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Thread: The Classic OS Thread

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    Talking The Classic OS Thread

    This is the place for all those who have fond memories of RiscOS, GEM (Atari or Amstrad) and the like...None of your new fangled Windows here, thanks!

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    Ahh, the days of Atari Gem and TOS (which always made me giggle ). Hmmm...

    The monochrome monitors, the lack of hard disk, the funky platform games, the slow-as-hell brick-like mouse. The Huge F keys. Bliss.

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    Oh yeah, I remember using GEM on the Amstrad, the cool way the mouse pointer would occasionally stick for ages because the mouse didn't have it's own interrupt line... The black & White graphics the... er, okay

    Seriously, I loved the Amiga Workbench. I really liked the way when you looked at file creation/editing times it would say things like "Today 1:15pm" or "Yesterday 12:20pm", I always thought that was a nice touch.

    The built in speech synthiser was pretty cool as well. You could get the computer to "read" any document. Oh, yeah and they had hte on-screen keyboard, so that you didn't have to plug a keyboard into the machine (this really only came in usefull for me once or twice, but it was nice to have).

    Oh yeah, and the ability to have multiple desktops at different resolutions and drag them over the top of each other.

    As for programming, I think that it will be a long time before anyone beats the BBC or Amstrad CPC dialects of Basic. I used to teach programming at night class on these machines and they were a great way of introducing people to programming before getting into C. It was a nightmare trying to teach people C as a first programming language.

    Oh, the good old days.

    (Of course I'm under no-illusions about the short-comings of all these machines as well!!!)

    SD
    "I'd rather have a full bottle in front of me than a full frontal lobotomy!"

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    Addicted Member Active's Avatar
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    In retrospect, I cherish the days when I used the abacus...
    the punched card computer and the ENIAC.
    If you can't beat your computer at chess, try kickboxing !!!
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    Hyperactive Member barrk's Avatar
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    Originally posted by Active
    In retrospect, I cherish the days when I used the abacus...
    the punched card computer and the ENIAC.
    Wow..you're lucky! When I was a kid I didn't even have a real abacus...I used mammoth teeth with a stick through them...it was great! All you had to do is send the men out to catch the mammoth, pull his teeth, bore a hole through each tooth and slide them onto the stick! In a matter of months you had a perfectly good abacus...I suppose you bought yours in the store didn't you?

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    Originally posted by Active
    In retrospect, I cherish the days when I used the abacus...
    the punched card computer and the ENIAC.
    Sheer luxury, I would have dreamed about having an abacus (except they hadn't been invented then) when I were a lad.

    We used to sit outside our cave, trying to count using rocks, (but we hadn't invented numbers yet - so this caused us some problems) and the great big black obelisk kept interrupting with suggestions as we pranced around it clubbing each other with animal bones.

    Can any of you old-timers beat that?

    SD
    "I'd rather have a full bottle in front of me than a full frontal lobotomy!"

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    Originally posted by barrk


    Wow..you're lucky! When I was a kid I didn't even have a real abacus...I used mammoth teeth with a stick through them...it was great! All you had to do is send the men out to catch the mammoth, pull his teeth, bore a hole through each tooth and slide them onto the stick! In a matter of months you had a perfectly good abacus...I suppose you bought yours in the store didn't you?
    I don't believe it, we had exactly the same idea for a reply. I don't know who thats more worrying for, you or me????

    SD
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    Mind you, my answer works for your post as well.

    SD
    "I'd rather have a full bottle in front of me than a full frontal lobotomy!"

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    Hyperactive Member barrk's Avatar
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    I think that means we both need to go home and have a drink...or several and contemplate the meaning of this strange occurence!!!!!

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    I couldn't agree more.

    SD
    "I'd rather have a full bottle in front of me than a full frontal lobotomy!"

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    Monday Morning Lunatic parksie's Avatar
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    Give me Arthur any day
    I refuse to tie my hands behind my back and hear somebody say "Bend Over, Boy, Because You Have It Coming To You".
    -- Linus Torvalds

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    Originally posted by parksie
    Give me Arthur any day
    Won't Joseph get jealous though?
    "I'd rather have a full bottle in front of me than a full frontal lobotomy!"

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    Monday Morning Lunatic parksie's Avatar
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    He shouldn't do Although I really wanted Phoebe
    I refuse to tie my hands behind my back and hear somebody say "Bend Over, Boy, Because You Have It Coming To You".
    -- Linus Torvalds

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    Hyperactive Member barrk's Avatar
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    arthur and pheobe???

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    Monday Morning Lunatic parksie's Avatar
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    Arthur was the proto-RISC OS. Phoebe was supposed to be Acorn's new computer, but it never made it past prototype.
    I refuse to tie my hands behind my back and hear somebody say "Bend Over, Boy, Because You Have It Coming To You".
    -- Linus Torvalds

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    Was Arthur the name of the Archemedies OS? I only used it a couple of times (in college) but it was pretty kick-ass.

    SD
    "I'd rather have a full bottle in front of me than a full frontal lobotomy!"

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    Monday Morning Lunatic parksie's Avatar
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    No. The Archimedes originally came with RISC OS 2 (had an A in the bottom-right), but could be upgraded to RISC OS 3 when it came out (had an acorn in the bottom-right). Arthur was the first version of RISC OS. It looked very similar...but don't have a screenshot though
    I refuse to tie my hands behind my back and hear somebody say "Bend Over, Boy, Because You Have It Coming To You".
    -- Linus Torvalds

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    Monday Morning Lunatic parksie's Avatar
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    At least...I think some of the very early models came with Arthur, but not for long
    I refuse to tie my hands behind my back and hear somebody say "Bend Over, Boy, Because You Have It Coming To You".
    -- Linus Torvalds

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    Cool. I always thought it was a shame it didn't catch on. Between it and the Amiga they were streets ahead of computers for the next 6 to 7 years to come.

    SD
    "I'd rather have a full bottle in front of me than a full frontal lobotomy!"

  20. #20
    Monday Morning Lunatic parksie's Avatar
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    Acorn did very well for themselves in the educational market -- primary schools are still using BBCs for lots of things, because they've been doing what's needed for many years.

    I still use my A310 quite a bit as well (although it's had some hefty upgrades: RO3, 4mb ram, 250mb IDE HD, MIDI interface)
    I refuse to tie my hands behind my back and hear somebody say "Bend Over, Boy, Because You Have It Coming To You".
    -- Linus Torvalds

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    Yeah, I used to have quite a few Amiga's before I immigrated. Gave them all away. I had upgraded one to a 68030 proc 8mb Ram and 120mb Hard-drive with NEC multi-sync monitor, but it was getting to the stage where I could run an emulator on the p.c. just as fast.

    It a pity both of them didn't keep making the technology leaps. The Archimedies RISC processor combined with the multi-processor architecture of the Amiga would have made quite an impressive machine. It was also amazing how fast the os's worked considering the relatively (by todays standards) low processing power. What is windows doing when it takes a few seconds to open Windows Explorer?

    SD
    "I'd rather have a full bottle in front of me than a full frontal lobotomy!"

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    Monday Morning Lunatic parksie's Avatar
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    And I have to say that RISC OS does look very nice (especially with NewLook). The fact that it was totally customisable even with shaded window backgrounds! Lovely
    I refuse to tie my hands behind my back and hear somebody say "Bend Over, Boy, Because You Have It Coming To You".
    -- Linus Torvalds

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    Yeah, and what I remember of it, it was lightning fast. There was no doubt as to whether you had clicked something as new windows appeared instantly. They both also had ridiculously high resolutiuons when the p.c. was still struggling along with VGA (640x480x 16 colours) (or EGA or CGA - 640x480 in black and white).

    SD
    "I'd rather have a full bottle in front of me than a full frontal lobotomy!"

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    Monday Morning Lunatic parksie's Avatar
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    Yep. And how cool is being able to use TV-out? That rocked. Instant demo of your application -- scart cable and record it onto video! Wonderful stuff

    Mine tops out at 1280x1024 @ 256 colours. It's incredibly slow like that, but then again, it doesn't NEED loads of colours The interface was well designed around that.
    I refuse to tie my hands behind my back and hear somebody say "Bend Over, Boy, Because You Have It Coming To You".
    -- Linus Torvalds

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    Yeah, and the fuzziness introduced by the Telly made games look alot better. The first computer I had with a proper colour Monitor was an Amstrad CPC 6128 (which incidently my sister still uses for word processing). The monitor was great for programming (80 col screen), but games sucked on it because you could see how blocky the graphics where. Plug it into the telly and it looked 100 times better. Wierd, but there you go.

    SD
    "I'd rather have a full bottle in front of me than a full frontal lobotomy!"

  26. #26
    Jethro
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    Originally posted by SurfDemon


    Sheer luxury, I would have dreamed about having an abacus (except they hadn't been invented then) when I were a lad.

    We used to sit outside our cave, trying to count using rocks, (but we hadn't invented numbers yet - so this caused us some problems) and the great big black obelisk kept interrupting with suggestions as we pranced around it clubbing each other with animal bones.

    Can any of you old-timers beat that?

    SD
    You were lucky! We used to dream of a cave to sit outside of. Rocks, you had rocks, all l ever wanted for christmas was a rock. But did l get one, no!!!!!!!!!!!

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    Monday Morning Lunatic parksie's Avatar
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    Er...Jethro...what exactly is your avatar doing?
    I refuse to tie my hands behind my back and hear somebody say "Bend Over, Boy, Because You Have It Coming To You".
    -- Linus Torvalds

  28. #28
    Jethro
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    Originally posted by parksie
    Er...Jethro...what exactly is your avatar doing?

    Hmmm....the banjo hides it quite well don't ya think

  29. #29
    Monday Morning Lunatic parksie's Avatar
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    That's okay then
    I refuse to tie my hands behind my back and hear somebody say "Bend Over, Boy, Because You Have It Coming To You".
    -- Linus Torvalds

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    Originally posted by Jethro


    You were lucky! We used to dream of a cave to sit outside of. Rocks, you had rocks, all l ever wanted for christmas was a rock. But did l get one, no!!!!!!!!!!!
    Did I say Rocks? Sorry, I mean't to say, when I were a lad, the dust particles that make up earth had not yet congealed into a solid body, we were left just hanging there in space surrounded by gases (not mine) and our ears where still ringing from the big-bang. And you know, if you tell that to the kids of today they wouldn't believe you.



    SD
    "I'd rather have a full bottle in front of me than a full frontal lobotomy!"

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