Seriously, I do.

Oh, for cruising down the information superhighway.

Just in case.

I wonder if hydraulics were available to make it into a low rider.

My computer (which looks surprisingly like that) doesn't have a steering wheel. I'm pissed.

but I can't find it on Newegg

because someone on the internet is wrong about something and must be straightened out. They should include a fire extinguisher for flames.

You couldn't cool a "home computer" with that many tubes in it with air; the air handler would be bigger than the house. Instead, you'd have a heat exchanger beside the back porch.

?zz=1

This is one off a Cray-1, but it'll do for right now.

One of the wheels would control the speed of the water pump; the other would operate a valve that adjusts the amount of coolant running through your computer.

And I wonder...exactly how big of a home would you need to fit this home computer?

Still only one keyboard and monitor so got that right. Not sure of the helm position I should add one.

The dual steam valves?

That would be fifty years from 2004.

It would be nice to know for sure where that information came from.

" What are they going to do to me, dig me up and crush my Bones?"

I wonder what the steering wheel is for.

What's with that steering wheel?

but I'm glad vacuum tubes went extinct.

Nearly all preferred amplifiers for guitars and such use tubes. Many bands rely on them. Nothing quite like that sound, the slight warm distortion they give.

I still have a nice 1959 tube radio going, though one tube is a Russian replacement.

I guess it'd be more accurate for me to say I'm glad transistors became more prominent.

Differential calculus in every garage.....

I recovered after a few years.

Last job wanted me to learn MUMPS.

Ran. Screaming.

Wrote some of my own statistical programs in it back in the mid-60's. Programs on Hollerith cards, IBM 26 card punches & all that.

(I missed the IBM cards, but my mother brought a lot of 'em home from her office--they made nifty Christmas wreaths!)
I just missed the 8-in. floppies, being out of the field most of those years. My first machine had a 360K 5-1/4" floppy.

How far back do you go?

punched by an IBM 26 keypunch. Later, Model 29 and 129 keypunches, iirc.

I trained on the IBM 026 keypunch. I remember the excitement when we saw the first 029's.

Those keypunch machines are probably all in landfills somewhere, but Fortran lives. According to the Wikipedia article, "It is one of the most popular languages in the area of high-performance computing and is the language used for programs that benchmark and rank the world's fastest supercomputers."

We had to buy time and if you ran out if time - you couldn't work on your assignment anymore.

just to watch and/or download porn.

You could have a picture of Betty Grable's legs printed out in 1's and 0's in the time it takes to make your own clothing from homespun flax!

This day in Naval History:

1945 - A "computer bug" is first identified and named by Lt. Grace Murray Hopper while she was on active duty. It was found in the Mark II Aiken Relay Calculator at Harvard University. The operators affixed the moth to the computer log, where it still resides, with the entry: "First actual case of bug being found." They "debugged" the computer, first introducing the term.

http://www.navy.mil/search/display_history.asp

One reason to love Google image search (explains the steering wheel)...


Outline
Caption accompanying a widely circulated image claims that the picture depicts how scientists in 1954 imagined a home computer set-up would look in 2004.



Brief Analysis
The claims in the caption are false. The picture does not depict a 1954 prediction of how a home computer might look in 2004. In fact, the picture was an entry in a Fark.com Photoshop contest that uses a Smithsonian exhibit photograph depicting a full-scale mock-up of a typical nuclear-powered submarine's maneuvering room as a source image.


http://www.hoax-slayer.com/1954-computer.html

It's an industrial control room of some kind with a 1970's DECwriter style terminal photoshopped in.

The anachronistic TTY terminal is a dead giveaway.

http://www.snopes.com/inboxer/hoaxes/computer.asp

Spoil sport.

Maneuvering (that's the space this was in) only controlled the ships speed... While Control was responsible for maneuvering.

Three people would sit in front of those panels. Left to right they were the Throttleman, Reactor Operator, and Electric Plant Operator. Behind them sits the EOOW/EDO (Engineering Officer of the Watch/Engineering Duty Officer), with the EWS (Engineering Watch Supervisor) running in and out of maneuvering. There were other important things in that room, but those three panels haven't significantly changed since that picture was taken (though the RPCP has been significantly upgraded with the Type 2 digital roll out).

A parody on computer acronyms like UNIVAC

Mr. Peabody, I'm fucking this war up, aren't I?

Obviously the writers had some thoughts about the accuracy of history ...and the distortions and omissions of history are still on going.

And why my computer doesn't have them.

Did you check the box yours came in?

Love the steering wheel sized pointing device, if that's what it is. And all the meters and stuff to measure, and make sure that the radifram doesn't interfere with the mortapror.

back to the 1950s

or used as a one directional mouse--running back and forth between the keyboard and wheel would keep one very fit.

I'm saving up for a deluxe cassette-player.

online banking, and video surveillance.

The main thing they have wrong is the need for different specific units for specific tasks. I'm guessing that's because no one was anticipating the world wide web, where one simple computer could go on-line and connect to practically anything or anyone anywhere in the world.

Imagine trying to explain how we all use computers to someone in 1970. Even that recently, just over 40 years ago, it would be nearly unimaginable.

Someone stuck an old guy and a teletype in front of a picture of what looks like the control room for a Naval propulsion plant.

you know the cheap ones in black and white.

She was a math genius who worked with the big computers of the day, circa 1965. Everything she did was classified so she couldn't talk about her work however she dropped a hint, after an evening of imbibing, about one of the government contracts that could be about investigating UFOs.



I think though she might have enjoyed something that compact compared what she had to work with.

for watching TV/Monitor on a wall. But with no remote control, trying to change the channel was a bummer. That's why the Pogo stick was invented.

That is too funny! I'd've spewed my smoothie too.

Looks like it belongs in a nuclear submarine!

20 degrees down bubble!

I stated that computers would be the death of society as we knew it.

Being right isn't always that great!

Don Lancaster unfortunately never made it to the Bill Gates/Steve Jobs level.

With all those analog switches and dials, it looks like a control center for something mechanical. Not to mention.... the steering wheel.

P.S. I love the TV mounted on the wall, like in a hotel room.


Wow.

================

I just sent that image to a scientist who has created some innovative image processing software for Hubble images ... in Fortran. He's been teased about it.

Hoax or not, it's pretty funny.

Should not that thing have brakes?

Thanks for sharing! Saved it!

Rabble rabble.

Is it a smoothie machine from the 60's?

we never get anything cool.

Is this the same Rand Corp that makes all those GeoPolitical and Military analysis for the Government and what will happen and how we can shape it to American advantage. If so, now I know why they are always wrong. It is built into their Corporate Knowledge, and they were never called on it. "Too Big and Stupid to Fail"

it looks like a control room for something...

And they required LOTS of maintenance!! Enough to drive the development of pin-hammer based dot matrix printers.

If CORPORATIONS!!!! had left well enough ALONE there would STILL be millions of teletype repairmen and the economy would be clattering along!

Freakingly dependable dot matrix printers killed jobs, led the way to ink-jets and the tyranny of HP Ink cartridge sales!

But, had teletype not been obvious dinosaurs, I'd have never earned a PhD. Not that that PhD is terribly important to the world, but unshackled from teletype with thousands of of moving parts I was free to consider other more satisfying complex problems.

YES INDEED

So,

bananas to you Skittles,


and peace,
kp

I wanna see a nutwinger handle any programming language, let alone Fortran. You can't even housebreak a nutwinger properly. They can barely manage a black magic marker. (I'm a developer for a living -- spelling counts!)

O yeah! People will have it easy with FORTRAN!

You might want to just hug it right? bwaahaaa

My kids gaming rig