[Elecraft] Computers in the Stone Age

[Gerry Hull]

Definitely OT, but interesting!

No, MS-DOS (Microsoft) did not run on the Apple II.  DOS ("Disk Operating
System") did...

See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_DOS

to refresh your memory...

I had the Apple 1 (PC Board & keyboard), An Altair 8800 (with a teletype
for I/O), and
a 1st-gen IBM PC when they came out (about $5500 as I recall, with all the
bells and whistles.)

We have come a long way, baby!

73, Gerry W1VE


Gerry Hull, W1VE   | Nelson, NH USA | +1-617-CW-SPARK
AKA: VE1RM | VY2CDX | VO1CDX | 6Y6C | 8P9RM
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     <http://www.twitter.com/w1ve>


On Wed, May 28, 2014 at 12:52 PM, Dauer, Edward <edauer at law.du.edu> wrote:

> One of the interesting pieces of that history, from a retail consumer
> user's (layman's) point of view, is that the Apple II (I owned a II+ in
> the late 1970s) used MS-DOS as its operating system before Apple developed
> its own.  As I recall, the OS was not resident in the early hardware - to
> use it you first loaded DOS in through a 5" floppy, then used another 5"
> floppy for data.  (My memory is imperfect, but I believe that was
> correct.)  The original IBM PC also had 5" floppy drives.  One was for the
> App (such as WordStar) and the other for the data files.  The 3" disk was
> a much later development, and a great leap forward.  The IBM PC, which I
> bought in 1982 plus or minus a couple of years, cost me $5,000 in the
> dollars of the day.
>
>
> The most significant development, which some folks today don't remember or
> never knew, is that e-mail and the Internet began as separate systems.
> E-mail used ordinary phone lines in its earliest days.  I remember well
> sitting in airport boarding lounges with a set of alligator clips and a
> screwdriver which I used to remove the cap from the modular telephone
> jacks so I could dial up other members of our e-mail network.  I don't
> recall the year, but I do remember that when e-mail was merged with the
> Internet the whole world changed.
>
> The idea of controlling my radio equipment with my computer in the 70s
> never occurred to me . . . .
>
> Do I have that history right?
>
> Ted, KN1CBR
>
>
> >
> >Message: 3
> >Date: Wed, 28 May 2014 06:39:23 -0500
> >From: Jim Rogers <jim.w4atk at gmail.com>
> >To: don at w3fpr.com, elecraft at mailman.qth.net
> >Subject: Re: [Elecraft] Elecraft's linux utilities - somewhat OT, or
> >       maybe not
> >Message-ID: <5385CAEB.8020607 at gmail.com>
> >Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed
> >
> >Actually Don, the Apple II preceded the IBM PC and had a very strong
> >following. As the owner of a consulting firm that placed some Apple IIs
> >doing some difficult, at that time, interfacing to main frames we
> >welcomed the appearance of the IBM PC when it came on the scene. We had
> >the second IBM PC in Birmingham and after a couple of days of evaluation
> >recompiled our software and the rest was history.
> >
> >73s Jim, W4ATK
> >On 5/27/2014 9:31 PM, Don Wilhelm wrote:
> >> And those computers Tom Watson was speaking of took a large controlled
> >> environment room just for the various pieces.  It was certainly not a
> >> desktop computer.
> >> Desktop computers did not come into being until the advent of the IBM
> >> PC in the 1980s.  I bought my daughter a new IBM PC with 2 floppy
> >> drives and 64k of ram for her to use in her college classes. It was
> >> later upgraded with a 5 MB hard drive which replaced one of the floppy
> >> drives (3.5 inch floppys).
> >>
> >> We have come a long way since that time.  That system cost $2500 at
> >> the time, now I can buy a computer with a LOT more capability for less
> >> than $300.
> >>
> >> 73,
> >> Don W3FPR
> >>
> >> On 5/27/2014 9:43 PM, Fred Jensen wrote:
> >>> At sometime in the 50's, the President of IBM is alleged to have
> >>> said, "The worldwide market for computers is probably about twelve."
> >>> Apparently he didn't know Doug.
> >>>
> >>> 73,
> >>>
> >>> Fred K6DGW
> >>> - Northern California Contest Club
> >>> - CU in the 2014 Cal QSO Party 4-5 Oct 2014
> >>> - www.cqp.org
> >>>
> >>> On 5/27/2014 1:29 PM, Doug Person via Elecraft wrote:
> >>>
> >>>> I probably have 15 working computers.
> >>>
> >>
>
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