"Portland" > wrote in message
...
>I bought my Dell dimension 2400 desktop at the end of 2003. It was
> pretty fast. Now sometimes it's kind of slow. It slows down quite a
> bit during an ISP virus/spyware scan. It also really slows down
> whenever my ISP downloads new definitions. Whatever definitions
> means, I don't know. Something to do with system protection. I have
> 256 meg memory. I should probably upgrade to 1 Gig. I find that if I
> leave it running without turning it off for days on end, it starts to
> slow down. If I shut it off every night, it seems to work faster.


I have a Commodore 64 I bought in 1984 with 1741 monitor and 1541 disk
drive. I also have my Compaq Deskpro, bought in 1986 with 640K of RAM, 2
5.24 inch floppies and a 20 MB Seagate hard drive.

Paul

"Paul M. Cook" > wrote in message
...
>
> "Portland" > wrote in message
> ...
>>I bought my Dell dimension 2400 desktop at the end of 2003. It was
>> pretty fast. Now sometimes it's kind of slow. It slows down quite a
>> bit during an ISP virus/spyware scan. It also really slows down
>> whenever my ISP downloads new definitions. Whatever definitions
>> means, I don't know. Something to do with system protection. I have
>> 256 meg memory. I should probably upgrade to 1 Gig. I find that if I
>> leave it running without turning it off for days on end, it starts to
>> slow down. If I shut it off every night, it seems to work faster.
>
>
> I have a Commodore 64 I bought in 1984 with 1741 monitor and 1541 disk
> drive. I also have my Compaq Deskpro, bought in 1986 with 640K of RAM, 2
> 5.24 inch floppies and a 20 MB Seagate hard drive.

5.25 that is.

Paul

On 4/17/2011 6:03 PM, Paul M. Cook wrote:
> > wrote in message
> ...
>> I bought my Dell dimension 2400 desktop at the end of 2003. It was
>> pretty fast. Now sometimes it's kind of slow. It slows down quite a
>> bit during an ISP virus/spyware scan. It also really slows down
>> whenever my ISP downloads new definitions. Whatever definitions
>> means, I don't know. Something to do with system protection. I have
>> 256 meg memory. I should probably upgrade to 1 Gig. I find that if I
>> leave it running without turning it off for days on end, it starts to
>> slow down. If I shut it off every night, it seems to work faster.
>
>
> I have a Commodore 64 I bought in 1984 with 1741 monitor and 1541 disk
> drive. I also have my Compaq Deskpro, bought in 1986 with 640K of RAM, 2
> 5.24 inch floppies and a 20 MB Seagate hard drive.
>
> Paul
>
>

The 1541 was pretty nifty. It held something like 147KB of data. I can't
think of a single piece of computer hardware that was more unreliable. I
had a couple of dead ones - who didn't? :-)

"dsi1" > wrote in message
...
> On 4/17/2011 6:03 PM, Paul M. Cook wrote:
>> > wrote in message
>> ...
>>> I bought my Dell dimension 2400 desktop at the end of 2003. It was
>>> pretty fast. Now sometimes it's kind of slow. It slows down quite a
>>> bit during an ISP virus/spyware scan. It also really slows down
>>> whenever my ISP downloads new definitions. Whatever definitions
>>> means, I don't know. Something to do with system protection. I have
>>> 256 meg memory. I should probably upgrade to 1 Gig. I find that if I
>>> leave it running without turning it off for days on end, it starts to
>>> slow down. If I shut it off every night, it seems to work faster.
>>
>>
>> I have a Commodore 64 I bought in 1984 with 1741 monitor and 1541 disk
>> drive. I also have my Compaq Deskpro, bought in 1986 with 640K of RAM, 2
>> 5.24 inch floppies and a 20 MB Seagate hard drive.
>>
>> Paul
>>
>>
>
> The 1541 was pretty nifty. It held something like 147KB of data. I can't
> think of a single piece of computer hardware that was more unreliable. I
> had a couple of dead ones - who didn't? :-)

I briefly made a living fixing them. They had a badly designed drive stop
mechanism that was press fitted onto a steel shaft. The head positioner was
a soft collar of aluminum that loosened after a short time and made the
drive head lose its alignment. I charged 40 bucks to alter the mechanism
with what was basicaly a cotter pin and spring to make it more reliable. My
first entrepreneurial experience. The 1541 really was a piece of junk even
though it had an innovative, for that time, design. But the C64 was a very
important product in the evolution of the personal computer.

Paul

On 4/17/2011 6:56 PM, Paul M. Cook wrote:

> I briefly made a living fixing them. They had a badly designed drive stop
> mechanism that was press fitted onto a steel shaft. The head positioner was
> a soft collar of aluminum that loosened after a short time and made the
> drive head lose its alignment. I charged 40 bucks to alter the mechanism
> with what was basicaly a cotter pin and spring to make it more reliable. My
> first entrepreneurial experience. The 1541 really was a piece of junk even
> though it had an innovative, for that time, design. But the C64 was a very
> important product in the evolution of the personal computer.
>
> Paul
>
>

You're right about the C64. It was one of those products where you read
the specs and come to the realization that it's going to change
everything. It was a great time for computers. Then the IBM PC came
out... :-)

"dsi1" > wrote in message
...
> On 4/17/2011 6:56 PM, Paul M. Cook wrote:
>
>> I briefly made a living fixing them. They had a badly designed drive
>> stop
>> mechanism that was press fitted onto a steel shaft. The head positioner
>> was
>> a soft collar of aluminum that loosened after a short time and made the
>> drive head lose its alignment. I charged 40 bucks to alter the mechanism
>> with what was basicaly a cotter pin and spring to make it more reliable.
>> My
>> first entrepreneurial experience. The 1541 really was a piece of junk
>> even
>> though it had an innovative, for that time, design. But the C64 was a
>> very
>> important product in the evolution of the personal computer.
>>
>> Paul
>>
>>
>
> You're right about the C64. It was one of those products where you read
> the specs and come to the realization that it's going to change
> everything. It was a great time for computers. Then the IBM PC came out...
> :-)

Wellllll, the IBM PC came out in 81. The VIC 20 was out in that year. The
C64 followed in 83.

Paul

On 4/17/2011 9:38 PM, Paul M. Cook wrote:
> > wrote in message
> ...
>> On 4/17/2011 6:56 PM, Paul M. Cook wrote:
>>
>>> I briefly made a living fixing them. They had a badly designed drive
>>> stop
>>> mechanism that was press fitted onto a steel shaft. The head positioner
>>> was
>>> a soft collar of aluminum that loosened after a short time and made the
>>> drive head lose its alignment. I charged 40 bucks to alter the mechanism
>>> with what was basicaly a cotter pin and spring to make it more reliable.
>>> My
>>> first entrepreneurial experience. The 1541 really was a piece of junk
>>> even
>>> though it had an innovative, for that time, design. But the C64 was a
>>> very
>>> important product in the evolution of the personal computer.
>>>
>>> Paul
>>>
>>>
>>
>> You're right about the C64. It was one of those products where you read
>> the specs and come to the realization that it's going to change
>> everything. It was a great time for computers. Then the IBM PC came out...
>> :-)
>
> Wellllll, the IBM PC came out in 81. The VIC 20 was out in that year. The
> C64 followed in 83.

Thanks for setting me straight. I guess I got it confused with the PC
jr. Oddly enough, I have a couple of 5150 XT keyboards. Is there a
market for these things?

>
> Paul
>
>

On Apr 18, 1:44*am, Andy > wrote:
> I had a TRS-80 by Tandy/Radio Shack with an ordinary cassette tape recorder
> for storage (sequential access at it's finest!).
>
> I still have an Apple Mac 512k sans hard drive.
>
> And an abacus.
>
> Andy

==
I hope that you bought the new abacus with expanded memory...they say
that it is much faster.
==

On 4/18/2011 10:06 AM, Roy wrote:
> On Apr 18, 1:44 am, > wrote:
>> I had a TRS-80 by Tandy/Radio Shack with an ordinary cassette tape recorder
>> for storage (sequential access at it's finest!).
>>
>> I still have an Apple Mac 512k sans hard drive.
>>
>> And an abacus.
>>
>> Andy
>
> ==
> I hope that you bought the new abacus with expanded memory...they say
> that it is much faster.
> ==
Our first home computer was a TRS-80 Model II, which used a cassette
tape recorder. (No, that's wrong, we had a Sinclair before the TRS!) We
had a lot of "fun" putting together several different control boxes to
maintain a steady signal but, OH the great day, when we managed to
afford two 5 inch floppies and could use Scripsit for word processing
and a Pascal compiler.

I've had a quite a few computers since but have only kept the replaced
model for about a year.

--


James Silverton, Potomac

I'm "not"

On Mon, 18 Apr 2011 09:37:45 -0500, Andy > wrote:

>Roy > wrote:
>
>> On Apr 18, 1:44*am, Andy > wrote:
>>> I had a TRS-80 by Tandy/Radio Shack with an ordinary cassette tape
>>> record
>> er
>>> for storage (sequential access at it's finest!).
>>>
>>> I still have an Apple Mac 512k sans hard drive.
>>>
>>> And an abacus.
>>>
>>> Andy
>>
>> =I hope that you bought the new abacus with expanded memory...they say
>> that it is much faster.
>> =
>
>
>Roy,
>
>Heh heh heh heh heh!
>
>Company have marveled that I actually own one. An Asian guest saw it and
>couldn't take her hands off it. I should've gifted it to her. DOH!
>
>I never got good at operating it.
>
>I once had a beautiful pocket abacus but don't know what happened to it.
>
>BTW, to those of you who may think otherwise, the abacus was invented by
>the Greeks, not the Chinese.
>
>Best,
>
>Andy

Watching someone who really knows how to use an Abacus is fascinating.
It's so fast that it blurs.