and checked the last corner, about 15mm out over 100 metres.

In 1974 I moved to a design office. We had a mains calculator for sums, just add, subtract and divide, shared between about 10 people. There was a Hewlett Packard programmable calculator which was shared between 50 people and used for geometry calculations and some simple structural programs. It was very popular and I wrote a few programs for it. Used a main frame computer for traffic modelling, highway alignment and structural design. Still lots of hand calculations and slide rule where it was sufficiently accurate.

To summarise, A levels, university and starting work in 1973, it was hand calculations, four figure logs and slide rules but with computers for more accuracy or complex design. I only used seven figure logs the once.


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## Ozi (22 Apr 2022)

Sandyn said:


> An early example of an analogue processor is Stonehenge and other stone circles. It comprises a bit of hardware (the stones) which has an input (the sun) shining through an aperture to cast a shadow (the output) which indicates the mid winter sun. It has an iterative program, where someone checks each day to see how far the shadow is from the midwinter marker. It is one of the finest examples of Ubiquitous computing because it is a processor which sits in the background doing it's main function, but the builders of Stonehenge had no idea they had built a processor.


But what a pain to adjust when the clocks go back.


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## Bojam (22 Apr 2022)

The Great Trigonometrical Survey of India was a massive enterprise concerned with mapping and measuring all the territories of the subcontinent controlled by the British empire. It commenced its ‘North-Eastern Himalayan Series’ in 1845 and completed it in 1850. All of the giant Himalayan peaks were visible from the principal observation stations of this series. Every visible peak, great and small, was observed from each observation station, using theodolites to collect data. Calculations were performed by computers!

The identification of Everest as the highest mountain in the world are usually accredited to Radhanath Sikdar, who was the “chief computer”. The accuracy achieved in these calculations was phenomenal. Modern survey methods have rarely adjusted the heights of these Himalayan peaks by more than a few meters. 

See this article for an interesting history: Did Radhanath Sikdar Measure the Height of Mount Everest First? – The Wire Science


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## Jonm (22 Apr 2022)

Spectric said:


> Have we all become lazy and got what we thought we wanted


Probably yes, the manufacturers would not have added all this technology if buyers were not looking for it, they do know their market, if not they go out of business. 

If I was looking to buy a new or nearly new car I do not think I could find what I wanted, ie reliable computers controlling just the essentials like engine and gearbox if auto. Easy to work on and repair plus comfortable to travel in.


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## Peri (22 Apr 2022)

carpenteire2009 said:


> W...... using pen and ink (Rotring/ Staedtler- 0.18, 0.25, 0.35mm etc) .......



I also trained as a draughtsman and used the same type of pens. Later, I used the same pens to do art-work, but haven't done any for about 20 years. I recently decided to get myself another set of Staedtler's and hit up ebay........ where I found them listed as 'Antique drawing implements' haha


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## Pedronicus (22 Apr 2022)

carpenteire2009 said:


> When you think about it isn't it amazing how things were designed and built before the advent of powerful computers! I'm (only!) 50 and work in the design/ construction industry and when I graduated from college in around 1992/ 93 CAD was really just in its infancy. I spent the first few years of my working life as a junior technician/ draughtsman in a small architects office, where everything was drawn by hand using pen and ink (Rotring/ Staedtler- 0.18, 0.25, 0.35mm etc) and the finished drawings were reproduced on a dyeline machine which used ammonia as a developing agent- it stank! When drawing up large housing schemes with road layouts we used a set of large radius curves which came in a well made mahogany box- it was Victorian! Occasionally we would be asked to draw up designs in imperial scales- 1/8" to 1' etc. Areas on maps (for conveyancy purposes) were calculated by breaking up (irregular shaped tracts of land for example) into triangles, which were then calculated for area and added together. All lettering/ labelling was done by hand or with stencils. Some of the draughtsmen were particularly good at hand lettering, each had their own style. I draw everything (except for the occasional quick hand sketch) with CAD now and while I wouldn't like to go back to the days of scratching out errors and making revisions to sheets with a razor blade there was some art/ craft in the draughting of old which is missing now.


Like yourself and Peri I also started working life as a draughtsman (albeit in 1966) with the 'hand tools'. Have still got all the pens, squares, stencils, scale rules (the best one of which reads metric measurements from an imperial drawing  ), compasses, dividers, etc. Have tried CAD in it's various forms over the years but find that I can still draw the 'old fashioned way' far quicker than I can using CAD. Can always tell a CAD produced drawing as the dimensions are too accurate i.e. 1.504m instead of 1.5m. Try telling a pipe fitter to install to the dimensions shown on the drawings!!!


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## paulrbarnard (22 Apr 2022)

Spectric said:


> unlike say a tractor which can also have very complicated electronics but done in such a way that the fault finding is built into the system because when it goes wrong farmers are not very happy and want it fixed yesterday.



Ironically it is farmers who are pushing the right to repair hardest in the US. The heavy equipment makers have actually added electronics and software to make it impossible to fault find and repair unless you are an approved dealer.


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## Spectric (22 Apr 2022)

So many memories round here, looking back to my early working life I can remember the large rooms full of women typist, then the rooms full of drawing boards, some on stands and others bench and all the draughtsmen were men. Then when you wanted to look at a drawing there were these cabinets with large shallow drawers and all looked like furniture, ornate and highly polished. Also a few of the draughtsman smoked pipes! I think in some ways modern technology distances people from reality, they lose the feel and instinct, as mentioned giving non realistic dimensions on drawings and you get the same in metrology where people state temperature to six or more decimal places. 



Jonm said:


> Probably yes, the manufacturers would not have added all this technology if buyers were not looking for it, they do know their market, if not they go out of business.


In the early days both Fords and General motors just made cars and they sold them by the million, it was the Japanese who began market research and realised adding certain features was a selling point, that and also people would love cars that did not drip oil all over the driveway. 



Bojam said:


> The Great Trigonometrical Survey of India was a massive enterprise concerned with mapping and measuring all the territories of the subcontinent controlled by the British empire.



Looks like India was done before Airy did the UK in 1835, and in both cases with manual projections. I think in them days before Airy we were only concerned with parts the French may invade, ie south coast and kent.


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## clogs (22 Apr 2022)

when I lived in France a good friend was a service manager for a big Renault dealership.....
he said they had a special factory phone number just for electronic problems....
quite often after hours of trying to sort it....Reno either sent and engineer (I'm sure they had roving engineers working outta vans perm) or for serious faults 
the cars went back to the factory.....
Also, even if they supplied and serviced any of their models if u wanted to part exchange it for a new one....they wouldn't give a price for ur's until it had been on a computor to check for faults.....

Biggest prob with electronics is ask for a quote for say ECU and then when it comes in ask for it to be made cheaper....
lastley, Sony many years ago bought in a load of Chinese made electronics for the TV boards...
after a while major probs with the telly's.....after that they now only use japanese made items....
but that may have changed due to qual improvements in China.......
My forever vehicle is a 1999 VW Kombi, 1.9TD.....just comming upto 470,000klms....
sell it, never....I'd rather eat wasps.....hahaha...


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## Terry - Somerset (22 Apr 2022)

Weather forecast models need supercomputers. Local (not global) models divide the atmosphere into small grids ~1.5km across, ~70 different levels in the atmosphere, processed in small time steps.

The origins of numerical weather prediction, as physical atmospheric processes were increasingly better understood, lie with a scientist (Richardson). In 1922 he envisioned a large auditorium of thousands of people performing the calculations and passing them to others. 

The principles were spot on but it predated the first computers by 40-50 years. Sadly it did not work - completing the task manually with sufficient precision meant that the forecast lagged elapsed time.

There is no point in a forecast for two days hence when it takes four days to produce.


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## mikej460 (22 Apr 2022)

Maybe we should start a Monty Python type thread on 'What have computers ever done for us?'..


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## Jonm (22 Apr 2022)

mikej460 said:


> Maybe we should start a Monty Python type thread on 'What have computers ever done for us?'..


CNC machines, 3D printers neither of which I own.


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## JimJay (23 Apr 2022)

It's interesting to read about the "computerisation" of cars, which is something that I'm definitely agin, especially with the replace-not-repair approach that is taken in the UK - or at least was: it's been years since I left. Here in Bulgaria there's a plethora of small vehicle service shops, usually specialising in particular marques, where they'll whip out a dud PCB and repair it on the spot/overnight for comparatively peanuts. Of course, the main dealers don't do that, claiming it's unreliable - but I've not had any problems with such repairs in nearly two decades here and saved a packet in the process.

On the other hand, my wife's new Suzuki Ignis (don't laugh - she prefers small cars and you need a 4x4 in this neck of the woods) is always having problems with the electronics, usually in the form of spurious "warnings". Since it's under warranty, it's annoying rather than expensive but the hassle she has to go through to get them reset has to be experienced to be believed - and whoever thought that having one warning obscuring another was a good idea ought to be fired....

Just as an aside, one change which always amuses me is that the annual "Technical Control" (MOT) test is videoed these days - not so long ago you'd just call up to book one and then pop over before they closed to collect the certificate: "No need to waste time bringing your car here, sir....."


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## johnny (23 Apr 2022)

JimJay said:


> This is a very interesting thread. I'm 72 apparently, though how that came about so quickly is a mystery to me, and I certainly remember using Log Tables and still have my fancy German slide rule. I was never a mathematical wizard, hence my choice of reading Law at uni.
> 
> However, my wife is a mathematician who became a telecommunications engineer and is now a professor of telecommunications at the Technical University here. As with most/all of the countries behind the Iron Curtain, in the Commie days there were special schools for children with an aptitude in areas which were deemed important to the state: mathematics, physics, chemistry, biology, languages, finance, sport etc all had separate schools where all the other usual school subjects were also taught (including the compulsory Russian, of course) but with advanced classes in the childrens' specialism. There were slide rules and log tables at her Mathematics school but the pupils weren't allowed to have such things in exams: all calculations had to be done in their heads, as even using paper was considered a sign of weakness. Failing an exam meant instant expulsion to an ordinary school and a drab life of boredom.
> 
> ...


I'm the same age as you and I can vividly remember endlessly reciting the times table up to 12 or so when in Primary School and that has undoubtedly enabled me to be able to add and subtract in my head many times faster than using a calculator to this day... 60+ years later. 

Although I was considered quite bright and had an accelerated education and went to a Private School, I failed miserably at exams . When I decided in my late 20s to go to Uni to study Architecture I had to study and pass 0 levels and A levels and an HND before managing to to get entrance to the Oxford School of Architecture. It was quite a shock to find by then that everything was now Metric which seemed totally alien at first but by the time I got to HND Construction studies I loved it . Bought my first scientific calculator Casio fx-3600P which has now been in use for over 40 years and still works despite being run over by a car 20 years ago.! I received a free mature student grant of several thousand pounds a year back in 1980 which enabled me, as a student ,to run a car and rent 2x flats as well . How lucky we were eh !

Like your Wife, I am still able to manage complex structural Engineering calculations and even troubleshoot complex Electronic auto Fuel injection and ignition systems but find many simple basic tasks a real struggle ....

I fear that in comparison to the high standards of education in other European and Far Eastern Education Countries, the UK is badly failing our future generations with this 'dumbed down' multi-choice ,tick-box type education curriculum that we offer our Kids today


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## Ozi (23 Apr 2022)

JimJay said:


> It's interesting to read about the "computerisation" of cars, which is something that I'm definitely agin, especially with the replace-not-repair approach that is taken in the UK - or at least was: it's been years since I left. Here in Bulgaria there's a plethora of small vehicle service shops, usually specialising in particular marques, where they'll whip out a dud PCB and repair it on the spot/overnight for comparatively peanuts. Of course, the main dealers don't do that, claiming it's unreliable - but I've not had any problems with such repairs in nearly two decades here and saved a packet in the process.
> 
> On the other hand, my wife's new Suzuki Ignis (don't laugh - she prefers small cars and you need a 4x4 in this neck of the woods) is always having problems with the electronics, usually in the form of spurious "warnings". Since it's under warranty, it's annoying rather than expensive but the hassle she has to go through to get them reset has to be experienced to be believed - and whoever thought that having one warning obscuring another was a good idea ought to be fired....
> 
> Just as an aside, one change which always amuses me is that the annual "Technical Control" (MOT) test is videoed these days - not so long ago you'd just call up to book one and then pop over before they closed to collect the certificate: "No need to waste time bringing your car here, sir....."


Utterly agree about the replace not repair attitude. Some of the computerization of cars is necessary and useful, a lot is just there to put a tick in the box, JD Powers ran an interesting survey recently showing how unused some "necessary" features are. Working in the industry I get to see some of the customer feedback surveys and it still amazes me how many people pay extra for features they either don't understand, don't use or even later claim not to have while the car has to lug it all around till it gets to the scrap yard. Some of it is also just a con. I won't name the vehicle or the company and it was quite some time ago but I once worked on a car where buying the "sport" version got you a chrome ring on the gear stick, two more on the front door cards and a rubber mat in one of the cubbyholes all for a mere £1000. That was it, no engine mods, no suspension mods but it sold.


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## Jester129 (23 Apr 2022)

I have a Skoda Octavia. There is another model that has a rear wing and a 'VR' (I think) badge. They both have the same body and engine. If I put my car in 'Sport' mode, it becomes the 'VR' version without the rear wing and the badge! Beautiful cars, mind.


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## Jonm (24 Apr 2022)

Volvo 850 had a 170bhp, petrol 2435 cc, five cylinder model with 20 valve head. Also a 140bhp petrol 2435 cc, five cylinder model with 10 valve head.

It was replaced by the V70, very similar car. The series II had a 170bhp model, petrol 2435 cc, five cylinder model with 20 valve head. Also a 140bhp, petrol 2435 cc, five cylinder model with, yes you have guessed it, a 20 valve head.

The engines are identical except for the program in the ecu. Edit not identical in price though!


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## Spectric (24 Apr 2022)

Ozi said:


> worked on a car where buying the "sport" version got you a chrome ring on the gear stick, two more on the front door cards and a rubber mat in one of the cubbyholes all for a mere £1000. That was it, no engine mods, no suspension mods but it sold.


Just standard marketing practice, you have a range of bread and butter motors that suit the majority but then you have others which for little added cost can deliver far greater profits, it is amazing how just a simple badge can convince a customer that this car may be a few thousand pounds more but it is "special" whilst only costing the OEM a few dollars of plastic tack to achieve. This was something the Japanese and now the Chinese have trouble coming to terms with, the badge engineering concept used in the west to sell cars rather than just using a simple number designation. It is the same with cloths, take a dirt cheap item made for peanuts in the east, stick some label on it and call it "designer" and along comes some muppet who then gives you several hundred percent profit when they buy it, a very expensive little label! Even more profitable are womens handbags, have you seen what some women will pay for something that has the same functionality as a shopping bag! Has anyone thought of "designer" handbags made from wood?


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## AES (24 Apr 2022)

Yup, in some circles the Marketing people are called "Marketing flower arrangers". While they do serve a sensible function sometimes ("the right goods at the right place at the right time") and all that malarkey, sometimes - mostly? - they do seem to be a waste of oxygen.

OTOH, there have been some notable "engineering-led" firms who have very cleverly developed some new-fangled widget, only to find out after a lot of time and expense that nobody wanted to buy it.

IMHO a mixture of both is probably an ideal, like so many other aspects of life.

Interesting though this thread has been to me, and to several others too it seems, this thread has come a long way from "computing, etc"!


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## Ozi (24 Apr 2022)

Spectric said:


> Just standard marketing practice, you have a range of bread and butter motors that suit the majority but then you have others which for little added cost can deliver far greater profits, it is amazing how just a simple badge can convince a customer that this car may be a few thousand pounds more but it is "special" whilst only costing the OEM a few dollars of plastic tack to achieve. This was something the Japanese and now the Chinese have trouble coming to terms with, the badge engineering concept used in the west to sell cars rather than just using a simple number designation. It is the same with cloths, take a dirt cheap item made for peanuts in the east, stick some label on it and call it "designer" and along comes some muppet who then gives you several hundred percent profit when they buy it, a very expensive little label! Even more profitable are womens handbags, have you seen what some women will pay for something that has the same functionality as a shopping bag! Has anyone thought of "designer" handbags made from wood?


Just bought some socks made of bamboo so anythings possible!


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## Ozi (24 Apr 2022)

AES said:


> Yup, in some circles the Marketing people are called "Marketing flower arrangers". While they do serve a sensible function sometimes ("the right goods at the right place at the right time") and all that malarkey, sometimes - mostly? - they do seem to be a waste of oxygen.
> 
> OTOH, there have been some notable "engineering-led" firms who have very cleverly developed some new-fangled widget, only to find out after a lot of time and expense that nobody wanted to buy it.
> 
> ...


Agreed we have wondered off topic, partly my fault, and it was a very interesting starting point. Shows what was possible pre the electronic era.


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## Spectric (24 Apr 2022)

Ozi said:


> Just bought some socks made of bamboo so anythings possible!


You really do not want any bamboo splinters, they must be the worst type to get.


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## J-G (24 Apr 2022)

Ozi said:


> Just bought some socks made of bamboo so anythings possible!


I've been 'fooled' by that marketing ploy as well! Bamboo may be used to produce the cellulose from which the 'Rayon' thread is made but the thread is not made from bamboo fiber as the advertising is intended to make you believe.

The concept that 'Bamboo' is a luxury material is down to it being 'Anti-microbial', 'Hypoallergenic', 'Eco-Friendly', 'Breathable', 'Wrinkle Free' and whilst Bamboo itself is anti-microbial, the cellulose that is derived from it is just that - Cellulose. Bamboo is used because it is 60% Cellulose with a high lignin content. Once converted to cellulose, all these 'natural' qualities are gone of course.

I bought some 'Luxury Bamboo Bed Sheets' at new year. All the advertising made great play of the 'facts' about the properties of Bamboo and there was no mention on the web-site or indeed on the packaging, of 'Bamboo Blend'. It was only after unpacking and happening to notice on the - legally required - label that it eventually becomes clear that the thread is made from a proprietory blend of cellulose that is 40% derived from Bamboo and 60% from other microfiber.

I did raise a complaint with the Advertising Standards Authority but got a very weak "Noted' response!


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## powertools (24 Apr 2022)

JimJay said:


> It's interesting to read about the "computerisation" of cars, which is something that I'm definitely agin, especially with the replace-not-repair approach that is taken in the UK - or at least was: it's been years since I left. Here in Bulgaria there's a plethora of small vehicle service shops, usually specialising in particular marques, where they'll whip out a dud PCB and repair it on the spot/overnight for comparatively peanuts. Of course, the main dealers don't do that, claiming it's unreliable - but I've not had any problems with such repairs in nearly two decades here and saved a packet in the process.
> 
> On the other hand, my wife's new Suzuki Ignis (don't laugh - she prefers small cars and you need a 4x4 in this neck of the woods) is always having problems with the electronics, usually in the form of spurious "warnings". Since it's under warranty, it's annoying rather than expensive but the hassle she has to go through to get them reset has to be experienced to be believed - and whoever thought that having one warning obscuring another was a good idea ought to be fired....
> 
> Just as an aside, one change which always amuses me is that the annual "Technical Control" (MOT) test is videoed these days - not so long ago you'd just call up to book one and then pop over before they closed to collect the certificate: "No need to waste time bringing your car here, sir....."




We have a Suzuki Ignis that is almost 1 year old and our experience is that it is a very capable small car that is a budget price to purchase and very cheap to run at over 60 miles to the gallon.


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## AES (24 Apr 2022)

Ozi said:


> Agreed we have wondered off topic, partly my fault, and it was a very interesting starting point. Shows what was possible pre the electronic era.



It wasn't really a complaint about thread drift, and in any case, I'm just as guilty as anyone else - not for the first time either!


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## JimJay (25 Apr 2022)

powertools said:


> We have a Suzuki Ignis that is almost 1 year old and our experience is that it is a very capable small car that is a budget price to purchase and very cheap to run at over 60 miles to the gallon.



I have to admit that I try not to drive, or be driven in, my wife's car. It looks nice and is reasonably nippy but the thing that really puts me off is that the suspension appears to be made from breeze blocks. We live in a suburb of Sofia, in fact just outside what used to be a village; it's main characteristics now are that it has super views and the main Street is cobbled. My car, also a 4x4, just glides over those cobbles but the Ignis makes you think that your teeth are being shaken out of your gums. 

Suzuki here are rubbish and when my wife's AC went on the blink it took five months to get the part for a warranty repair - not good when the summers here can get ridiculously hot, and the winters very cold. She has permanent problems with fault lights showing non-existent problems - and who had the bright idea of having fault lights for tyre pressure that come on when you change a wheel and can't be reset by the customer? Here, winter tyres are essential (and more or less mandatory, since insurance companies use not having them as an excuse to reject claims) and many people simply have two sets of wheels. The tyre-changing garages reset the fault light - but it usually comes on again a bit later. On my car, resetting the tyre pressure fault light is very simple - and it stays reset unless the pressure really has changed.


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## clogs (25 Apr 2022)

to add to Jim-Jay's answer
we also have a camera to record vehicles for the MOT.....
On our logbook there's no colour mentioned of the vehicle.....
on our's we had to remove the Bull Bars and tow ball for our revisit......just checking they said.....
Mind if u look around here, how some of these vehicles are on the road at all amazes me.....

Back to computors, after visiting car junk yards (recycle centers) over Europe most are now filled with undamaged vehicles.....it's just unrepairable electronic faults or to costly to fix....
which is just great for the planet...

my vehicle would perhaps get around 10-15mpg better if it were electronicaly controlled ......
but for HOW LONG.....????? no thanks.....


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## JimJay (25 Apr 2022)

Ozi said:


> Utterly agree about the replace not repair attitude. Some of the computerization of cars is necessary and useful, a lot is just there to put a tick in the box, JD Powers ran an interesting survey recently showing how unused some "necessary" features are. Working in the industry I get to see some of the customer feedback surveys and it still amazes me how many people pay extra for features they either don't understand, don't use or even later claim not to have while the car has to lug it all around till it gets to the scrap yard. Some of it is also just a con. I won't name the vehicle or the company and it was quite some time ago but I once worked on a car where buying the "sport" version got you a chrome ring on the gear stick, two more on the front door cards and a rubber mat in one of the cubbyholes all for a mere £1000. That was it, no engine mods, no suspension mods but it sold.



Just to return to the original topic of the thread for a moment, once I'd decided that my initial career as a lawyer really wasn't for me I was lucky enough to get into computing and eventually became a technical manager in a large, and now deservedly-defunct, computer organisation. We had a range of machines (this was well before the days of PCs) costing many thousands of pounds, some of them being upgradeable. However the major upgrades were very expensive and the usual upgrade path was for us to buy back the old machine, which had usually already been upgraded as far as it could go, and sell the unsuspecting punter a factory-refurbished unit higher in the range; this would be delivered to them and then a couple of engineers would spend a day or two "commissioning and installing" it.

I say "unsuspecting" because what the customers didn't know was that the new refurb was actually exactly the same as their old one - the only difference being that a compiler for a different language had been installed (about a ten minute job) and a DIP switch had been flicked in the bowels of the beast. The refurbishment involved vacuuming the insides and respraying the case, and the reason for selling them a refurb was that the profit margin was much higher than that of a new machine, as we were basically just selling them someone else's old machine in a never-ending circle. I did suggest to Sales & Marketing that we could just take their old machine away in the evening, "refurb" it overnight and return it the next morning (or a day or two later) as a different machine but they didn't want to lose the extra profit made from the two days that it ostensibly took for the engineers to carry out their on-site pantomime...


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## JimJay (25 Apr 2022)

clogs said:


> to add to Jim-Jay's answer
> we also have a camera to record vehicles for the MOT.....
> On our logbook there's no colour mentioned of the vehicle.....
> on our's we had to remove the Bull Bars and tow ball for our revisit......just checking they said.....
> ...



That's interesting - I never had to take my bull bars off for the MOT but I did have a minor encounter with a boulder on a dark road. The bars took the very slight impact but seemed to distort more than I thought they would. When I got home I decided to take them off to see what had happened. I bought the car new and the bars were fitted by the main dealer and had the cosmetic plastic nut covers fitted: it turned out that the nuts holding them on weren't stainless steel, as they would have been had I fitted them myself, and indeed weren't even metal - they were bl**dy plastic/nylon! I wasn't too impressed, to put it mildly......


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## Ozi (25 Apr 2022)

johnny said:


> I'm the same age as you and I can vividly remember endlessly reciting the times table up to 12 or so when in Primary School and that has undoubtedly enabled me to be able to add and subtract in my head many times faster than using a calculator to this day... 60+ years later.
> 
> Although I was considered quite bright and had an accelerated education and went to a Private School, I failed miserably at exams . When I decided in my late 20s to go to Uni to study Architecture I had to study and pass 0 levels and A levels and an HND before managing to to get entrance to the Oxford School of Architecture. It was quite a shock to find by then that everything was now Metric which seemed totally alien at first but by the time I got to HND Construction studies I loved it . Bought my first scientific calculator Casio fx-3600P which has now been in use for over 40 years and still works despite being run over by a car 20 years ago.! I received a free mature student grant of several thousand pounds a year back in 1980 which enabled me, as a student ,to run a car and rent 2x flats as well . How lucky we were eh !
> 
> ...


Forced my kids to learn tables forwards backwards then random, did silly things like the 9 3/4 times table on long car journeys, made them use maths in everyday life, got them helping with flat pack furniture from about age 3, sent them to a retired teacher one evening a week who taught things the way I was taught, got them through the eleven plus. One day they will chose my nursing home - I'm in for hell.


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## JimJay (25 Apr 2022)

Ozi said:


> One day they will chose my nursing home - I'm in for hell.



"Spare the rod and the little beggars will still have it in for you anyway..."


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## Spectric (25 Apr 2022)

I would say we had scientific calculators from Casio before we had desktop Pc's which really took off in 1982 with the 286 but think of everything that was invented or built pre 1970, log books and slide rules. Go back even further and think of the Victorian era, so many great inventions and achievements all done using just grey mater and mental ability.


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## J-G (25 Apr 2022)

It's quite odd how a sideways reference can bring back memories. Of course I remember using 4 figure logs and (being a precocious pedant) the joy at finding a book with 9 figure logs ! 

At the first reference to logs on this thread, little did I think that I would find a need to use them again in a month of Sundays. Imagine my surprise when I found that I needed to determine the order of magnitude of numbers which could be anything from 0.5 to over 1000! Logs base 10 are the perfect mechanism for such a problem - - - just take the integer of the Log and add 1 you are left with 1, 2, 3 or 4 depending the original figure being <1, 1 - <10, 10 - <100 etc. 

This would probably not have occured to me had 'Logs' not been mentioned here


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## PhilipL (26 Apr 2022)

"Slide Rule", by Nevil Shute is a very good read. Early days of airships and their design. Each member had to be stress calculated by hand.


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## Craig22 (26 Apr 2022)

The original meaning of computer is "one who computes" - in other words a person. Richard Feynman in one of his books describes his work at Los Alamos on the Atom Bomb. One of his innovations was a room of people, sitting in an array. Each would perform a simple calculation with at most ten steps on a mechanical calculator (add, subtract multiply and divide only) and pass the result on. Depending on the result it would be passed in a certain direction. A human parallel computer. Using that he reduced the calculation time from three months to a few days.

So before our modern definition of a computer, they were people.

Going further back, Charles Babbage worked first on human computers to improve the accuracy of log tables

"In Babbage's time, printed mathematical tables were calculated by human computers; in other words, by hand. They were central to navigation, science and engineering, as well as mathematics. Mistakes were known to occur in transcription as well as calculation.

In 1812 he was sitting in his rooms in the Analytical Society looking at a table of logarithms, which he knew to be full of mistakes, when the idea occurred to him of computing all tabular functions by machinery. The French government had produced several tables by a new method. Three or four of their mathematicians decided how to compute the tables, half a dozen more broke down the operations into simple stages, and the work itself, which was restricted to addition and subtraction, was done by eighty computers who knew only these two arithmetical processes. Here, for the first time, mass production was applied to arithmetic, and Babbage was seized by the idea that the labours of the unskilled computers [people] could be taken over completely by machinery which would be quicker and more reliable."

Lots of stuff about the Difference Engine and the Analytic Engine that resulted in the Wikipedia article (from which the above is an extract). There is also mention of Ada Lovelace, who worked with Babbage and is credited with being the first computer programmer, having written a process for calculating Bernoulli numbers. Interestingly she was the daughter of the poet Lord Byron.


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## MamTor (26 Apr 2022)

Peri said:


> I found this fascinating - how fire control computers worked in navy battleships in WW2.
> 
> Using cams, gears, differentials and other types of mechanics to do maths - some of it pretty advanced.
> 
> ...



Thanks, that's very interesting. 
One of the big breakthroughs in computing was the creation of the 're-programmable electronic storage' computer. This is essentially the same concept that we're all still using today. It dates back to 1948 from the University of Manchester but relied on various ex-army components such as the radar tube to provide electronic memory.


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## J-G (26 Apr 2022)

Craig22 said:


> There is also mention of Ada Lovelace, who worked with Babbage and is credited with being the first computer programmer, having written a process for calculating Bernoulli numbers.


Probably more important than Babbage - she understood the concept that the Difference/Analytic Engine could be used for much more than calculating Log Tables - she even considered that it could write music!!

Being a woman (even the daughter of a Lord!) meant that she has been sidelined just as Joan Clarke (Bletchley) and Rosalind Franklin (DNA) have been.


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## Craig22 (26 Apr 2022)

The Babbage Analytic Engine is what is known as "Turing Complete". In other words it was a general purpose computer in the same sense as the Universal Turing Machine is. It was also punch card programmed. So it anticipated the reprogrammable electronic storage computer by a century.

The storage element in the first general purpose true electronic computers, which used valves, was a mercury filled delay line. The digital signal was launched, and was read out at the end. Of course new and modified data could then be loaded.

"Co-inventor of the ENIAC machine, J. Presper Eckert who worked on mercury-filled tubes for reducing clutter in WWII radar systems, adapted and in 1947 filed for a patent on their application to data storage. In May 1949, Maurice Wilkes built EDSAC (Electronic Delay Storage Automatic Calculator), the first full-size stored-program computer, at the University of Cambridge Mathematical Laboratory, England with 512 35-bit words of memory, stored in 32 mercury delay lines holding 576 bits each. The first UNIVAC computer shipped to the U.S. Census Bureau in 1951 included seven 1.5 KB memory units with an average access time of 222 microseconds. Each unit held 18 mercury-filled tubes weighing a total of nearly 800 lbs"


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## J-G (26 Apr 2022)

Craig22 said:


> The Babbage Analytic Engine is what is known as "Turing Complete". In other words it was a general purpose computer in the same sense as the Universal Turing Machine is. It was also punch card programmed. So it anticipated the reprogrammable electronic storage computer by a century.


Yes but Babbage himself did not understand that!

The concept of a 're-programmable' device - a series of 'Punched Cards' - pre-dates Babbage who only expanded upon the work of Joseph Marie Jaquard (1804) who in turn improved upon the work of Basile Bouchon (1725).

Herman Hollerith's work in the 1880s also relied upon Jaquard's work and his company eventually became - - - - IBM.

It's somewhat sobering to remember that I have in fact used punch-cards to write Computer Programs in COBOL !!


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## Craig22 (26 Apr 2022)

I suspect that Ada Lovelace had a more complete understanding of the generality of the Analytic Engine than Babbage did.

I'm also old and crusty enough to have used punched cards on an ICL machine that used core store.


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## Pedronicus (26 Apr 2022)

Craig22 said:


> I'm also old and crusty enough to have used punched cards on an ICL machine that used core store.


Ahh, those were the days. I used to get a friend of mine who worked in one of the high street bank's computer department to bring me home bags of chads so that I could use them as roof tiles for the buildings I built for the model railway.


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## J-G (26 Apr 2022)

Craig22 said:


> I suspect that Ada Lovelace had a more complete understanding of the generality of the Analytic Engine than Babbage did.


From what I've read/heard I'm sure that's an understatement 



Craig22 said:


> I'm also old and crusty enough to have used punched cards on an ICL machine that used core store.


If I remember correctly mine was also an ICL - PDP11 I believe, with a 'Stack' of 15" Dia. Disks amounting to less than a megabyte.


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## Sandyn (26 Apr 2022)

J-G said:


> ICL - PDP11


An ICL PDPP11!!!, Bloody luxury. When I were a lad we were so poor, I used to get up at 2am Cut down a tree , saw it up into logs, then using a blunt kitchen knife, carve all the bits to make an abacus. I worked for 20 hours in the local bank doing all the calculations for a farthing a week. When I got home at night, my mother would throw the abacus on the fire to heat the porridge.


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## AES (26 Apr 2022)

Sandyn said:


> An ICL PDPP11!!!, Bloody luxury. When I were a lad we were so poor, I used to get up at 2am Cut down a tree , saw it up into logs, then using a blunt kitchen knife, carve all the bits to make an abacus. I worked for 20 hours in the local bank doing all the calculations for a farthing a week. When I got home at night, my mother would throw the abacus on the fire to heat the porridge.



I don't think I really believe this "story" Sandyn!


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## Jonm (27 Apr 2022)

JimJay said:


> This is a very interesting thread. I'm 72 apparently, though how that came about so quickly is a mystery to me


I can remember as a child, looking forward to a future event and saying “ I wish it was .........”. My mother’s response was “ don’t wish your life away, it will pass soon enough“. How right she was.


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## Sandyn (27 Apr 2022)

JimJay said:


> This is a very interesting thread. I'm 72 apparently, though how that came about so quickly is a mystery to me,


People kept telling me that time passes faster when you get older. I now believe it. It's all to do with the accelerating expansion of the universe.


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## Jonm (28 Apr 2022)

Sandyn said:


> It's all to do with the accelerating expansion of the universe


So does that mean that perceived time passes faster for children now compared to when I was a child?


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## Spectric (28 Apr 2022)

J-G said:


> It's somewhat sobering to remember that I have in fact used punch-cards to write Computer Programs in COBOL !!


That is giving your age away, my memories of obsolete programing languages are Fortran and Modula 2, C was such a blessing.


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## J-G (28 Apr 2022)

Spectric said:


> That is giving your age away, my memories of obsolete programing languages are Fortran and Modula 2, C was such a blessing.


I doubt that it is still the case but I was told only a few years ago that there were more programs written in COBOL than all other languages put together, simply because it was in use for so long and started so early.

Modula 2 still has a following but my preference now is Pascal, compared to C it can be read and understood by anyone with a modicum of intelegence


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## Spectric (28 Apr 2022)

J-G said:


> compared to C it can be read and understood by anyone with a modicum of intelegence


I don't think you can blame C itself for having this reputation, it is the programer who chooses to write in such a style and often without sufficient comments in their code but then it is C that allows them to write in such a way! If I remember correctly Borlands Delphi was Pascal based and that was great for software that required HMI's but most of my work was embedded software, control for Motors, Invertors and the like. Having recently got back into some programing I can say that these new microcontrollers are amazing devices and so fast, plus the days of expensive development tools from the likes of Introl and Green Hills have been replaced by software that is free to download. My only gripe is that many younger programers have become as I call them " Lego programers" because they essentially just use collections of pre defined functions rather than having to start with basically nothing, writing their own register definition files and make files which I think gives a better and deeper understanding of the hardware being used.


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## J-G (28 Apr 2022)

I have no doubt that C - and its variants - are useful, I just can't be bothered to make myself think that '{' actually means 'begin' !

Yes, Delphi is in fact Object Oriented Pascal which grew out of Turbo Pascal. I used Turbo Pascal for many years under DOS but my first Pascal Compiler was Nascom Pascal in 1980/1 - can't be 100% sure of the date. I know that I bought my first Disc Drive in December 1980 (5¼" single side, 170kb) but there wasn't a Disk Operating System available, the only facilities I had were to 'Seek' a Track Nº, then a 'Sector' Nº and read or write 128 bytes. This gave me a useful understanding of the very basic working of a Disc Drive.

With this I wrote a Point-of-Sale Stock Control & Till system for my DIY shop, handling some 12000 items which was later updated using Turbo Pascal.

Now I use Free Pascal combined with Lazarus to write various 'Windows' Data processing or Information systems just for the fun of it  including my Accounting Suite, Vehicle Costs, Solar Panel & Power Use analysis. My current project concerns measurement of Screw Threads.


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## gcusick (28 Apr 2022)

J-G said:


> I have no doubt that C - and its variants - are useful, I just can't be bothered to make myself think that '{' actually means 'begin' !




(Dredges darkest depths of distant memory)

#define begin {
#define end }

20 years since I wrote any ‘C’, and I’m sure it shows!


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## J-G (28 Apr 2022)

gcusick said:


> 20 years since I wrote any ‘C’, and I’m sure it shows!


I've never written any 'C' - and I’m sure it shows!


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## AES (28 Apr 2022)

And I have absolutely NO idea what you're all talking about. And I'm sure THAT shows too


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## J-G (28 Apr 2022)

We've obviously slipped into an area where you have never needed knowledge AES 

You don't need to know how to program the machine you're flying, just how to respond to the results the computer gives you ✈


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## selectortone (28 Apr 2022)

I worked in sales of industrial control systems for 30 years until I retired 10 years ago. The PDP-11 was ubiquitous in process control back in the 1990s. For my job I had to have a basic (pun intended) knowledge of computer programming and studied Machine Code, Pascal and ladder logic (the language used to program industrial PLCs).

Nowadays very few programmers get down to the nitty-gritty of machine code where one is actually interacting directly with the registers of a CPU. From C onwards it's all about object-oriented programming- stringing modules of code together. I recently introduced my grandson to this with a Raspberry Pi and Python. What a difference to the old days. No longer any need to understand the architecture of a microprocessor. It's just a mysterious black box now.

It won't be long before AI takes over, the robots start designing themselves, and then we just have hope they don't start to wonder whether humans are really necessary any more.


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## Sandyn (28 Apr 2022)

Jonm said:


> So does that mean that perceived time passes faster for children now compared to when I was a child?


if there was any substance in my argument, the answer would be no, but it's just a fun idea I use. If the accelerating expanding universe did cause time to change, it would actually slow it down, but by a miniscule amount..... I think?


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## Spectric (28 Apr 2022)

J-G said:


> the only facilities I had were to 'Seek' a Track Nº, then a 'Sector' Nº and read or write 128 bytes. This gave me a useful understanding of the very basic working of a Disc Drive.


That jogged some grey mater, cannot remember exactly when but there was a time when you had to setup your disc drives by providing all that sort of information, I believe it was either DOS or when Windows first came out and that ran under DOS.

I think what makes C so good for embedded systems is that it can work at a very low level, ie bit bashing and directly with the hardware without any frills, the trouble now is that some development platforms are deviating away from strict ANSI C which really impacts portability. C is not an object orientated language although you can write code in such a way as it partially emulates objects, ie using structures and you can directly work with a microcontrollers registers, they just have to be correctly mapped in a definition file. 



gcusick said:


> 20 years since I wrote any ‘C’, and I’m sure it shows!


I think you have a hybrid there, C ? and maybe visual basic ! 

C looks like

#include "P33EP512MU810.h"
#include "DMA.h"

void main()
{
unsigned int MyBuffer[12];
unsigned int *BP;

BP = &MyBuffer;

DMA0STAL = &MyBuffer;
}



selectortone said:


> and ladder logic (the language used to program industrial PLCs).


Now replaced by graphical programing especially when used in a SCADA based control system.

The one thing I really do not like is Android, what a load of fluff and nonsense. 

As for AI and the idea of the IOT who knows what will happen, would you trust everything to some server based somewhere on the planet! Like anything that can make decisions AI will evolve and learn, it is just at what stage it decides to get interested in history and come up with the conclusion that humans are more trouble than they are worth, always starting wars and just not getting on with each other so it could well decide to get rid and make life easier for themselves.


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## J-G (28 Apr 2022)

Spectric said:


> That jogged some grey mater, cannot remember exactly when but there was a time when you had to setup your disc drives by providing all that sort of information, I believe it was either DOS or when Windows first came out and that ran under DOS.


If IRC it was under DOS and before Windows - but the people who wrote the BIOS were soon able to 'Read' that from the drive.

Pascal - in fact even BASIC - can manipulate 'bits' so that's not a reason to promote C. 
Pre Windows, using Turbo Pascal, my PoS system wrote to and read from Video memory directly. I had 4 'screens' defined so I could prepare a screen in the background and swop them with a simple address asignment.


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## JimJay (29 Apr 2022)

Jonm said:


> So does that mean that perceived time passes faster for children now compared to when I was a child?



Nope - what your father told you still holds true: "Kids today don't even know they're alive!"


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## Spectric (29 Apr 2022)

It does seem strange thinking that once upon a time we did not have the windows OS, just DOS and microsoft did not seem to be a by word for software, but we did have some really good programs, who can remember Wordperfect and Quattro Pro!


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## J-G (29 Apr 2022)

Spectric said:


> who can remember Wordperfect and Quattro Pro!


Remember them? I still use them !! WordPerfect since V2 - now on V10 ( I don't write much!)

Vastly superior to any version of 'Word'. I also have customers (published authors) who wouldn't be without. One is still using 'Card Box' - admittedly the Windows version - as her main research database for all her projects.


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## Spectric (30 Apr 2022)

The one thing I remember about Wordperfect was that when importing images, when Word was just showing an outline box Wordperfect showed the actual image and with Quattro pro it could handle 16 bit binary numbers and the latest version of Word is still 9 bits, (511).

It shows the power of marketing and the lemming culture where popularity can propel the inferior product to market leader.


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## J-G (30 Apr 2022)

Spectric said:


> It shows the power of marketing and the lemming culture where popularity can propel the inferior product to market leader.


It's actually worse that that Roy. Micky$oft held back information regarding the inner workings of 'Windows' from all other developers for quite some time. In addition, WordPerfect insisted that their version for Windows should seamlessly read and use all documents previously created with their DOS Version. Micky$oft ignored all DOS documents - just as they did when they switched to .DOCX rather than .DOC. It was quite some time before they created the patch so that older versions of Word could read newer .docx documents.

These 'bully boy' tactics gave Word (or rather 'Office for Windows') a 6 month+ head-start. WordPerfect was further sidelined when it was sold to Novell (for a reported $190m) who did no developement work over 3+ years and eventually sold it to Corel for (again a 'reported') $85m !!

It then took Corel some time to update the ageing version. Body blows of this nature would surely have killed a lesser product but WP is so superior that it has survived. 

I have one customer who was using 'LetterPerfect' - WordPerfect's little brother  - to write a novel on a laptop with no hard drive - just a 720k floppy. She came to me because she couldn't save her latest [Edit]. It turned out that the file was now larger than half the disk size so there was insufficient space on the disk and she didn't know that she needed to use a new disc. As a result, (after solving her problem) I sold her a new 286 PC with a hard drive. She is now 93 and has been a customer for over 25 years.


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## paulrbarnard (5 May 2022)

selectortone said:


> I worked in sales of industrial control systems for 30 years until I retired 10 years ago. The PDP-11 was ubiquitous in process control back in the 1990s. For my job I had to have a basic (pun intended) knowledge of computer programming and studied Machine Code, Pascal and ladder logic (the language used to program industrial PLCs).
> 
> Nowadays very few programmers get down to the nitty-gritty of machine code where one is actually interacting directly with the registers of a CPU. From C onwards it's all about object-oriented programming- stringing modules of code together. I recently introduced my grandson to this with a Raspberry Pi and Python. What a difference to the old days. No longer any need to understand the architecture of a microprocessor. It's just a mysterious black box now.
> 
> It won't be long before AI takes over, the robots start designing themselves, and then we just have hope they don't start to wonder whether humans are really necessary any more.


I program in the AI space and optimise to machine code for real-time systems. It still happens…


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## paulrbarnard (5 May 2022)

Spectric said:


> It does seem strange thinking that once upon a time we did not have the windows OS, just DOS and microsoft did not seem to be a by word for software, but we did have some really good programs, who can remember Wordperfect and Quattro Pro!


There was a vibrant world before DOS. I actually wrote my first OS at the same time as Gates was working on DOS.
I loved WordPerfect. It is a massive shame it lost the war with Word.


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## J-G (5 May 2022)

paulrbarnard said:


> I loved WordPerfect. It is a massive shame it lost the war with Word.


You can still get it - and you can [Save As] if you need to supply a modifyable file to the less aware who only know 'Word' - Printing to a .PDF is equally simple (though of course not easily editable).

The latest version (2021) is £320 which is a one time purchase - rather than the 'annual fee' that MS want for their Office 365  - but you can get older versions from on-line sources (I've seen V9 at £21).

I'm still using V6 - but I don't write Novels or Accademic papers!


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## paulrbarnard (5 May 2022)

J-G said:


> You can still get it - and you can [Save As] if you need to supply a modifyable file to the less aware who only know 'Word' - Printing to a .PDF is equally simple (though of course not easily editable).
> 
> The latest version (2021) is £320 which is a one time purchase - rather than the 'annual fee' that MS want for their Office 365  - but you can get older versions from on-line sources (I've seen V9 at £21).
> 
> I'm still using V6 - but I don't write Novels or Accademic papers!


I would love to use it but my word processing is limited to work and that mandates Word.


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## AES (5 May 2022)

Spectric said:


> It does seem strange thinking that once upon a time we did not have the windows OS, just DOS and microsoft did not seem to be a by word for software, but we did have some really good programs, who can remember Wordperfect and Quattro Pro!



Personally I don't know Quattro, but a HUGE YES for Word Perfect (print = shift F7)!


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## AES (5 May 2022)

Problem I had when "changing" from WP to W (being forcibly changed actually!) was the company I worked for had standardised on MS and Word (Office), and we were prevented from using our own programs (e.g. WP). Understandable from the viewpoint of keeping a company's IT system "clean" I guess, but I really do still miss WP. AFAIC, EVERY new version of Word is simply "prettier" to look at and harder/more key strokes/more mouse clicks to actually use.


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## J-G (5 May 2022)

Ah... I don't have a 'Company Mandate' to adhere to - - - I do have 'Office' installed as well because there are occasions when I need to support a customer who does have this restiction and it's difficult to advice which [Icon] to click to affect a particular action if you don't actually have the same 'view' available. 

Having said that, I do very often create a remote link to the customer's PC so that I can manipulate their screen for them - guiding their hand as it were!


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## Sandyn (5 May 2022)

J-G said:


> Having said that, I do very often create a remote link to the customer's PC so that I can manipulate their screen for them - guiding their hand as it were!


Was it you that phoned me last week saying I had a problem with my Microsoft installation??


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## J-G (5 May 2022)

Sandyn said:


> Was it you that phoned me last week saying I had a problem with my Microsoft installation??


  Certainly not !! 

I make my customers call me !


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## Superduner (6 May 2022)

I used to use the Lotus suite of programs. Loved them.


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## J-G (6 May 2022)

Superduner said:


> I used to use the Lotus suite of programs. Loved them.


I have a customer who still uses Lotus - on Win 98!


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