Outdated Computer Terms

[Bored@Work]

ethernet cable tap

Back in style in the form of electronic boxes, not metal spikes you screw into the cable. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Network_tap

EMM386 and HIMEM

Ahhhh, the pain  make it go away! This incredible bullshit is the reason why people like me hate Microsoft with such a vengeance. A semi-criminal organization with absolute incompetent programmers that forced this steaming pile of shit on us. And they have the galls to ad insult to injury by calling every release the best thing ever. And all this when there was already much better technology away, but since they illegally stiffed the competition it never saw widespread use. Microsoft is the reason for at least 20 to 30 years of delayed progress in computing. Fucking bastards.

[VK3DRB]

ethernet cable tap

Back in style in the form of electronic boxes, not metal spikes you screw into the cable. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Network_tap

EMM386 and HIMEM

Ahhhh, the pain  make it go away! This incredible bullshit is the reason why people like me hate Microsoft with such a vengeance..

Worst still was IBM choosing Intel's segmented addressed 8086 architecture over the superior Motorola 68000 architecture. Caused problems to no end but changed the world. Which reminds me...

  Real Mode and Protected Mode

[VK3DRB]

Can't help myself...

BURNPROOF (CDROM drive without the Buffer Underrun Errors)

Disk notcher (Turned a single side diskette into double sided at no extra cost.) Whoohoo!

[GK]

Peek and Poke.

[free_electron]

Rll drive, winchester drive
Parity error

[BravoV]

Heads Parking or Disk Parking ? 

[mrflibble]

Sadly: Sun Microsystems

Luckily: SCO

[Kremmen]

Oh i think it is all recorded in here: http://www.catb.org/~esr/jargon/. Brings back memories...

[TerraHertz]

EMM386 and HIMEM

Ahhhh, the pain  make it go away! This incredible bullshit is the reason why people like me hate Microsoft with such a vengeance. A semi-criminal organization with absolute incompetent programmers that forced this steaming pile of shit on us. And they have the galls to ad insult to injury by calling every release the best thing ever. And all this when there was already much better technology away, but since they illegally stiffed the competition it never saw widespread use. Microsoft is the reason for at least 20 to 30 years of delayed progress in computing. Fucking bastards.

Wow, we must be twins, separated at birth.
I used to have a 'Smash MS' section on my site, and plan to include an updated one in the new site. Just one tiny example, from my http://everist.org/NobLog/20130904_Retarded_ideas_in_comp_sci.htm

Microsoft: "Let's put all categories of configuration and state information for everything in the Windows OS, GUI and user applications, all mixed together in one giant central database. But with most of it undocumented. Oh, and we'll break it into arbitrary parts, give them ridiculous names, keep the only current version in memory, make sure there's no easy way to save and restore it as a simple, single compact file, and provide a really crap utility to search/edit/debug it. We'll make the data structures it contains arcane and poorly documented, all the better to hide things (like our deliberate 'look and feel' UI cripples - icon position data, cough.) By obfuscation we'll ensure it always grows ever larger and cruftier over time. Essential linkages will be inscrutable numeric CLSIDs, rather than containing any human-comprehensible descriptive text. The mixing of OS and user-app config data will make your working environment of installed software tools totally uncloneable, thus forcing you to frequently waste hours and days rebuilding it all. The operating system and most applications will critically depend on it, which will make it a central point of failure able to take down a whole machine via the slightest corruption. If that should by unlikely chance ever happen, bwahahaha! Not that we insist you regularly buy a new PC and OS or anything!
 We'll call it The Windows Registry."

Who else dreams of the day when 'Windows Registry' is also an outdated and forgotten phrase?

[FJV]

The disk notcher. 

[nitro2k01]

QWERTY keyboard

Obviously, QWERTY keyboards are everywhere, but not everyone is acutely aware of the term. At one point, I mentioned the term (in a chat) to someone less technically inclined, and he asked what it was. I then asked him to retype "QWERTY", after which he went OH!

[carpelux]

1790-Disk 0 Error

GEM

[JoannaK]

QWERTY keyboard

Obviously, QWERTY keyboards are everywhere, but not everyone is acutely aware of the term. At one point, I mentioned the term (in a chat) to someone less technically inclined, and he asked what it was. I then asked him to retype "QWERTY", after which he went OH!

This is one of those that *should* be abandoned like 100 years ago.. But unfortunately.. here we are.. even with class display smartphones we still have Qwerty layout by default.

[GreyWoolfe]

Thanks for reminding me, SeanB.  I still have a copy of IBM DOS 7.0 on floppy with manual.  Ya never know when you might need it   And if we are going to name OS,

Windows 3.0
Windows 3.1
Windows 3.11 for Workgroups.
MCDEX drivers
Tandy TR(trash) 80

[GreyWoolfe]

Pedro, if you're going to mention IRQ, you can't forget DMA.

[Corporate666]

Any of you guys (and gals) remember computer shows?  They were these flea market type deals where vendors would set up tables with all sorts of stuff and prices would be haggled mercilessly.  They always advertised them on the radio like "SUNDAY! SUNDAY! SUNDAY!  Sony walkmen for FIVE BUCKS, 286 computer motherboards for TWENTY BUCKS, a pack of one thousand diskettes, TEN BUCKS!  ONLY SUNDAY". 

I remember buying my first color monitor there (EGA baby!) along with a graphics card to run it.  And I remember buying some extra memory for my top of the line 80286 computer - it was literally a package of DIP memory chips that were inserted into the motherboard.

Here's another blast from the past - remember math coprocessors? ))

[BillyD]

lsl
ipxodi
3c509
netx

edlin
Netware
Pathworks ( )

[firehopper]

lantastic, twinax cable, 10baset, vbbs, wvbbs, quantumlink, fidonet, 640k ram, ansi

[GreyWoolfe]

Corporate, not only do I remember them, I've been to them.  Yes, the Woolworth's of the computer world.

[baljemmett]

lsl
ipxodi
3c509
netx

Nah, that won't work -- IPXODI has to load after the MLID otherwise it'll complain there's no board to bind to   (Mind you, I always preferred VLMs to NETX, although Client32 for DOS did away with those and loaded NLMs instead!  )

[AlfBaz]

Peek and Poke.

How about LOAD "*",8,1 and then going off to toast a sandwich, make a cuppa etc...

[manzini]

- winchester disk drive
- firewire/1394
- Pet.Sys  legend on keyboards.
- Azimuth adjustement

[Tepe]

How about LOAD "*",8,1 and then going off to toast a sandwich, make a cuppa etc...

Ah, the 1541, the slowest disk drive in the known universe.

[deephaven]

ASR33
EBCDIC
LDAA
TSR

[Cdngreybeard]

Anybody remember teletypes? 
How about when CPM and DOS were packaged together and you had your choice of OS? 
Supercalc, now that was a spreadsheet?
Wordstar, the original WP and we still use some of their shortcuts today -- Carl A, Ctrl C, Ctrl V
Variable speed floppy drives to increase density
Victor desktop computers
Canon desktop computers
Tektronix desktop computers -- remember the original Battlestar Galactica movie?

I could reminisce for hours :-)