Long term storage

[R. C. White]

Hi, Allen.

Yes, I still live in San Marcos. But I'm not sure I'll be here 40,000 years
from now. Or that Waterloo Records will still be in business. ;^{

I did find the turntable I needed at Radio Shack in 2002 for $100. It still
works fine, but I use it only sporadically to transfer music from vinyl to
my hard disk. I'm not big on classical, unless you include Chet Atkins,
Eddy Arnold and Marty Robbins. ;<)

RC
--
R. C. White, CPA
San Marcos, TX
rc@grandecom.net
Microsoft Windows MVP
Windows Live Mail Version 2011 (Build 15.4.3002.0810)) in Win7 Ultimate x64


"Allen" wrote in message
news:gZqdnSAUFaLrEvHRnZ2dnUVZ_rKdnZ2d@giganews.com...

R. C. White wrote:
> Hi, Lee.
>
> And where will I buy a player for that disk? In 40,000 years?
>
> A few years ago, I had some trouble just finding a turntable to play vinyl
> LPs and transfer them to my magnetic disk and optical disks. I understand
> that vinyl has regained some popularity recently, but those gold disks may
> be functionally unreadable in 40 years, much less 40,000. :>( Of course,
> I might be dead by then, I suppose.
>
> RC
If you still need a turntable, drive 28 miles north on I35 and go to
Waterloo Records at 6th and Lamar. They have a large number of several
different brands stacked on the floor by the registers. Also a growing
stock of LPs, new and used, but unfortunately for me none of them are
classical. I hope I'm remembering correctly--you do live in San Marcos,
don't you?
Allen

 

[Ken Blake]

On Wed, 18 Aug 2010 22:56:04 -0500, "R. C. White" <rc@grandecom.net>
wrote:

> Hi, Allen.
>
> Yes, I still live in San Marcos. But I'm not sure I'll be here 40,000 years
> from now.


How about 40 years from now, RC? <g>


> I did find the turntable I needed at Radio Shack in 2002 for $100. It still
> works fine, but I use it only sporadically to transfer music from vinyl to
> my hard disk. I'm not big on classical, unless you include Chet Atkins,
> Eddy Arnold and Marty Robbins. ;<)


I'm big on classical, but like you I'm also a Chet Atkins fan. He was
terrific (I play guitar; some of what I play is something like his
style, but nowhere near as good).

 

[R. C. White]

Hi, Ken.

> How about 40 years from now, RC? <g>

Let's see...I'll be about 115. Maybe I'll still be in San Marcos. Maybe
not living here??

But I was replying to the previous post by Lee Rowell, who suggested a
storage disk that "should be good for about 40,000 years." ;^}

RC
--
R. C. White, CPA
San Marcos, TX
rc@grandecom.net
Microsoft Windows MVP
Windows Live Mail Version 2011 (Build 15.4.3002.0810)) in Win7 Ultimate x64


"Ken Blake" wrote in message
news:a3uq66d57qe9eq1kc9qpraqr4irfsip9r7@4ax.com...

On Wed, 18 Aug 2010 22:56:04 -0500, "R. C. White" <rc@grandecom.net>
wrote:

> Hi, Allen.
>
> Yes, I still live in San Marcos. But I'm not sure I'll be here 40,000
> years
> from now.

How about 40 years from now, RC? <g>

> I did find the turntable I needed at Radio Shack in 2002 for $100. It
> still
> works fine, but I use it only sporadically to transfer music from vinyl to
> my hard disk. I'm not big on classical, unless you include Chet Atkins,
> Eddy Arnold and Marty Robbins. ;<)

I'm big on classical, but like you I'm also a Chet Atkins fan. He was
terrific (I play guitar; some of what I play is something like his
style, but nowhere near as good).

 

[Ken Blake]

On Thu, 19 Aug 2010 160:46 -0500, "R. C. White" <rc@grandecom.net>
wrote:

> Hi, Ken.
>
> > How about 40 years from now, RC? <g>
>
> Let's see...I'll be about 115.



Yep. I know!



> Maybe I'll still be in San Marcos. Maybe
> not living here??


Maybe not!


> But I was replying to the previous post by Lee Rowell, who suggested a
> storage disk that "should be good for about 40,000 years." ;^}



I know. I was just pointing out that even forty years from now, you
are unlikely to still be around.

And the same for me of course. You're just three years older than me.

Ken

 

[Allen]

R. C. White wrote:
> Hi, Ken.
>
>> How about 40 years from now, RC? <g>
>
> Let's see...I'll be about 115. Maybe I'll still be in San Marcos.
> Maybe not living here??
>
> But I was replying to the previous post by Lee Rowell, who suggested a
> storage disk that "should be good for about 40,000 years." ;^}
>
> RC
You're just a kid, R. C.--I'll be 121. (How many others here started
their computer careers on analog machines?)
Allen

 

[R. C. White]

Hi, Allen.

Good to hear from an old-timer. Don't you just love it when guys in their
sixties want to use old age as their excuse for not understanding their
computers? There are several MVPs older than Ken and me; some older than
you, too.

I didn't get into "microcomputers" until the TRS-80 in 1977. When I was in
college in the 1950's, we studied "IBM machines", with punched cards,
including keypunches, verifiers, sorters and tabulating machines. ;^}

But now we're probably boring the kiddies who haven't fallen asleep yet.

RC
--
R. C. White, CPA
San Marcos, TX
rc@grandecom.net
Microsoft Windows MVP
Windows Live Mail Version 2011 (Build 15.4.3002.0810)) in Win7 Ultimate x64

"Allen" wrote in message
news:Gu6dnXTmIpq_dfPRnZ2dnUVZ_jydnZ2d@giganews.com...

R. C. White wrote:
> Hi, Ken.
>
>> How about 40 years from now, RC? <g>
>
> Let's see...I'll be about 115. Maybe I'll still be in San Marcos. Maybe
> not living here??
>
> But I was replying to the previous post by Lee Rowell, who suggested a
> storage disk that "should be good for about 40,000 years." ;^}
>
> RC
You're just a kid, R. C.--I'll be 121. (How many others here started
their computer careers on analog machines?)
Allen

 

[Dave]

"R. C. White" <rc@grandecom.net> wrote in message
news:dZOdnZyG8Ndrr_LRnZ2dnUVZ_tWdnZ2d@posted.grandecom...
> Hi, Allen.
>
> Good to hear from an old-timer. Don't you just love it when guys in their
> sixties want to use old age as their excuse for not understanding their
> computers? There are several MVPs older than Ken and me; some older than
> you, too.
>
> I didn't get into "microcomputers" until the TRS-80 in 1977. When I was
> in college in the 1950's, we studied "IBM machines", with punched cards,
> including keypunches, verifiers, sorters and tabulating machines. ;^}
>
> But now we're probably boring the kiddies who haven't fallen asleep yet.
>
> RC
> --
> R. C. White, CPA
> San Marcos, TX
> rc@grandecom.net
> Microsoft Windows MVP
> Windows Live Mail Version 2011 (Build 15.4.3002.0810)) in Win7 Ultimate
> x64
>
> "Allen" wrote in message
> news:Gu6dnXTmIpq_dfPRnZ2dnUVZ_jydnZ2d@giganews.com...
>
> R. C. White wrote:
>> Hi, Ken.
>>
>>> How about 40 years from now, RC? <g>
>>
>> Let's see...I'll be about 115. Maybe I'll still be in San Marcos. Maybe
>> not living here??
>>
>> But I was replying to the previous post by Lee Rowell, who suggested a
>> storage disk that "should be good for about 40,000 years." ;^}
>>
>> RC
> You're just a kid, R. C.--I'll be 121. (How many others here started
> their computer careers on analog machines?)
> Allen

AH, the good old days. Used to sneak into the front office when working the
evening shift in a factory so I could chat up the girls. Seems that they
almost always had girls as key-punch operators and most of them were good
looking too.
We didn't have portable calculators then either, used the slide-rule
instead. I remember the first portable calculator I saw, had a fluorescent
display of some type and was priced at appx $700. I'm glad that part of the
old days is gone, don't have to use a slide rule or pay a fistful of money
for a calculator.
Dave

 

[Allen]

Dave wrote:
<snip>
> AH, the good old days. Used to sneak into the front office when working
> the evening shift in a factory so I could chat up the girls. Seems that
> they almost always had girls as key-punch operators and most of them
> were good looking too.
> We didn't have portable calculators then either, used the slide-rule
> instead. I remember the first portable calculator I saw, had a
> fluorescent display of some type and was priced at appx $700. I'm glad
> that part of the old days is gone, don't have to use a slide rule or pay
> a fistful of money for a calculator.
> Dave

Know anyone who would like to buy my K&E Log Log Decitrig slide rule? I
don't really have any need for it nowadays. As to calculators-- I was a
banker and on one occasion I was involved in a heavy-duty conversion and
finally got home at 3:00 AM, hit the sack, and was immediately sound
asleep--until the phone rang at 70AM. Our Chief Financial Officer was
on the line and said "You've got to get down here right away--we're
terribly out of balance. (I was the go-to-guy on just about everything
that happened.) I threw on some clothes, went down to the bank, saw
everybody gathered around including the CFO, the entire auditing
department and several programmers, and asked "How much are you out?" I
was told "about $87 million." I immediately asked "is that 4 times 2 to
the 31st power?" I got an "are you crazy?" look but I went over to a
desk calculator (that one cost right at $1,000) and ran the calculation,
came back and said "is this it?" The CFO looked at it and said "all but
16 cents". I looked at it and explained that the desk calculator had
overflowed and that the amount was exact. We were using, as I recall, an
IBM 145 at the time and the program that was out of balance used
register arithmetic. When a register overflowed (at 1+2**31) it screwed
up the high order end of the number (in this case 4 times) and the
little desk calculator just messed up the least significant end. I was
really irritated that none of the programmers recognized the problem but
a non-programmer spotted it immediately. I went back home and hit the
sack again. And the problem, incidentally, had nothing to do with the
conversion I had worked on.
Allen

 

[Dave]

"Allen" <allent@austin.rr.com> wrote in message
news:-Y6dnTTOgKXA7-3RnZ2dnUVZ_uqdnZ2d@giganews.com...
> Dave wrote:
> <snip>
>> AH, the good old days. Used to sneak into the front office when working
>> the evening shift in a factory so I could chat up the girls. Seems that
>> they almost always had girls as key-punch operators and most of them were
>> good looking too.
>> We didn't have portable calculators then either, used the slide-rule
>> instead. I remember the first portable calculator I saw, had a
>> fluorescent display of some type and was priced at appx $700. I'm glad
>> that part of the old days is gone, don't have to use a slide rule or pay
>> a fistful of money for a calculator.
>> Dave
>
> Know anyone who would like to buy my K&E Log Log Decitrig slide rule? I
> don't really have any need for it nowadays. As to calculators-- I was a
> banker and on one occasion I was involved in a heavy-duty conversion and
> finally got home at 3:00 AM, hit the sack, and was immediately sound
> asleep--until the phone rang at 70AM. Our Chief Financial Officer was on
> the line and said "You've got to get down here right away--we're terribly
> out of balance. (I was the go-to-guy on just about everything that
> happened.) I threw on some clothes, went down to the bank, saw everybody
> gathered around including the CFO, the entire auditing department and
> several programmers, and asked "How much are you out?" I was told "about
> $87 million." I immediately asked "is that 4 times 2 to the 31st power?" I
> got an "are you crazy?" look but I went over to a desk calculator (that
> one cost right at $1,000) and ran the calculation, came back and said "is
> this it?" The CFO looked at it and said "all but 16 cents". I looked at it
> and explained that the desk calculator had overflowed and that the amount
> was exact. We were using, as I recall, an IBM 145 at the time and the
> program that was out of balance used register arithmetic. When a register
> overflowed (at 1+2**31) it screwed up the high order end of the number (in
> this case 4 times) and the little desk calculator just messed up the least
> significant end. I was really irritated that none of the programmers
> recognized the problem but a non-programmer spotted it immediately. I went
> back home and hit the sack again. And the problem, incidentally, had
> nothing to do with the conversion I had worked on.
> Allen

Did they have the neon tube displays? Those things were cool, but the
batteries didn't stay up long.
Dave

 

[Allen]

Dave wrote:
>
> "Allen" <allent@austin.rr.com> wrote in message
> news:-Y6dnTTOgKXA7-3RnZ2dnUVZ_uqdnZ2d@giganews.com...
>> Dave wrote:
>> <snip>
>>> AH, the good old days. Used to sneak into the front office when
>>> working the evening shift in a factory so I could chat up the girls.
>>> Seems that they almost always had girls as key-punch operators and
>>> most of them were good looking too.
>>> We didn't have portable calculators then either, used the slide-rule
>>> instead. I remember the first portable calculator I saw, had a
>>> fluorescent display of some type and was priced at appx $700. I'm
>>> glad that part of the old days is gone, don't have to use a slide
>>> rule or pay a fistful of money for a calculator.
>>> Dave
>>
>> Know anyone who would like to buy my K&E Log Log Decitrig slide rule?
>> I don't really have any need for it nowadays. As to calculators-- I
>> was a banker and on one occasion I was involved in a heavy-duty
>> conversion and finally got home at 3:00 AM, hit the sack, and was
>> immediately sound asleep--until the phone rang at 70AM. Our Chief
>> Financial Officer was on the line and said "You've got to get down
>> here right away--we're terribly out of balance. (I was the go-to-guy
>> on just about everything that happened.) I threw on some clothes, went
>> down to the bank, saw everybody gathered around including the CFO, the
>> entire auditing department and several programmers, and asked "How
>> much are you out?" I was told "about $87 million." I immediately asked
>> "is that 4 times 2 to the 31st power?" I got an "are you crazy?" look
>> but I went over to a desk calculator (that one cost right at $1,000)
>> and ran the calculation, came back and said "is this it?" The CFO
>> looked at it and said "all but 16 cents". I looked at it and explained
>> that the desk calculator had overflowed and that the amount was exact.
>> We were using, as I recall, an IBM 145 at the time and the program
>> that was out of balance used register arithmetic. When a register
>> overflowed (at 1+2**31) it screwed up the high order end of the number
>> (in this case 4 times) and the little desk calculator just messed up
>> the least significant end. I was really irritated that none of the
>> programmers recognized the problem but a non-programmer spotted it
>> immediately. I went back home and hit the sack again. And the problem,
>> incidentally, had nothing to do with the conversion I had worked on.
>> Allen
>
> Did they have the neon tube displays? Those things were cool, but the
> batteries didn't stay up long.
> Dave
No,, the displays were just usual green LCDs with the block format. And
they were AC. Really a replacement for adding machines.
Allen

 

[Tim Slattery]

"Dave" <davidj92@wowway.com> wrote:

>Did they have the neon tube displays? Those things were cool, but the
>batteries didn't stay up long.

Nixie tubes, IIRC. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nixie_tube)

Were those used in battery operated devices? Seems to me they would
have used way too much current for batteries.

I remember Wang(?) calculators with Nixie tubes. They were connected
to something behind the wall, but I never saw what.

--
Tim Slattery
Slattery_T@bls.gov
http://members.cox.net/slatteryt