Old School One-upsmanship

games
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Name something that was old school to you. Or post something that is more old school that a previous poster. Be real :slight_smile:

My first PC was a TRS-80 modded with a piggy backed 1K memory chip to enable lower case letters.

(No matter how old school I think I am I know someone is way, way more old school than me. I expect someone will tell me how they had to rewire their computer to program it, or cut new gears for their Babbage Engine :smile: )

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Both my brother and sister are whizzes on an abacus. Do you know how to wield that thing?

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Well, that beats the slide rules I inherited, I assume you can actually use it (or knew at some time in the past) :slight_smile:

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What’s the third stack for?

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That’s a Russian abacus that was meant for monetary calculations. The short stack is for quarter rubles I think. (It’s a quarter fraction of something.)

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[quote]Russian Shoty 10 or 4 beads, 10 digits
Brand: Unknown
Material: Oak wood frame, curved steel rods and oak beads
Age: Unknown
Beads: 10b x 9 + 4b x 1 Note the 4 beads digit is for 1/4 Kopecks)
Digits/Columns: 10
Size: 240 x 165 mm (9.6x 6.6")[/quote]
http://sliderulemuseum.com/Abaci.htm

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Pretty sure this comic encapsulates the entire thread before it even began:

real_programmers.png740×406 82.6 KB

Alt-text: Real programmers set the universal constants at the start such that the universe evolves to contain the disk with the data they want.

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At the rate that posts are being withdrawn, you won’t find anything here tomorrow. the whole BBS will be gone.

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What is that? Can you provide a link?

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I see your abacus and raise you urnary numerals and concatenation. Written in the dirt.

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It’s an elegant way of doing fractions.

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Here you go.
Explanation under the section marked mathematics.

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Dirt? Real counting takes commitment.

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I got this model for one of my birthdays (maybe 12th?).

ti calculator.jpg1376×1200 392 KB

My mom was still using it until she died in 2010.

(I figured we need to move to electronics…)

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One of the earliest iterations of the RATS Nest BBS. Sorry about the picture quality, it’s from a newspaper article. It was quite the thing in 1983. Yes, that’s a TRS-80 Model 1 with floppy drives (only) and a 300 baud modem.

ratsnest.jpg1381×857 516 KB

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Only a few more years and it would be on:

__ / \ /|oo \ (_| /_) _`@/_ \ _ | | \ \\ | (*) | \ )) ______ |__U__| / \// / FIDO \ _//|| _\ / (________) (_/(_|(____/ (c) John Madil

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