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[Earl Miles]

On 10/8/2010 10:25 PM, jeff at ayendesigns.com wrote:
> Whoa! Retirement age??!!  I used punch cards, card sorters, wrote device
> drivers to get the keyboard to talk to the cpu, developed functions to
> store and retrieve records from files before databases, and wrote my
> first few dozen apps in mnemonic assembler, used 8" hard-sectored
> floppies, a converted IBM selectric as line printer, CP/M, PC-DOS,
> Windows 1, and remember my jaw dropping when they rolled out the first
> CRT (you can backspace?!)... and I've got at almost 20 years yet until I
> retire, though I can take up a collection if I need to go sooner!

20 years from retirement makes you only a few years older than I am. I
remember the 8" floppies, IBM selectrics, CP/M (though I missed Windows
1 since I got my start in the Apple and Commodore sides)...but rarely
did I ever see punch cards even hanging around serious geeks in the 80s.
Maybe it's background related. Or maybe the 80s were longer than I
remember them being. But my memory is that by the late 70s, punch cards
were pretty much on their way out, and by the time PCs came to market in
the early 80s, nobody was using them except for places with legacy
systems that couldn't be upgraded -- and that's 40 years ago now.

I remember visiting a facility that used punch cards in the 80s, but
even they thought they were antiques at that point.

Just to check my history, I did a quick google and found some terminals
with monochrome displays, I assume CRTs, from 1969. That's 40 years ago
by itself. If you were a working adult in the 60s, that'd make you late
50s at best, and late 50s isn't 20 years from retirement age (whether or
not people retire at retirement age is another story). If you were a kid
in the 60s and happened to be near people who used the stuff, that's
pretty lucky. I know as a teenager in the 80s I had to work pretty hard
to get near computers until I managed to wheedle my parents into getting
me one.