Posted by Stuart Miller on 02/03/07 21:10

"Low Life #3" <holden_mcthynge@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:eq2jh2$d58$00$1@news.t-online.com...
> "SFTVratings" <SFTVratings_troy@yahoo.com> wrote in message
> news:1170500268.157993.194680@v45g2000cwv.googlegroups.com...
>
> : Cool. I had a computer in 1986 (commodore=128), but no modem, no
> : printer.. My parents made me buy one piece at a time, so in 1985 was
> : the computer. 1986 was the disk drive. 1987 was the printer. The
> : modem finally arrived in 1988.
> :
> : In retrospect, I wish I had bought the modem *first* since that would
> : have been the most-useful piece of the "puzzle".
>
> your *parents*?
>
> please.
>
> in 1986 I had an olivetti pc6300 with 640kb, 10mb Mountain HDD, and two
> 5.25
> FDD's.
>

I agree - the modem was wonderful. We had acoustic couplers back in the
70's, 300 baud. 1200 bps modems were a great leap forward. Text finally came
in faster than you could read it.

About 1982 I was writing applications for the TRS-80 - 64k memory, up to 4
5.25 floppy drives.

It is interesting to look back at that equipent, and the work that was
produced. Certainly financial statements are not any better now, and the
actual content of reports seems to have gone down a bit. Appearance and
convenience are way up, but productivity is down because people are spending
way too much time on appearance and not enough on results. When there was
only one font, you didn't spend hours getting the leading and kerning set
just right.

I wouldn't go back, but I am always after the staff to concentrate on
content over flashy appearance.

Stuart

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