Computer School

Pappy

I just read Vid's post on backlinks, and such.

I went to computer school while in the Marines, in 1973. The school was at the Naval Training Center in San Diego, CA. Right next door to MCRD, where I went to boot camp.

I was the only Marine in the class of about 25. The rest were sailors and "Waves". My computer training began with the last 3 weeks of the Navy's 8 week course. The course was titled, "UNIVAC 1500". The first 5 weeks of the course taught the operation of all the equipment that supported the 1218 CPU, which, by the way, was about the size of a large refridgerator/freezer.

All of the "software" used by this computer, had to be encoded on "punch cards".

Any old guy's remember government checks with a cut corner and small, rectangular holes? On the envelope, was printed, "Do not bend, fold, spindle, or mutilate."

Every Friday, the instructor presented a slideshow, about some aspect of computer technology. It would usually be about something current.

One slideshow was quite futuristic. We were shown pictures of the future of computer technology. They had these things called "chips". (the computers I trained with used vacuum tubes and transistors).

While watching the slideshow and listening to the instructors lecture, the sailor sitting next to me leaned over and said to me, "Yeah right, like that will ever happen."

The data was stored on 1" magnetic tape reels. Or 18" disc's.

The chain printer was incredibly noisy. No monitor.

Keypunch. Card reader/sorter (407).

Who would have thought?

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You can't believe anything I say, and only half of what you see me do.

midgradeindasouth

That was an interesting read Pappy.

I could not imagine using a computer without a monitor.

My first expierence with computers was in elementary school.

I want to say like around 82' we were using apple computers.

Then a few years later I got an Atari computer.
My cousin got the commodore 64.
I thought it was the shiz nit.

Now I have what would seem like a super computer.
Nothing fancy but, it is 4x's more than what I need it for.

It is kinda funny though. I have upgraded it to 2 gig ram and when I use it for converting divx to dvd the fans really get to humming.
I am waiting on the cpu to start floating in mid air.

I wonder where computers will take us in the next 10 years.

I expect to see a means to implant computers into humans.
This will allow a bit of cyborg action for users to always have computer and net access no matter where they are.

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videoman

Wow Pappy, dude I wanna party with you! Two old geeks gettiing wasted together could be fun. I use to love computers, I hate em now though.

I owned a chain of small computer stores, I loved building them back in the day too.
I use to be able to build one with an OS on it in under 20 minutes.

I remember over clocking 386DX/33's to 386DX/40's that was a big thing back than.

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Pappy

My first home computer was a 486dlc40mhz. 40MB Hard drive. Windows 3.1
MSdos 6.22

We chipped in at work, $20 each for the 3 of us, to buy DOOM. We put it on the server and sat in our cubes and played death matches. Didn't get much quality work done for a while.

__________________
You can't believe anything I say, and only half of what you see me do.

Pappy

I used to build from scratch, as a side for awhile. I'm not nearly as into it, as I used to be. There are still a few networks around town that I installed.

My daughter's boyfriend and I were talking computers and he brought up something I didn't know, (which, btw is alot). I just told him, "I've forgotten more about computers than you'll ever learn."

__________________
You can't believe anything I say, and only half of what you see me do.

Pappy

After going through the Navy's computer operatiing school, I remained in classes after the sailors went off to their fleet jobs.

I was in school to learn COBOL. Common Business Oriented Language. This was to take from 5 to 7 weeks. It took the full seven weeks. (hint: it was self-programmed; and don't try to learn computer programming while stoned).

Flowcharts, code paper, keypunch....

After writing my first program, I presented it to one of my 3 instructors. He looked at it and said, "It might work." And, pointed to the room with the keypunch machines. I only got the last 3 weeks of the Navy's 8 week school, so I never got to experience the joys of operating a keypunch.

It took much longer to punch the program into the cards, than it did to write the program.

The stack of cards was about 2.5" thick, a very simple sorting program.

This stack had to be placed into the card reader and the program magically, transferred to tape. The tape then had to be threaded through the CPU onto an empty reel.

There is a God! The program worked just like it was supposed to, and I learned more and more, about programming.

Upon graduation, and a short stay in Casual Company, back at MCRD, I received orders to relocate to Japan. I really didn't want to go to Japan, so they allowed me to go back to school.

My new schools were avionics. I never did any computer work while in the Marines.

__________________
You can't believe anything I say, and only half of what you see me do.

tokecrazy

That's just like the groverment sent you to school and put you some place else and not use what they sent you to school for.So Pappy you were a hollywood marine,I took 8 wks of boot in Pairs Island and sent to MCRD San Diego for 4wks and to pendleton for 4wks.I wasnt so luckly We were special Forces sent in to retrieve ploits that were shot down and along with the cia bullshit I was using the first GPS tracking and senors units in the feild for live test.They worked great.This was all in the makings and we were the test rats for there project.Today we have GPS in everything cars,trucks,cellphones everything.The groverment has this stuff for 10 to 15 years before the poeple get to see and use it.I didnt do anything more with computer till 1996 when I got my first one.Today I'am still learning to use it.PEACE

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Anything I may say or do is stickly for entertainment only.This is all make believe and is not To believe by me or anyone

Pappy

Yeah, I had a ball in the Marines. I just didn't realize, at the time, how great I had it. My mos was 6612/6632. Com/Nav and Aircraft Electrical Tech. 0730-1630. Duty section every 4th day. 2 or 3 guys to a room. We, as enlisted personnel, were on a first/nick name basis with all the pilots, except for the C.O., X.O., and Operations officer. We partied with alot of the pilots. It was a really tight squadron.

__________________
You can't believe anything I say, and only half of what you see me do.

the.fatman.cometh

that's really cool, Pappy

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jangel

When I was 20 before going back to college I worked in an office for a couple of years. Near where our office was there was the computor room. This was the only room air conditioned all year round, with double doors to enter. This was to keep dust and garbage out of the computors. Each person that worked there wore lab coats to avoid bringing in dirt and spreading it to the sensitive computors. These babies where HUGE and took up this whole room, which was about 70 ft by 40 ft. Stacks and stacks of cards read and run through this baby. This was about 1975-77.

LOOK how far we have come!

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Life,
j-angel


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