Archive of the former Yahoo!Groups mailing list: Homebrew PCBs

Our system was pre CompuServe. It was a mainframe located at another aerospace contractor located several miles away.  I remember that the system monitor used a question mark for the prompt.  It was very frustrating.  You would type in a line of code, and instead of getting a result, you got back a question mark.  There were no error messages, and only a few system messages.  Once, one of the guys go so frustrated that he typed in HELP.  He didn't realize that that was a reserved word.  The teletype sprung to life in a manner not often seen.  The message that came back was- System operator notified... Help is on the way.  The cavalry did not, however, come up over the hillside.

 

I remember that back in high school. I believe it was through compuserve , which is now owned by AOL

 

From: Homebrew_PCBs@yahoogroups.com [mailto:Homebrew_PCBs@yahoogroups.com]
Sent: Monday, March 21, 2016 2:17 PM
To: Homebrew_PCBs@yahoogroups.com
Subject: Re: [Homebrew_PCBs] TV Typewriter: Custom G10 copper clad

 

 

On 3/21/2016 1:45 PM, Harvey Altstadter hrconsult@...
[Homebrew_PCBs] wrote:
>
> Aargh! You reminded me of my first encounter with the time sharing
> service that our company contracted with in the 70's. Dial up, 300
> baud, acoustic coupler. I/O was a KRS 33 Teletype. No operating
> system, just a Monitor. I am convinced that that situation caused
> many of our employees to be wary of the PCs when we finally got them.
> That time sharing system was so gruesome that it scared people away
> from wanting to use computers.
>
Hello--

Gruesome, indeed. One advisory message on our primitive 1970s-era
time-sharing system read, "Changes not saved. OK?"

73--

Brad AA1IP