Oldies..come here, let's nostalgia ;)

[eine]

I'm a little bit young in FreeBSD world, but i want to know why, how, and when did you first know and using Computer?

Ok, let's start nostalging about everything..

I forgot when the exact year. about 14 years ago, I played my first game on my friend's computer : Prince of Persia...on DOS.. in 1997, I have my own computer, Pentium 2 if I wasn't wrong, and I played porn-games for the first time in my life in that computer...of course I didn't know that the game was embedded by virus that would make my windows 98 'freeze' after i shut the game. That day, i try to reinstall windows 98 just to have another round of porn-games... For Heaven's sake...That's the root of everything.Porn.:D

in 2005, I have my own computer, and start using Linux Slackware.. my friend gave it to me and said that I should try it. He said that Slackware is the most easy linux ever..first thing i know is that i need 3 days neglecting my college just to make myself success executing 'startx'. i start looking other distro's. I tried SuSE but was so slow..tried Mandriva,Fedora, but none of i like..especially Ubuntu, i just hate the log-on sound ;)

The reason why i used Linux is simple : i need OS that immune to virus, so that i could worry-not about viruses in my flash disk and could lend my flashdisk to my friend with light-hearted and smile..The other reason, i don't want other people touching my computer. And since there's only almost 10 people out of 800 person in my Faculty running Linux, i'd be safe.. :rolleyes:

in 2007, i forced to sell my laptops for my college fee, and i start to work part-time. There. my Senior told me to try FreeBSD. My limitations make me harder to install mainstream Linux, so that i tried FreeBSD..it's been almost a year now, and i think i'll stick with it...

you know what's the best part of Unix-like Systems? virtual desktop...in one desktop you could watch porn, or play games...but in one keystroke, you could be 'Good-worker-that-never-playing-around-while-worktime'...exactly what i need ;)

So, what's your story?

[mousesack]

Is there an absolute age limit to this thread, on the lower end I mean? :)

[jggimi]

My first time sitting down to use a computer was in 1966 or so; as I recall I was using a 110-baud ASR 33 terminal.

My first programming class was in 1971. I was taught BASIC. My first program solved quadratic equations.

My first experience with Multics (a precursor to Unix) was in 1979. I think my first use of Unix was around 1981 or 1982.

[eine]

@mousesack, nope, the title said "oldies" just beacuse to attract people :p.. besides..maybe i'm the youngest one here.. :(

My first time sitting down to use a computer was in 1966 or so; as I recall I was using a 110-baud ASR 33 terminal.

My first programming class was in 1971. I was taught BASIC. My first program solved quadratic equations.

My first experience with Multics (a precursor to Unix) was in 1979. I think my first use of Unix was around 1981 or 1982.

my God...i hadn't even born yet...So to say, you've seen the computer from it's early age till now..ok, maybe this is stupid question, but i have to ask this : what did you di back then with the ASR-33? Do you still have it?

i think it's pretty cool to show ASR-33 to your grandson later ;)

[jggimi]

Nope, my mistake. The ASR33s (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ASR33) were used in my programming classes -- the class had four of them: two which were offline only, used to create/edit paper tapes of the programs, and two which could connect to the HP minicomputer across town, via modem.

The first terminal I used was a Teletype 35ASR (http://www.nadcomm.com/35asr.htm).

You need to understand, eine -- none of this stuff was "personal computing" by any stretch of the imagination. So no, I don't have any of this equipment; it wasn't mine.

The first personal computer I owned was in the 70s -- A Zylog Z-80 (Intel 8080 clone plus some additional capability) with 8K of main memory. I remember swapping out the 8x1K chips for 8x2K chips to double the memory, and was astonished that memory prices had come down enough for me to afford the upgrade -- US$90.00.

[dk_netsvil]

I got started in 1985 on a Franklin Ace 100 writing little programs in BASIC. That machine was actually a couple years old at the time and there wasn't much available in terms of upgrades. I did some work in PASCAL on an Amiga 500 later on. I was pretty happy with the Amiga until the Pentium-class stuff became available and I was given a Packard-Bell which was the most temperamental and poorly designed machine I have used to date. I can't remember the model, but I think it was a Pentium 100 MHz processor. Thus began a very long and very dark period of disassembling the PC and rebuilding it - and we have come so far.

[DrJ]

You need to understand, eine -- none of this stuff was "personal computing" by any stretch of the imagination.
This is probably one thing forgotten by those who have used computers only in the last 20 years or so. Early computers and their IO were terribly expensive, so they were always shared resources. The IT departments who managed them were rather despised, because they guarded the computer temple as high priests, and they let the commoners know it.

For example, your account was limited to a certain total cost, unless you wanted to buy more. This was a way to manage the limited resource, but computing time was very expensive. In graduate school one fellow did not debug a big computational (finite element) program with enough care, and it had an endless loop. He drained the computer budget for the entire lab of a dozen people for that semester. We could not afford to purchase more. This is not an unusual story; everyone from that era has their own similar tale.

That changed with the IBM PC. While Apple and many others had computers earlier, it is the IBM blessing that caused business to move to PCs. They could do many of the simple things that people did (and the killer application was Visicalc, a spreadsheet), but the motivation was largely to get rid of the restrictions forced on users by the centralized IT hierarchy.

The rest is history, as they say.
A Zylog Z-80 (Intel 8080 clone plus some additional capability)
The last I checked these were still made and used for embedded applications. They are/were decent CPUs.

[roddierod]

... I was given a Packard-Bell which was the most temperamental and poorly designed machine I have used to date. I can't remember the model, but I think it was a Pentium 100 MHz processor. Thus began a very long and very dark period of disassembling the PC and rebuilding it - and we have come so far.

My first 3 PC machines were Packard Bells starting with an XT turbo 8088 and ending with a Pentium 66Mhz. If it was for the Packard Bell's design I would never would have learned so much about PC internals. I was kind of sad when the went under. Then I was given a Compaq...now their proprietary internals used to drive me crazy!!

[Carpetsmoker]

I started on a MSX, not well known in the U.S., but pretty popular in Japan, Spain, and Netherlands.
It had a Z80 chip, IIRC we had an expensive version with 256Kb of RAM.

The last I checked these were still made and used for embedded applications. They are/were decent CPUs.

Yeah, they're still being made:
http://www.zilog.com/products/family.asp?fam=220

[jggimi]

I had friends who invested in IMSAI and KIM computers, which were 8080 based. I'd used those, and I was working on a research project that included some professional microcomputers, whose names have long escaped me, as well as some of the consumer-based products of the time, such as the Pet (6502) and the CompuColor (no recollection ). I can't even recall the make/model of my early Z-80; it might have been an Atari.

Around 1979 or so, I purchased a turn-key word processor for the home; I enjoyed having it because it also came with CP/M -- the precursur to what became PC-DOS/MS-DOS.

Years later, I purchased a "PC" for the family; as I recall that was a Compaq brand 486.

---

Most of my IT career has, when focused on tech, been involved with computing that would be considered "large systems" -- rather than personal or small stuff.

[DrJ]

I enjoyed having it because it also came with CP/M -- the precursur to what became PC-DOS/MS-DOS.
That not really quite true. CP/M was Gary Kildall's baby (through his company Digital Research); the tale of how he snubbed the IBM contingent when they were looking for an operating system for their new computer is well known (he was allegedly out flying his airplane).

MS-DOS came from QDOS ("quick and dirty operating system) from Seattle Computer Products (mainly S-100 bus based); they were more receptive to IBM than Kildall was, and a commercial arrangement was reached.

I still have copies of CP/M-80, -86 and MP/M 8-16 on the shelf with complete documentation.

[jggimi]

...That not really quite true....And I knew that. I should have said "...a precursor..." or "one of the precursors."

[DrJ]

Fair enough. QDOS was sort of a CP/M 86 knockoff.

[ai-danno]

Well I can't top these guys, but-

Atari 2600 (I still have one, and it still works.)
Atari 400, 800
TI-99 4/A
Apple II, IIe, IIc
IBM PS/2 Model 386 (which ironically contained a 286 processor :) )
... And on into 'modern' PC's.


To relate to another OT thread about getting kids interested in IT, it was my massive waste of time playing games on the 2600 that got me into computing, not having a complex yet archaic system dropped in my lap with expectations that I would master it easily and enjoyably. Ah, the good ole days!

[DrJ]

I'll try to keep this brief; let's see if I succeed.

I started programming in 1975; it was a rudimentary FORTRAN course required of all engineers and optional for scientists (they could also choose Algol-W). We used punched cards to feed an Amdahl mainframe, probably the first IBM-compatible, though this one was compatible with the IBM 360. Card punches are terribly unreliable, and often the ribbons would lose ink (and not print the statement at the top of the card) so when you found a decent card punch you tended to return to it.

The first computer I owned was a Compupro, an S-100 bus computer on which I ran MP/M 8-16; I bought it in 1980. It had dual processors (8085 and 8088), 256K of fast static RAM, two 8" floppies (1.2MB each) and a slew of serial ports. The dual floppies actually worked pretty well: you could put your OS and all your applications on one, and use the other as a working disk for your files. Input was from a serial terminal, and output was to an infernal dot matrix printer. God those things were awful.

I had a friend in the department at Berkeley who wrote bits and pieces of the OS for Compupro, and they gave the department a damn good deal. They were also located physically a few miles away (near the Oakland, CA airport, FWIW).

My first exposure to Unix was at Berkeley in the height of the BSD era. It was just hard to avoid. I remember well the day we got our first terminal in the lab (a Televideo 925 -- yuck!) and it was shared between about a dozen of us. Most people used the IBM mainframe (or earlier one of the CDC mainframes); much work was done on a lab Compupro, with some of us slowly migrating over the Unix. I learned much of that using the program "learn" in the bowels of Gilman Hall, a registered national monument in which plutonium and some other transuranic elements were discovered. Work for two Nobel prizes was conducted there. "Learn" is pretty easy to port, and is available on Kernighan's web site.

Over they years I have programmed on nearly every OS: the early Apple ones and OS7 (was there one of those?), IBM's VM/CMS, DEC's VMS, HP's RTE-A, MS-DOS, Windows, and of course Unix. There were interludes with the Pet (as mentioned above), on which we wrote finite-difference heat conduction code (that thing was terribly slow) and a Tektronics graphics computer using their extended BASIC. I designed a solvent-recovery system for an Ibuprofen plant on the latter.

It truly is amazing how much faster computers are today than they were in the old days, and that brings up an interesting story. Some years ago I wanted to pull some papers out of my thesis, which I had stored on a standard tape in tar format (in 1988). I found a fellow who still had such an old tape drive, and he transferred it to a CD for me -- over 15 years later. No issues at all with data longevity.

My thesis was in troff, and it ran through groff without a hitch. Try that with a modern word processor.

For kicks, I took the code that I used for one of the larger calculations in the thesis. I ran it on the Compupro, and it took about 8 hours to execute. On a 500MHz PIII it took a few tenths of a second. On a modern computer you get into round-off error if you use a shell timing routine. That is much faster than the mainframes of the era; even the VAX 8600s of the day took about 5 minutes to execute the thing. Remember that this VAX was the hot box of the day, and it routinely supported well over a hundred users.

Many more stories, of course, but I'll end here for now. I still have the Compupro, BTW, and it works as well as it always did.

So much for keeping it short.

[roddierod]

When I was 9 my parents bought me a TI 99 4/a, a friend a few years later got a Commadore 64 and they had cooler games. So I started programming so I could make cool games for my TI!

[BSDfan666]

Am I the only person who thought DrJ's story was awesome? :)

[tuck]

The first "PC" I sat infront was a Schneider PC (I don't know which one exactly) in school but I was not allowed to use it frequently becaus eI was to young....
My brother had a C64 before my dad bought a PC with an Intel Pentium 60MHz.
I messed the System so many times so he had to pay a lot of money to get it repaired.
A few weeks later I knew that they just reinstalled windows :D --- I was young and clueless :D
But I'm I am just a newbie to thge computerbusiness with my age of 25.

Where are the old guys that spend thousands of $ to their hobby?

[roddierod]

Am I the only person who thought DrJ's story was awesome? :)

I love when DrJ tells his stories. They always bring back memories of looking through Byte(when it was thick as a phone book) in the 80, dreaming of Vax machines and saving money to upgrade to floppy from my cassette tape drive...

[Carpetsmoker]

and output was to an infernal dot matrix printer. God those things were awful.

I have a dot matrix printer, it's a Philips from 1984 (I was born in 1985, so it's older than I am), and it works like a charm.
It's reliable, cheap, reliable, simple, and did I mention reliable?

I always have to smile when I see people messing around with cups, a2ps and who knows what else, to print I just use:
# cat file.txt > /dev/lpt0

And the best part is, it will always print, unlike those inkjet printers from HP, Canon, etc., which are notoriously unreliable, break down fast, and use expensive cartridges.

Ok, it's not perfect, and (a good) laser printer is better, but dot matrix printers are pretty good too, and much, MUCH better than inkjet printers.

[DrJ]

They always bring back memories of looking through Byte(when it was thick as a phone book)...
Yeah, Byte was great. So was the newspaper form of Infoworld (it has changed format and target audience many, many times) and Dr. Dobbs Journal.

In many ways the move from cards to terminals was a big a deal as the move from terminals to PCs. I hinted at how dreadful card punches were; I can go on but man they were klunky.

They had other odd downsides. The main computing facility at Berkeley was open 24 hours a day (computer people have always kept odd schedules). I was there once in the middle of the night, looking over an input deck, when in wandered a homeless person. Berkeley has a real problem with the homeless; most have pretty severe mental or substance abuse problems (or both). They came to know that you could always warm up in the computer center for about an hour until security chased them away.

In any event, this fellow wandered over to my table, and started ranting some far-out screed about aliens. I decided the better part of valor was simply to leave and call security, who showed up pretty promptly. Upon returning to my table, I found my input deck, as well as the contents of my card box (which held maybe 1000 cards) was scattered all over the floor.

I had the foresight to use a different color on the card tops for this set of programs (they came in a veritable rainbow so that you could distinguish one batch from another); the rubber bands around others were not disturbed. Still, this meant going through the cards one by one, pulling the program out from others, and then resorting them. Some cards had line numbers (it was FORTRAN), but others did not. So the whole deck had to be reconstructed from the flow sheet, and yes, I made a few errors in the sorting.

At least you got good turn-around times when you submitted the jobs to the job desk at those times.

[DrJ]

... (a good) laser printer is better [than a dot matrix printer], but dot matrix printers are pretty good too, and much, MUCH better than inkjet printers.
Depends, I suppose. The early ones only had eight pins (namely, low resolution), and they made in incredible racket. Once they got 24 pins and more quiet, they are OK. They are still used for really high-volume printing jobs, like corporate invoices and large check runs. They operate at speeds that look almost brutal.

Consumer ink jets I agree are terrible. Good ones cost quite a bit of money. I stick with a very old HP postscript laser, which is not fast, but it is utterly reliable and produces very nice quality print. And don't get me started on CUPS.

[unicyclist]

Started on the Commodore 64 & 128 around '86 or maybe '87?
Then bought my Amiga 500. Also have a 4000. I still use them to this day. 64/128 is sitting on old dining table that isn't used, A500 on a coffee table and the 4000 is sitting on a old aquarium shelf. I am a devout CBM product fan :)
Started FreeBSD with 2.21-Release, started OpenBSD with 3.0, and linux with Slackware 3.0. Also have and use OS/2 Warp (have 3 & 4).
Taught myself Commodore basic and wrote a couple of personal use programs. Started teaching myself rexx, but saw so many programs being written I stopped.
Like most others, I build my own machines to get what I want.

[ai-danno]

Am I the only person who thought DrJ's story was awesome? :)

No.

[BSDfan666]

No.
That question was rhetorical.

[ninjatux]

I've been using computers since I was three years old back in 1993. It's the only memory I have from that time period; I was sitting in front of our computer with a clock speed of 66 MHz, which was very high-end at that time playing some educational game. My interest in computers developed from watching my dad who has been using them, since the '70s. Anyway, I started getting extremely frustrated with Windows in the early 2000s. Windows 98 had that nasty shutdown bug, Windows ME was a bug, and Windows XP killed four hard drives in a row on the same computer. By this time, my old Dell Dimension with an Intel Celery 800 MHz was dying. In 2003, I started using Mandrake Linux. Two days later, I kicked Windows off the PC and delved into the process known as "distro jumping". Eventually, I ended up using Gentoo for three years (three years too long). The only reason I even stuck with Linux and didn't touch other Unixes was because a lot of Linux did and still have the impression that BSD and SysV-based Unixes are too arcane in comparison to Linux. I just let the stereotype get to me, but eventually I tried Solaris and found those claims to be untrue. In March, 2008, I just got fed up with the recurring cycle of breakage on Gentoo and moved over to FreeBSD. I had used FreeBSD on and off with Linux since version 5.3. I also bought a MacBook Pro for college in May after researching Mac OS X thoroughly and being happy with the BSD roots.

That's part of my journey through computers. When I started using Linux, I became interested in shell scripting, so I learned Bash scripting. I still have two scripts to right, but I just don't have the time. I also took a Java-based AP Computer Science class at my high school last year. I'm teaching myself C and hope to move onto C++, once that's done. I'm pretty acquainted with Perl and have to reacquaint myself with Awk when I get a chance. I never needed those two heavily.

[18Googol2]

You guys have known computer for long time. I myself started using computer just 2 years ago, sometimes I feel like taking an intensive CS course :p

[eine]

First of all, i'm sorry i haven't been in the forum since 08-08-08..my sister's married and i just don't have the opportunity to touch the computer..i just feel sorry because i was the TS...so, sorry.. :(

In 2003, I started using Mandrake Linux.
Eventually, I ended up using Gentoo for three years (three years too long)
In March, 2008, I just got fed up with the recurring cycle of breakage on Gentoo and moved over to FreeBSD. I had used FreeBSD on and off with Linux since version 5.3.

I don't get it...if you start using Linux from 2003, and ended up with gentoo for 3 years, that means 2006...what did u use from 2006 to 2008?

and when you start to used FreeBSD in march 2008, why do you used the FreeBSD 5.3, since there is FreeBSD 7.0 release announcement on 27 February 2008?

please enlightenment me :confused:

[ninjatux]

You missed the "Eventually" in "Eventually, I ended up using Gentoo for three years (three years too long)." I didn't start using Gentoo until June of 2005. I migrated my desktop to FreeBSD in March, 2008. I still kept Gentoo installed in a virtual machine until June, 2008. I don't have Linux installed on any of my systems anymore.

You misunderstood the statement "I had used FreeBSD on and off with Linux since version 5.3." That means that I had FreeBSD installed alongside Linux on my desktop starting with version 5.3.

[drhowarddrfine]

I don't know how I missed this thread.

My first real computer was actually a toy computer that had little sliding racks on it for calculating logic. My dad bought it for some reason when I was about 8. My first sight of a real one was in 1970 when I went to college and the geologists next door had an IBM something with punch cards. I just didn't get it but I was a EE major and had no interest cause I was going into radio/tv.

After about 10 years of the radio/tv (and film) thing, I went to work for a company that made one of the first CAT scanners. It was a completely TTL system. My first exposure to a programming language was MUMPS.

The first computer I owned was one I built from the brand new 8085 that just came out, saving me the trouble of the extra chips involved with an 8080. Eventually I put together one using a Z80. Assembly language was the highest I ever went, sometimes just using switches and, in a few cases, touching wires together :) . Saving programs to a cassette recorder was bleeding edge but the damn tapes sometimes took two or three passes before the computer would reload properly; if at all.

That was all around 1980. I worked on 6801s, 6809s, 8051s. Intel was the only hardware we bought. And if you were reading Byte in the 1980s like roddierod then you read an article I wrote.

I was starting to work more on applications by 1985 but still in assembly. I selected the 68000 (I was now project manager) but my damn MIT big shot sob of a boss made us learn this thing called 'C'. There was more cussing than you would expect out of a professional office. Most of us only used it until it didn't work and then just used assembly. It was all done on a PDP-8 but the thing couldn't handle the load of our compiles (damn HLL POS). I got a few of us together and we pitched buying a mini-computer from some new company called Sun Microsystems. They ran up against Apollo Computers, which I favored.

I then moved to Pixar. They sold hardware then that ran Renderman. I remember riding the bus back to the airport after my interview with Ed Catmull (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ed_Catmull) who was messing with the rendering engine on the bus. Later, I went to Silicon Graphics and used to occasionally eat lunch with Jim Clark (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_H._Clark).

Things get pretty boring after that, computer-wise.

[DrJ]

My first sight of a real one was in 1970 when I went to college...
Congrats! You are officially an old f*rt!
...the geologists next door had an IBM something with punch cards. I just didn't get it
I had the same response when I first started using computers/punch cards. The use for a computer became apparent only later when the calculation became much more complex.
...mini-computer from some new company called Sun Microsystems. They ran up against Apollo Computers, which I favored.
I remember those days well. I personally preferred the Sun (I had a 3/60) because it used standard Unix (BSD, in this case). Apollo ran their own Unix-like system, which was just enough different to be irritating. I forget all the details.
Things get pretty boring after that, computer-wise.
I know you meant that you did not use computers in as interesting a manner, but I'll take the quote out-of-context and agree with you literally. The early days were wild and wooly, and interesting new things were coming out all the time. These days the computer scene is very uniform, and while the progress is still rapid, the software models and bundles are pretty well fixed. The real hardware innovation these days seems more to be in portable devices, like iPods and cell phones.

[drhowarddrfine]

I personally preferred the Sun (I had a 3/60) because it used standard Unix (BSD, in this case). Apollo ran their own Unix-like system, which was just enough different to be irritating. I forget all the details.I don't remember why I preferred Apollo either but I was a hardware guy so it might have been I was more impressed with the hardware. Dunno.

I know you meant that you did not use computers in as interesting a manner, but I'll take the quote out-of-context and agree with you literally. The early days were wild and wooly, and interesting new things were coming out all the time. These days the computer scene is very uniform, and while the progress is still rapid, the software models and bundles are pretty well fixed.
Exactly what I meant. Now I have to go take a nap.

[roddierod]

My first real computer was actually a toy computer that had little sliding racks on it for calculating logic.

You not saying that your first computer was an Abacus or some form of Babbage's difference engine?

[bsdforlife]

My first computer was a ti-99 and then two years later I invested in a C64
those were the good old day's

[drhowarddrfine]

You not saying that your first computer was an Abacus or some form of Babbage's difference engine?
Neither. I saw someone post a picture of it last year, I think. It stood about six inches tall and about 9 inches long. There were tabs on the side and pulling/pushing them executed some sort of program put together with these plastic racks. The big deal then was solving the problem of talking to two aliens; one told the truth the other lies.

I never really figured out how to use it. I guess that's why I became a hardware guy. :)

Ooh! Ooh! Dr. J! Dr. J!!
Tell 'em about vector monitors!

[drhowarddrfine]

Aha!! My first computer! (http://www.boingboing.net/2006/02/21/mechanical-computer-.html)

[DrJ]

Ooh! Ooh! Dr. J! Dr. J!!
Tell 'em about vector monitors!
What, storage tubes like the Tek 4014? Oscilloscopes with keyboards? Pretty cool devices actually, but really expensive. I remember well the day we got a board that retrofitted out Zenith Z-29 so that it had a Tek-compatible mode.

[drhowarddrfine]

That was when monitors were monitors and men were men.

[jggimi]

I used a 4014 -- 1976 or so. We had it connected to the mainframe via a newfangled Vadic modem that was four times faster than any other async modem available: 1200 baud when the others were all 110 or 300. It was blindingly fast, and worked well for graphic display. But you had to be careful with the modem:

If it got shut off, you had to turn it on and leave it on for 4 hours to heat stabilize before using it.
Never hold down the U key too long -- if it began auto-repeating, the modem would go nuts. (In ASCII, the "U" is 01010101.)
Never, ever move the modem or touch it or put anything on top of it.

I could tell you about the first 5.25" diskette drive I'd ever seen: Shugart brand. It worked, as long as you kept the cover off the drive so you could reach into it and move the head back to track 0 with your finger. (The first diskette I ever saw was in 1975, an 8" model used to program an IBM 2880 storage control unit.)

[DrJ]

I used a 4014 ... It was blindingly fast, and worked well for graphic display.
That they were, but pretty miserable for text. Each character had to be drawn individually by vectors. Let's say they weren't particularly aesthetic.
The first diskette I ever saw was in 1975, an 8" model used to program an IBM 2880 storage control unit.
Those actually worked pretty well. Mine were IBM 3740 format, so somewhat newer. The early 5.25 drives were just awful.

Regarding your other comments, I did not see some of that personally. But the general message that computers had their quirks in those days certainly is right.

[Carpetsmoker]

The early 5.25 drives were just awful.

Ehm, so how exactly are the early drives different from the later drives then?

[DrJ]

Ehm, so how exactly are the early drives different from the later drives then?
Two things: capacity and reliability. The earliest ones I remember held 160K, which is not enough to be useful. They also had terrible problems with data integrity and media reliability.

The 8" ones were much better; the later 5.25" drives were fine. But it took a while for them to settle down.

[drhowarddrfine]

Speaking of drives. The hard drives I dealt with were on spindles with so many individual platters. Sometimes just one, up to 8 or so. When you "swapped platters", you took a plastic case that screwed onto the top of the spindle and you pulled the whole thing out, then screwed another spindle in.

Once in a while, you had to align the heads using a scope, being careful not to let your tie slip into the spinning platter while you nudged the heads by hand. Of course, you did clean your platters regularly, right?

[DrJ]

I never had to do that.

My earliest memory for hard drives was the original Seagate ST-506 -- all 5MB worth. That formed the basis ultimately for the IDE interface. We instead got a killer 20MB Fujitsu that was a speed demon; its seeks sounded like popping corn.

[eine]

You missed the "Eventually" in "Eventually, I ended up using Gentoo for three years (three years too long)." I didn't start using Gentoo until June of 2005. I migrated my desktop to FreeBSD in March, 2008. I still kept Gentoo installed in a virtual machine until June, 2008. I don't have Linux installed on any of my systems anymore.

You misunderstood the statement "I had used FreeBSD on and off with Linux since version 5.3." That means that I had FreeBSD installed alongside Linux on my desktop starting with version 5.3.

aha..now i get it..i should learn english better...
sorry for my mistake.. :D