#ibm cards

[thesobsister]

An absolute tell for a Boomer: familiarity with the phrase “Do not fold, spindle or mutilate.”

[techtimechronicles24]

🇺🇲 113 years ago, on June 16, 1911, the Computing-Tabulating-Recording Company (CTR) was formed by merging three smaller companies. Specializing in office products like punch card tabulators, CTR would later become known aslegendary International Business Machines (IBM) in 1924.

👉 This marked the beginning of a journey that would see IBM revolutionize the tech industry and become a global leader in computing.

[butts-bouncing-on-the-beltway]

Oh hey, look at that! Nokia still sells phones (including modern versions of the early flagship phones I love so much)! They've also expanded to smartphones and tablets over the years, and all the prices I'm seeing are insanely affordable compared to most other mobile tech brands.

So it turns out that when my current phone finally beeps it's last text tone, I really *can* just replace it with a basic old Nokia phone and a tidy lil tablet, and all for fractions of what I paid for the current one!

Now all I need to do is find the desktop computer version of Nokia as a company so I can finally replace my desktop for work.

[stone-cold-groove]

IBM 80 column punch card - circa 1966.

[retrocgads]

USA 1997

[dimalink]

Personal magic cards and dungeons and castles

Pixel art for today based on videogame Arcana for game console Super Nintendo. It is role playing game about dungeons. Maybe it is like dungeons and dragons. But with some style of Japanese drawing. And of course - fantasy. Game is something mystical plane, I think, according to title Arcana. And it is something like tarot cards it has. Maybe it is a very interesting adventure.

And this is my drawing about same theme. Owners of magic cards are often to go into the dungeons. Very depth dungeons and they are very far. They can stay there about several months. In a search of new magic cards and rare items. But danger is hidden in monsters which are crawling from darkness. Magic cards you find in dungeons gives you a right to be a magician. And you are set them on yourself. And nobody can take them from you. Problems is that to find them – it is not so easy.

And, also, there is a king’s game.  IT is about killing rare and dangerous monsters. For some of them there are even maps. What dungeons they are located, and what certain area of the dungeon. As a rule it is a rare monsters and big one. Octopus with lots of eyes. And he has a legs and arms. And he striking with poison. And fire everything with his eyes. For example.

And start your search for magic cards you can from walking into little dungeons and destroying lots of rats. Labyrinths can be different – small and big. And rats are appearing again and again. To destroy them all - it is absolutely impossible.

Owners of magic cards can exchange them for gold or receive some bonuses in cities. This magic has a personal character and cards are set up to their owners. But you can exchange them or set to someone else.

Sum of your personal magic cards gives you  - your magic level. And one day you can become even an owner of your own castle. When you will receive level 100. Behind a defense magic barrier and in a wild dangerous lands. But anyway -it is your own castle. But at this point your adventures do not to stop at all – and only begins.  Around your territory it will be lots of dungeons with monsters.

And also, you will be waiting for a king`s game second level. If you will be possible to complete a ten valuable tasks and destroy a phoenix dragon then you will receive a reward as a access to magic library of the kingdom. It fly in the air. Just to think, a flying castle in the air.

So, this or that, lots of those who wants to become and owner of a personal magic cards. And you are one of them. Today it is excellent day to try yourself in magic!

Dima Link is making retro videogames, apps, a little of music, write stories, and some retro more.

WEBSITE: http://www.dimalink.tv-games.ru/home_eng.html ITCHIO: https://dimalink.itch.io/ GAMEJOLT: https://gamejolt.com/@DimaLink/games

BLOGGER: https://dimalinkeng.blogspot.com/

[nixcraft]

Got this book in a used bookstore and the bookmark is a IBM5081 punch card

[televinita]

Just found out that my library app shows the date your account was registered. Now, I have lived in the same county my whole life, and I know I have been going to these libraries since I was a small child.

But even I didn't expect to find out that I have officially had a library card since I was THREE.

[basic-retro-programming]

Post #172: The World Of IBM workplaces during the 1960s.

Women digitize the world via IBM punch card in 1965.

[photos-of-space]

The first simulated image of a black hole, calculated with an IBM 7040 computer using 1960 punch cards and hand-plotted by French astrophysicist Jean-Pierre Luminet in 1978

[xaoca]

The first simulated image of a black hole, calculated with an IBM 7040 computer using 1960 punch cards and hand-plotted by French astrophysicist Jean-Pierre Luminet in 1978

[foone]

Why do 3.5 inch floppy disks seem so much more pleasant and edible than the 5.25 inch ones?

cause they are. 

5.25″ and 8″ disks were designed by IBM engineers who wouldn’t know good consumer good design if it bit them on the cock. They designed shit for Men With Short Hair And Pocket Protectors who did Important Work at like Raytheon or something. 

The 3.5″ was designed by Sony, who had been building appliances for the home since the 40s. They designed TVs and radios and the Walkman: They knew how to design a pleasant object to use in the home, and they understood all the sort of design choices that entails! 

It needs to be pleasant to look at, it needs to be sturdy so it can handle being dropped and stuffed into bags, and it needs to not look too “computery” to scare off the non-technical users. The 3.5″ floppy disk is an example of all those design goals applied to the overly-computery floppy disk, and they knocked it out of the park. The 3.5″ disk is very touchable, because it was designed to be from the beginning. They expected people to handle them, because that’s what stuff for the home is supposed to be. It’s a thing like a credit card, you can pick it up and play with it or stick it in your pocket or purse and it can just deal with that, because it is designed to be used by humans, as part of their everyday life. The older floppies are just some computer stuff designed to be used by trained technicians who knew how to handle it delicately and not damage it. 

[victusinveritas]

The first simulated image of a black hole, calculated with an IBM 7040 computer using 1960 punch cards and hand-plotted by French astrophysicist Jean-Pierre Luminet in 1978.

[retrocgads]

USA 1997

[commodorez]

If the Commodore 64 is great, where is the Commodore 65?

It sits in the pile with the rest of history's pre-production computers that never made it. It's been awhile since I went on a Commodore 65 rant...

The successor to the C64 is the C128, arguably the pinnacle of 8-bit computers. It has 3 modes: native C128 mode with 2MHz 8502, backwards compatible C64 mode, and CP/M mode using a 4MHz Z80. Dual video output in 40-column mode with sprites plus a second output in 80-column mode. Feature-rich BASIC, built in ROM monitor, numpad, 128K of RAM, and of course a SID chip. For 1985, it was one of the last hurrahs of 8-bit computing that wasn't meant to be a budget/bargain bin option.

For the Amiga was taking center stage at Commodore -- the 16-bit age is here! And its initial market performance wasn't great, they were having a hard time selling its advanced capabilities. The Amiga platform took time to really build up momentum square in the face of the rising dominance of the IBM PC compatible. And the Amiga lost (don't tell the hardcore Amiga fanboys, they're still in denial).

However, before Commodore went bankrupt in '94, someone planned and designed another successor to the C64. It was supposed to be backwards compatible with C64, while also evolving on that lineage, moving to a CSG 4510 R3 at 3.54MHz (a fancy CMOS 6502 variant based on a subprocessor out of an Amiga serial port card). 128K of RAM (again) supposedly expandable to 1MB, 256X more colors, higher resolution, integrated 3½" floppy not unlike the 1581. Bitplane modes, DAT modes, Blitter modes -- all stuff that at one time was a big deal for rapid graphics operations, but nothing that an Amiga couldn't already do (if you're a C65 expert who isn't mad at me yet, feel free to correct me here).

The problem is that nobody wanted this.

Sure, Apple had released the IIgs in 1986, but that had both the backwards compatibility of an Apple II and a 16-bit 65C816 processor -- not some half-baked 6502 on gas station pills. Plus, by the time the C65 was in heavy development it was 1991. Way too late for the rapidly evolving landscape of the consumer computer market. It would be cancelled later that same year.

I realize that Commodore was also still selling the C64 well into 1994 when they closed up shop, but that was more of a desperation measure to keep cash flowing, even if it was way behind the curve by that point (remember, when the C64 was new it was a powerful, affordable machine for 1982). It was free money on an established product that was cheap to make, whereas the C65 would have been this new and expensive machine to produce and sell that would have been obsolete from the first day it hit store shelves. Never mind the dismal state of Commodore's marketing team post-Tramiel.

Internally, the guy working on the C65 was someone off in the corner who didn't work well with others while 3rd generation Amiga development was underway. The other engineers didn't have much faith in the idea.

The C65 has acquired a hype of "the machine that totally would have saved Commodore, guise!!!!1!11!!!111" -- saved nothing. If you want better what-if's from Commodore, you need to look to the C900 series UNIX machine, or the CLCD. Unlike those machines which only have a handful of surviving examples (like 3 or 4 CLCDs?), the C65 had several hundred, possibly as many as 2000 pre-production units made and sent out to software development houses. However many got out there, no software appears to have surfaced, and only a handful of complete examples of a C65 have entered the hands of collectors. Meaning if you have one, it's probably buggy and you have no software to run on it. Thus, what experience are you recapturing? Vaporware?

The myth of the C65 and what could have been persists nonetheless. I'm aware of 3 modern projects that have tried to take the throne from the Commodore 64, doing many things that sound similar to the Commodore 65.

The Foenix Retro Systems F256K:

The 8-Bit Guy's Commander X16

The MEGA65 (not my picture)

The last of which is an incredibly faithful open-source visual copy of the C65, where as the other projects are one-off's by dedicated individuals (and when referring to the X16, I don't mean David Murray as he's not the one doing the major design work).

I don't mean to belittle the effort people have put forth into such complicated projects, it's just not what I would have built. In 2019, I had the opportunity to meet the 8-Bit Guy and see the early X16 prototype. I didn't really see the appeal, and neither did David see the appeal of my homebrew, the Cactus.

Build your own computer, build a replica computer. I encourage you to build what you want, it can be a rewarding experience. Just remember that the C65 was probably never going to dig Commodore out of the financial hole they had dug for themselves.