|
I realize I'm drifting off topic, so I'll keep it brief.
In the 1970s, my father worked as a programmer/analyst for the
University of Illinois at the Chicago Medical Center and he would
occasionally take me in with him on a Saturday. The computer
actually had video display terminals (green screens I think, or
maybe amber) and he would park me at one and I'd play the Star
Trek game. Keep in mind that my mother didn't like Trek, so we
didn't watch the reruns and therefore, I didn't know anything
about it. Once, I tried to fly to a big flashing icon, only to
find out it was a supernova and it destroyed the ship. Another
time, it didn't destroy the ship, but it disabled every possible
action; I couldn't even self destruct. And if I got into a battle
with the Klingons, I'd fire at one of them and then I had to just
sit there while each of the six or so of them fired at me. By
then, I was lucky if I could fire a second shot.
Q content: we got there by dinky, either to CUS and walk to the
subway at Clinton, or to Cicero and walk to the Douglas L; either
way, we rode the L to Polk St. Being a little kid, I like to stand
at the door at the front of the cab car and pretend the door
handle was the brake. I learned a little bit about how the
crossovers and such were laid out and how the signals worked
standing there. Once, the conductor asked me what the thunking
sounds on the car floor were as we left Lisle; someone had put
pieces of ballast on the rail and we ran over them.
--
David Streeter
Naperville, IL
On 12/4/2020 3:14 PM, Charlie Vlk
wrote:
Jack-
My first exposure to computers was at the Bell System Center for
Technical Education at Lisle. Access to mainframe computer was
through a teletype machine that you would program your cost
study off-line using teletype punch tape and you had to type in
all the data each time until the computer would accept the tape
data. Not a very good interface!! We also could play
“Adventure” on it where the greasy troll would tell you that you
didn’t have the weapon you needed….in frustration, you would
cuss at it (typing in the responses) and it would, after
investing several hours of play, come back and say “Tsk, Tsk!!
Such Language!!! Goodbye!!!” and kick you out of the game and
disconnect you!
Charlie Vlk
_._,_._,_
Groups.io Links: You receive all messages sent to this group. View/Reply Online (#60907) | Reply To Group | Reply To Sender | Mute This Topic | New Topic
Your Subscription | Contact Group Owner | Unsubscribe [archives@nauer.org]
_._,_._,_
|