History Lesson

Originally Posted by timwilky

I wonder do they still teach assembler to students?.

I did some work with the micro processor development council back in about 1981 linking these things upto a file sharing network using rf cabling and an early implimentation of ethernet. After I left I was informed that one of my rigs ended up in the science musuem as part of a exhibition on robotics.

Yup. They do in Ireland anyway. Pain in the rocks to mark the exams though.

Re the science museum exhibit... that is pretty outstanding in fairness. Nice one.

[Skip]

Originally Posted by DanDare

Who had one of these then???????

http://www.inthe80s.com/toys/bigtrak.shtml

I soooooo wanted one of those...!

I thought that this was going to be a thread on Charles I. He was executed by the Parliamentarians on 30 January 1649 after a kangaroo-court trial, so we have just had the 357th anniversary

The Regicides got their reward. Those who had signed the death warrant and who were still living at the Restoration (of his son, Charles II) in 1660 were rounded up and executed themselves.

Fascinating stuff, the English Civil War and its aftermath

[fizzwheel]

I had an Acorn Electron, I think its still in the loft at my parents house.

My School had a load of BBC's A's B's and Masters it was all linked up to an Econet network, ah happy days.

I remember IBM PS/2 ( the proper ones ) and DOS 3 ah those were the days..... some of my colleagues dont know about life before Windows

My first work PC was a Apricot 286 something or other, It had 16mb of ram and a 40mb HDD, It was at the time pretty much state of the art

Oh and Timwilky are you the Charles Babbage of the forum, getting that kit into the Science Museum is quite an achievment

[northwind]

Originally Posted by Sythree

were rounded up and executed themselves.

...therefore saving Charles II a fortune in executioners bills.

BTW, Rebelstar II and Lords of Midnight for the speccy are stil 2 of the greatest games ever made.

Old joke: What did Charles's executioner have for lunch? - He took a chop at the king's head.

[timwilky]

Originally Posted by fizzwheel

Oh and Timwilky are you the Charles Babbage of the forum, getting that kit into the Science Museum is quite an achievment

It was a "boilerhouse exhibit" whatever the boilerhouse is. My guess though is that it was so Heath Robinson nobody after I left new how to work it.

It was a test rig designed to test the durability of clutch systems on commercial vehicles so you had a truck clutch spinning by a hydraulic motor and a dyno behind to give load. you then have a hydraulic ram pressing the clutch pedal down. but as we all know the leg/foot does not operate in a single direction. You need 3 connected members to simulate the upper/lower leg and foot. foot and lower leg also have a compression spring between them as well as a pivot to represent the ankle.

ram pushed down on the upper leg.

What we then wanted to know was how clutch resistance changed over time. So I developed a one off 2 dimensional load cell by taking a tube and placing full bridges at 90 degrees to each other that way we could measure load in two planes. the "foot" plate bore against this load cell.

We then used the AIM65 to control the ram. measure load in the two planes and an LVDT to give us the arc the pedal was travelleing through.

I know geeky stuff. but back in the early 80s this was rocket science

[tigersaw]

We used to have a PDP8 with 4k core store sitting in the corner happily number crunching 24 hours a day working out runway visual ranges. It was replaced about 12 years ago with something pc based and far far more powerful. How we laughed whilst filling in the triple time plus mega callout claim forms when it fell over Jan 1st 2000....

Originally Posted by Skip

I soooooo wanted one of those...!

Me to, never got one 'cos we were poor.......
Never had a Evel Kneivel stunt cycle either

[Skip]

Originally Posted by tricky

Me to, never got one 'cos we were poor.......
Never had a Evel Kneivel stunt cycle either

Yup - pretty much the same reason here!

Always remember wanting a Tamiya radio controlled car, one of the ones you build yourself and my parents buying me the "Quickdrive" version that you didnt have to build, I was sooooooo gutted! Dont know what relevance that had, but hey!