Does it come in a portable?

[Ron Whitfield]

http://www.ominous-valve.com/images/1954_c64.jpg

This was in a 1954 issue of Popular Mechanics.

[Kaonohi]

Re: Does it come in a portable?

No matter what I do, the picture will not display.

Now I'm curious - what is it?

[tutusue]

Re: Does it come in a portable?

I don't see an image either.

[Ron Whitfield]

Re: Does it come in a portable?

It came up in the preview and first viewing and now it won't.
I've asked helen for help but if I can't get it to show I've asked that the thread be deleted.
Sorry, I thot it was pretty neat.

[tutusue]

Re: Does it come in a portable?

Ron...that URL leads to a blank web page. That said, maybe if you'd just copied and pasted the URL into the message rather than tagging it as an image, then we could've clicked on the link. Moot point now, tho'. Guess that web site removed the picture.

[Ron Whitfield]

Trying again...

http://www.ominous-valve.com/home1954.html

...better than nothing.

[Kaonohi]

Re: Trying again...

Thanks much Ron; nothing grates me more than suspense.

Actually (minus the TTY and funny 1954 man), it looks a lot like my teenager's Wii, complete with myriad attachments, but minus the light gun.
(And did you notice the feathers attached to the back of his head? Crow, I would think - the tribe, not the bird! Still warring against the palefaces....)

Funny how predictions sometimes come true....

K-den

[Ron Whitfield]

Re: Does it come in a portable?

I like the big wheel, must be for a really hard drive...

[Frankie's Market]

Re: Trying again...

http://www.ominous-valve.com/home1954.html

...better than nothing.

Awww, Ron. You shoulda' just posted the pic from that website, like so.

http://www.ominous-valve.com/images/1954_c64.jpg

Call it a 1954 prototype of a home computer, or whatever you had in mind. And then see how long it would take for the denizens of HT to catch on to the hoax.

[Ron Whitfield]

Re: Does it come in a portable?

I wanted up the larger pic I have, it made it seem more impressive, but even the pic you got up wouldn't take. Just one of those mean ol' computer day's...

[craigwatanabe]

Re: Does it come in a portable?

I used to work on a computer in the Air Force called Cenpac. It utilized core-memory. Remember that? One of my tedious jobs was to thread the ferrite cores and link them together. Each core represented one bit of information. It takes 8-bits to make a modern byte. Back then we were working with 25-bits to make one byte or word. Hexadecimal or machine language back then. The computer was about the size of two good Sub-Zero refrigerators and it's I/O was a 300-baud TTY and a punch-tape reader to input the bootstrap and executive programs, now called Boot and EXE. Storage of data was kept on Ampex vaccum chamber tape drives and believe it or not Verbatim was the best tapes to use back then.

The power of this computer was about as good as a modern scientific calculator of the 80's vintage. By comparison today's netbook is many times more powerful as CENPAC and hundreds of thousands of dollars cheaper too.

[Ron Whitfield]

Re: Does it come in a portable?

The last time I was in LA, 1980, a good friend had become the head of the computer division at Warner Bros., and we stopped by his office on a weekend day. He ran two large floors full of brains churning out data. I guess my laptop does better now, eh?
While he did stuff I was free to roam the studio's back lots, full of historic/memorable movie/TV towns/backdrops and get into restricted areas. It was a ghost town.

[StinkyTheGrump]

Re: Does it come in a portable?

I used to work on a computer in the Air Force called Cenpac.

Wow, that is really interesting. Thanks for sharing!