Author Topic: Outdated Computer Terms (Read 174765 times)

VK3DRB · « **on:** December 23, 2013, 03:14:32 am »

How you you define an outdated computer term? When IT or electronics people have never heard of it.

Examples:
"Why don't you look it up on the Information Superhighway?"
"You got a spare clone I can borrow?"
"Is it IBM compatible?"

Other terms we don't hear much of any more...

Microcomputer
Stringy floppy (How many of you have ever heard of one of those? I owned one in 1979!)
SMT (now called SMD)
Microprocessor
Bubble memory
Hard drive
Diskette
QWERTY keyboard
WYSIWYG

Any more you can think of?

c4757p · « **Reply #1 on:** December 23, 2013, 03:17:28 am »

Quote from: VK3DRB on December 23, 2013, 03:14:32 am

Other terms we don't hear much of any more...

SMT (now called SMD)
Microprocessor
Hard drive
QWERTY keyboard
WYSIWYG

Who is this "we" of whom you speak?

GreyWoolfe · « **Reply #2 on:** December 23, 2013, 03:24:58 am »

MFM hard drives
SRAM
Double Space (software)
math co processor
Pentium II Slot 1 module

Kohanbash · « **Reply #3 on:** December 23, 2013, 03:25:19 am »

I think you would base it on the general public and not on professionals.

I consider vacuum tubes to be outdated and obsolete. However I am sure there are still people (audiophobes, etc..) out there who use them in their daily life.

Just my opinion.

johnh · « **Reply #4 on:** December 23, 2013, 03:28:16 am »

Paper Tape
Magnetic Drum
Core Memory
Magnetic Tape storage with Vacuum column (bastard to clean, and a column filled with tape or snapped when the sensor bulb failed)

c4757p · « **Reply #5 on:** December 23, 2013, 03:29:38 am »

Quote from: johnh on December 23, 2013, 03:28:16 am

Core Memory

Interestingly, the term "core dump" is still around.

GreyWoolfe · « **Reply #6 on:** December 23, 2013, 03:32:51 am »

How about the old IBM card punch and verifier machines. I used them back in high school and in a summer course at the local state college between junior and senior years of H.S. when they were trying to teach me Cobol. Boy, did I come to hate the term "syntax error".

MatCat · « **Reply #7 on:** December 23, 2013, 03:33:54 am »

Doubled Sided, Double Density

BravoV · « **Reply #8 on:** December 23, 2013, 04:35:04 am »

Unerase or Undelete

TheBorg · « **Reply #9 on:** December 23, 2013, 04:40:20 am »

Quote from: GreyWoolfe on December 23, 2013, 03:24:58 am

Pentium II Slot 1 module

Hehe... I've got one of these!

WYSIWYG is acutally still used in web design a lot, but not so much in IT stuff now... Is it bad if I've never actually heard most of these terms before? Haha, I can understand most of them but being a young whippersnapper I don't quite understand all of them.

ZIP drives!

warp_foo · « **Reply #10 on:** December 23, 2013, 05:01:06 am »

Sadly: Sun Microsystems

SeanB · « **Reply #11 on:** December 23, 2013, 05:05:12 am »

Let me see........

Arcnet
Token ring
1200/75 BAUD modem
DRDOS
Northstar Horizon
Plextor
Maxtor

nanofrog · « **Reply #12 on:** December 23, 2013, 05:08:13 am »

RLL (related to MFM)
ESDI (competition to SCSI)

don.r · « **Reply #13 on:** December 23, 2013, 05:10:44 am »

Dialup
Acoustic coupler
Monochrome
VT100
Hercules graphics card

VK3DRB · « **Reply #14 on:** December 23, 2013, 05:14:29 am »

Quote from: GreyWoolfe on December 23, 2013, 03:32:51 am

How about the old IBM card punch and verifier machines. I used them back in high school and in a summer course at the local state college between junior and senior years of H.S. when they were trying to teach me Cobol. Boy, did I come to hate the term "syntax error".

"Syntax error" was one term. The other was "Illegal input".

My first job out of uni was fixing IBM card punches and verifiers in Melbourne (models 024, 029, 129, 059). We nicknamed them Crunches and Terrifiers. I also worked on 1940's and 1950's electromechanical punch card processing machines (082, 083, 557, 517 etc) containing an array of vacuum tubes (valves), relays, gears and cams. We nicknamed them "old iron". I loved debugging that old stuff. Today, I now design circuitry and write firmware for medical equipment. I was lucky to have been born at a time to have experienced from the whole gamut from valves to now.

VK3DRB · « **Reply #15 on:** December 23, 2013, 05:17:18 am »

Quote from: sdk32285 on December 23, 2013, 03:25:19 am

I think you would base it on the general public and not on professionals.

I consider vacuum tubes to be outdated and obsolete. However I am sure there are still people (audiophobes, etc..) out there who use them in their daily life.

Just my opinion.

You microwave oven has a vacuum tube (valve) in it. Still very much in vogue, although you aren't going to be a chick magnet at a party explaining how a valve works.

VK3DRB · « **Reply #16 on:** December 23, 2013, 05:20:35 am »

Quote from: SeanB on December 23, 2013, 05:05:12 am

Let me see........

Arcnet
Token ring
1200/75 BAUD modem
DRDOS
Northstar Horizon
Plextor
Maxtor

DRDOS = Digital Research DOS. It annoyed me to no end when computer store people people called it "Doctor DOS".

RRobot · « **Reply #17 on:** December 23, 2013, 06:03:27 am »

config.sys
autoexec.bat
himem
ega
cga
ems memory
turbo button

amyk · « **Reply #18 on:** December 23, 2013, 06:13:03 am »

Quote from: RRobot on December 23, 2013, 06:03:27 am

turbo button

It's reappeared on the latest "gamer overclocking" motherboards, where it still changes the CPU frequency.

PedroDaGr8 · « **Reply #19 on:** December 23, 2013, 06:13:08 am »

ISA
Cylinders (when manually configuring a hard drive)
Plug and play
IRQ (and the related conflict)

Sent from my EVO using Tapatalk

AG6QR · « **Reply #20 on:** December 23, 2013, 06:19:15 am »

VT220

4014

3270

ABEND

Machine room

Disk pack

westfw · « **Reply #21 on:** December 23, 2013, 06:20:40 am »

DEC, Honeywell, Univac, Data General, Control Data Corp, Cray. Terminal.
ThinNet, FDDI, PUP, XNS, ChaosNet, LocalTalk, 1822, IMP, TIP, Pluribus, ISDN...
ISA, VESA, EISA, S100, Multibus, MCA ...
Really, there's too much.

TerraHertz · « **Reply #22 on:** December 23, 2013, 06:21:26 am »

Winchester
Octal
thick ethernet
ethernet cable tap
AUI
MAU
HP-HIL
UV-eraser
Sneaker-net
EMM386 and HIMEM

BravoV · « **Reply #23 on:** December 23, 2013, 06:23:42 am »

When it comes ancient transfer protocols like XModem, YModem, ZModem and etc, there is a special one (guess which) that always reminds me of this ...

Code: [Select]

        __
     (+)  (+)                     
    /        \  
    \  -==-  / 
     \      / 
    </\/\/\/\> 
    /        \

VK3DRB · « **Reply #24 on:** December 23, 2013, 06:31:29 am »

Quote from: westfw on December 23, 2013, 06:20:40 am

DEC, Honeywell, Univac, Data General, Control Data Corp, Cray. Terminal.
ThinNet, FDDI, PUP, XNS, ChaosNet, LocalTalk, 1822, IMP, TIP, Pluribus, ISDN...
ISA, VESA, EISA, S100, Multibus, MCA ...
Really, there's too much.

PDP11... a brilliant machine for its day.
Fujitsu
Prime Computer (Remember the robot in the ad?)
Dick Smith System 80 (Dick's dodgy machine)
Kaypro
Hitech
Computerland
Wang Computers
Websters Computers
IBM Series/1


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Author Topic: Outdated Computer Terms (Read 174765 times)

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