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Re: [OM] On the subject of Photoshop Police

Subject: Re: [OM] On the subject of Photoshop Police
From: "Jim Nichols" <jhnichols@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Fri, 9 Dec 2011 16:39:18 -0600
Hi Peter,

In the wind tunnel business, all of our data reduction was originally done 
on mainframes.  I wrote data reduction equations, but left the 
implementation to the pros.

A turbine engine test supplied a PDP-8 as a part of the fuel control system, 
and it remained when the test was completed.  Some of our younger EE types 
figured out how to use this computer to take raw pressure and temperature 
measurements and convert them into real-time Mach number, Reynolds number, 
and altitude values.  We then hooked small monitors to the computer to allow 
us to display this data to the wind tunnel operators, and improved our 
control of test conditions remarkably.  Automation built on this start over 
a period of time.

Jim Nichols
Tullahoma, TN USA
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Peter Klein" <pklein@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: <olympus@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Cc: <pklein@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Friday, December 09, 2011 1:45 PM
Subject: Re: [OM] On the subject of Photoshop Police


> This thread should be retitled "How to feel like a fossil, but an
> experienced one."
>
> I started in 1970 with a DEC PDP-8 that was based at my high school and
> time-shared with schools around the Boston area. We used a dialect of
> BASIC called FOCAL (for copyright reasons). I/O was via a mechanical
> teleprinter (Model 33?) with yellow paper on a roll. There were orange and
> brown switches through which you toggled in the bootstrap loader so it
> could read the paper tape programs. I fooled around with machine language
> a bit. But there was a super-genius at my high school who always did it
> better and faster than I did, so after a while I lost interest in the
> hard-core stuff.
>
> My first "computer" of my own was an HP-25 programmable calculator (1976),
> which taught this music and theatre major math concepts he didn't get in
> college. Then I got a TRS-80. Used that until I went into computers for a
> living in 1983. I worked on the original IBM XT, but owned a Kaypro with
> CP/M (ZCPR). WordStar keystrokes are still in my fingers. When I wrote
> music reviews for a Seattle-area newspaper, I used WordStar, stripped off
> the high bits with a little utility, and sent my copy to the newspaper's
> mainframe via a 300 baud modem. I had to remember to type two single quote
> marks for standard double quotes.
>
> Since then, I've used most versions of DOS and Windows, some UNIX, but
> almost no Mac. When I was Novell admin at a university, I found that there
> was a group of users that always had huge difficulty changing their
> passwords. They were all Mac users, and they were all from the School of
> Education. I draw no conclusions from this fact. I merely point it out in
> the spirit of lighthearted banter.
>
> I used Windows XP for years. Like my employer, I skipped Vista. I think
> Windows 7 is very nice, provided you have the hardware to run it with
> reasonable speed. For my wife, XP on a 6 year-old Dell Optiplex is
> fine--she just uses email, and translates documents to and from Russian in
> Word.  For my memory-hungry photo programs, Win7 is better and more
> stable. Only this year did I retire my 7 year-old Dell and picked up a
> nearly-new Dell refurb to run Win7.
>
> And I still think XyWrite 3 was the best word processor ever.
>
> --Peter
>
> Jim Nichols sez:
>
>> Hi Chris,
>>
>>
>> I started with CP/M on a Xerox machine using two 8-inch floppy disks,
> then moved on > to DOS, and reluctantly changed to Winders. XP has been
> the best of the versions > that I have used.
>>
>> Jim Nichols
>> Tullahoma, TN USA
>>
>> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Chris Barker" <ftog [at]
> threeshoes.net>
>> To: "Olympus Camera Discussion" <olympus [at] thomasclausen.net>
>> Sent: Friday, December 09, 2011 12:51 AM
>> Subject: Re: [OM] On the subject of Photoshop Police
>>
>>
>>
>> We now have XP Professional on our network machines at work, Jim, and
> it's the least > unhappy that I've been Winders so far (starting with
> Winders 1 in the 1980s at > MacDill AFB).
>>
>> Chris
>>
>> On 9 Dec 2011, at 02:53, Jim Nichols wrote:
>>
>>
>> I'm just happy that I'm still getting updates for XP. I see no reason to
> go to > another version of Windows until the computer goes belly-up and
> I have to
>> buy a new  one with a new system already installed.
>>
>>
>> --
>> _________________________________________________________________
>> Options: http://lists.thomasclausen.net/mailman/listinfo/olympus
>> Archives: http://lists.thomasclausen.net/mailman/private/olympus/
>> Themed Olympus Photo Exhibition: http://www.tope.nl/
>>
>
>
> -- 
> _________________________________________________________________
> Options: http://lists.thomasclausen.net/mailman/listinfo/olympus
> Archives: http://lists.thomasclausen.net/mailman/private/olympus/
> Themed Olympus Photo Exhibition: http://www.tope.nl/
>
> 


-- 
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Themed Olympus Photo Exhibition: http://www.tope.nl/

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