In article <[log in to unmask]>,
Geiser, Joe <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>Michael (and others)
>
>I first used the 2000 in Junior High as well...and when I got to high =
>school, we had a full computer club, if you will.  Before we got our =
>3000, we had accounts with some local college's timesharing systems =
>(CDC6400, PDP8, etc.) for other languages such as COBOL and FORTRAN.
>
>One of the things we did with the 2000 was a fundraiser for the computer =
>club.  We wrote a computer dating program (popular back then) - sold the =
>questionaires for $.50 a pop, keyed all the data in on teletypes during =
>lunch periods, and placed results in homeroom roll books.
>
>I don't know if any lasting relationships were created, but we pulled in =
>quite a bit of cash, which was promptly spent on an Altair 8800 :-)
>
>Damn - I AM getting old - but those memories are great.  (and I won;t =
>tell you what went on in the closet where paper was stored - we could =
>get suspended for that!  :-)
>
>Joe Geiser
 
Same here, my high school, St. Louis University High, a Jesuit school, was
given an HP2000, and my sophomore year we picked up a DEC, which I forget
the system numbers of> (probably a PDP 8) I liked the HP much more than the
DEC, anyway, because it had a really nice BASIC interpreter as the
shell. Learned how to program BASIC and Fortran on that beastie, by pissing
off seniors, leaning over their shoulders and asking "What does that do?"
 
A couple years after my senior year the machine was shut down and gotten rid
of. <sigh> Spent many an hour playing Star Trek on that, and messing with
the old MicroTerms - learned how, using a few magnets, to rotate the screen
so the text would rotate on a vertical axis, so it would print backwards on
screen. Of course, the next guy to use it was hosed unless he knew where the
magnets were hidden, and then degaussed it. ;-)  Father Keating used to hate
that.
 
Of course, now I don't work on any mini's or big iron, but I have friends at
HP who's jobs are based on programming the 3K, so I read the list, and
remember the 2K.
 
 
Rich
--
--
Richard Frueh                                   [log in to unmask]
Assistant Computer Manager                      [log in to unmask]
School of Education, Stanford University        (415) 723-9255