Technorama Ep 431 : Ohm On the Range

Coming up in this episode…

Jurassic Legos
Self-help books
Space Beer

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First computer experience

In 1968, my aunt gave me a book that described the instruction set of the IBM 1620 computer. She is/was a programmer. I was a senior in high school. I read it, and was ready to program an application. But I wasn’t inventive enough to come up with an application on my own. But, I did get to work on a 1620 about 4 years later, during my engineering co-op job. I got to use Fortran, I didn’t need the instruction set.

Before my hands-on 1620 experience, in 1969 in engineering school, I wrote programs on a CDC Star and a Burroughs, using punched cards. But once I found the ASR 33 Teletype in the engineering school, I stopped using the punched cards.

Leon.

(DragonCon ceiling fall)

First pirating

MadMarv: Technically, I think I pirated were music CDs using cassette tapes probably back in the late 80’s early 90’s. I don’t even remember which CDs I copied. I think this was before my family got its first computer. In college I collected the usual crap ton of nothing important. I’m wondering if I still have some of that stuff on old backups. I know I kept folders of stuff from those days just because it doesn’t take up much disk space by today’s standards. But i’m not sure if I can find any of it now.

Update, found the stuff. And I can’t play the midi files. Damn you VLC. Well Quicktime plays it. Ugh.

On This Day In History for March 25, 2015

This is the 84th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. There are 281 days remaining in 2015.

It was on this date in 421 that Venice is founded at twelve o’clock noon, according to legend.
March 25, 1634, the first settlers arrive in Maryland.
It was 208 years ago today that the Swansea and Mumbles Railway, then known as the Oystermouth Railway, becomes the first passenger carrying railway in the world.
The first successful tornado forecast predicts that a tornado will strike Tinker Air Force Base, Oklahoma 67 years ago today.
57 years ago today, Canada’s Avro Arrow makes its first flight.
Civil rights activists led by Martin Luther King, Jr. successfully complete their 4-day 50-mile march from Selma to the capitol in Montgomery, Alabama 50 years ago today.
36 years ago today, the first fully functional space shuttle orbiter, Columbia, is delivered to the John F. Kennedy Space Center to be prepared for its first launch.
Cosmonaut Sergei Krikalev returns to Earth after a 10-month stay aboard the Mir space station on this date in 1992.
It was 20 years ago today that WikiWikiWeb, the world’s first wiki, and part of the Portland Pattern Repository, is made public by Ward Cunningham.

Happy birthday goes out on this date to:

Christopher Clavius, German mathematician and astronomer born on this date in 1539.
Also born on this date in 1867 the man who designed and sculpted Mount Rushmore, Gutzon Borglum.
Journalist and sportscaster Howard Cosell was born today in 1918.
1928 – Jim Lovell, American captain, pilot, and astronaut
1943 – Paul Michael Glaser, American actor and director

And that’s the way it was, on this day in history for March 25, 2015

March 25 is also Tolkien Reading Day: Commemorating the (fictional) anniversary of the Fall of Sauron, Tolkien Reading Day is one of two major geek holidays dedicated to partaking of the Middle Earth imaginings of one J. R. R. Tolkien. And no, watching the movie and TV adaptations doesn’t count. Crack a book, you orc!

News

Listener Birthday Calendar

25 – Nicholas St. Gabriel
26 – Chuck Tomasi
26 – Chuck’s nephew Travis Tomasi (nerd in training)
26 – Brina Baird in Hampton, VA
28 – Richard Balding (Chuck’s first computer teacher.)
28 – Steve Murawski
29 – Ranger Marc Blackburn
30 – Tony Mast
If you want to get on the Technorama Birthday Calendar, visit our Wiki.

Hacks & Strange Stories

The catfish that was named after a Star Wars character

Shout out to the chat room

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