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Hello World.

Started by digoxy118, August 28, 2017, 03:34:07 PM

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digoxy118

Hello Classic Rotary Phones Forum!

I am Mike and have just joined and have been approved to post here in this wonderful world of rotary. A little about myself, I am somewhat retired from the Telecom industry, I worked on the radio side of the house with BTS and MSC installs as a project manager. I started in the industry working on computers, pc networks and anything to do with Windows3.1.

I went into programming and stuck there for many years, web design and hosting through my own company that I sold a few years back. I am an avid hobbyist and after finding this forum decided on taking the next step in learning a 1a2 system. I am currently looking for a 1a2 WE shoe box or something like this and of course some phones to work with this.

Hope to get involved in some projects and playing with some of this stuff in the next few months.

Thanks for having me.
Mike

Victor Laszlo

Welcome, Mike. 

There are worse things to occupy your time with than the wonderful wacky world of 1A2.  I worked on systems ranging from 2 phones to 6,000 phones. If there's any 1A2 info you need, just PM me and I'll see if I can help. I don't collect wooden phones or payphones or in fact any phones that are not Pre-divestiture Western Electric examples, but I know how they work and can offer help occasionally on those, too.

I always have cheap - to - almost free 1A2 stuff to dispose of. If you need a shoebox, let me know and we'll see if we can strike a deal.

HarrySmith

Hi Mike and welcome to the forum. You have found the best place on the net for old phones. Enjoy!
Harry Smith
ATCA 4434
TCI

"There is no try,
there is only
do or do not"

Pourme

Mike,

Welcome to the forum. We have a lot of fun here discussing our hobby and related topics! You will find a lot of knowledge here and people that want to help! Enjoy!

Benny
Benny

Panasonic 308/616 Magicjack service

.....

Hi Mike,

Welcome to CRPF.

oldguy

Welcome Mike, there aren't many still around that remember Windows 3.1. I remember moving up from an XT to an AT PC. That was back when a PS2 was am IBM computer, not a game console.

Gary
Gary

Victor Laszlo

Well, if you young guys don't make me feel old. I started by programming an IBM model 1401. Something called FORTRAN.  :)

jsowers

Mike, welcome to the Forum!

I too worked with Windows 3.1 and DOS back in the oldie goldie days of computers. I worked in the IT Dept. of a school system and we had just about one of everything IBM made for a while, including the little EduQuest computers, which were quite dependable little machines. We had whole labs of them hooked to Netware servers and that was my responsibility, to keep them running and install the software. It seemed complicated at the time, but compared to today it was simple and easy to troubleshoot and almost bulletproof. Those were also the days before the internet and you had to save all the disks that came with everything like they were gold.

I see you're from Texas. I hope you're not flooded with rain like Houston and the surrounding area. Seeing that on the news is heartbreaking.
Jonathan

dsk


digoxy118


Thank you so much for the warm welcome, its great to have so many people step into a thread to say hi to a newbie. I do appreciate the replies, thank you.

jsowers - I am not sure if I remember the EduQuest, they more than likely (looking at the name) were specific for education maybe? It sounds as though you were a support tech, I really dont miss those days at all, "running tickets". Endless amounts of fun with ID10T errors. Everyone was still learning about PC's it seems. Funny you mention the disks, I had a huge collection of 5 1/4 floppy's stored in nice little flip top storage bins. The bins held 100 disks, I think I had 4 of them. My oldest son when he was 3-4 would completely empty these to the floor over and over until I could get a cabinet. I remember thinking how nice it would be not to have to use disks, I think we are almost there!

dsk- Thank you.

Victor Laszlo - Old guy sounds like maybe, talking FORTRAN! I do remember FORTRAN, amazingly enough I used to use this to program an old TI-994a Expansion box card(s). These were fun, and I can tell you I really do miss these old machines some. Toy's maybe? not sure. On another note; I would be very interested in what 1a2 equipment you might have, maybe PM me with a list of what you might want to sell? I dont really have anything so much to trade.

oldguy - Its in the name isn't it.. :) PS2, that is so funny and I never connected that, you are so right. I do remember making the change XT/AT, I dont remember which was more powerful though. I remember the small PS2's though with the matching monitors they were great little desktop systems. On move I do remember making that I was really excited about was getting my first 286/10, I remember talking about this machine for a couple of months and just how fast it was. Windows 3.0 was really neat, I think that was the first version you could "popout" a dos window and use a few of them at the same time, so cool running bat files from these little windows. 3.1 had all the great networking stuff. Wow, this is a conversation that could go for ever right?

Duffy - Thank you.

Pourme - Thank you, I hope to be able to learn a lot here, I have been reading for two days now.

HarrySmith - Thank you.




jsowers

#10
Quote from: digoxy118 on August 29, 2017, 10:30:55 AM
jsowers - I am not sure if I remember the EduQuest, they more than likely (looking at the name) were specific for education maybe? It sounds as though you were a support tech, I really dont miss those days at all, "running tickets". Endless amounts of fun with ID10T errors. Everyone was still learning about PC's it seems. Funny you mention the disks, I had a huge collection of 5 1/4 floppy's stored in nice little flip top storage bins. The bins held 100 disks, I think I had 4 of them. My oldest son when he was 3-4 would completely empty these to the floor over and over until I could get a cabinet. I remember thinking how nice it would be not to have to use disks, I think we are almost there!
EduQuests were mostly all-in-one PCs made specifically for education, with VGA monitors, kind of like an IBM Model 25 but with a 386 processor. We even used them as file servers. Workstations sometimes didn't have hard drives and just booted to the server with a 3.5" floppy. More disks to keep copies of! We had storage boxes full of them and every school's equipment was slightly different, and we had over 25 schools! We also had more Macs than we had PCs, so I had to support both platforms. We also ran and terminated all the network wire when networks went in and eventually we installed IP telephony.

We had ID-10-T errors too, and yes, we used that exact term, but not in front of the one who made the error.

IBMs--First came the PC with two floppy drives, then the XT with its 10mb hard drive, then the AT with its 30mb hard drive and 1.2mb floppy drive. We bought lots of PC/ATs for our school information management system and they ran and ran and ran until they were replaced with PS/2 models. The PS/2 models 50 and up needed reference disks when you added or deleted anything and that was another disk to keep up with. I still have all those reference disks in a large disk wallet. Some things I just can't throw out!

Below is a picture of an IBM EduQuest 30. Yes, they came with Windows 3.0 when we ordered a hard drive.
Jonathan

digoxy118


I went out and looked that up, it seems I do remember these, I dont know that I ever worked on them though, I could be confusing it with the 25 but not sure, been so long ago. You know, I have slept a few times since then lol!

Its amazing how you can remember all this stuff, it has taken years for me to delete this information from my brain. :P I did see a picture on google of these machines. You probably own a couple of them I would suspect.

19and41

Welcome!  I work with radio systems and mostly handheld radio repair for a Transportation authority.  This site is a wealth of knowledge.  I see something new at least each week, presented by good people.  You have come to the right place!
"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."
— Arthur C. Clarke

jsowers

Quote from: digoxy118 on August 29, 2017, 12:19:36 PM
Its amazing how you can remember all this stuff, it has taken years for me to delete this information from my brain. :P I did see a picture on google of these machines. You probably own a couple of them I would suspect.

Sorry, I don't own any of them. They were all sold at auction and I watched many of them go for almost nothing and didn't buy them, even though most were still working when retired. I did keep some of the manuals and disks for them. One thing you don't see in the pics is the detachable "foot" that sat underneath the front. It had some unusual features, like specific left-hand cards for sound and network that only worked in that model. Another thing I remember about IBMs were the fantastic keyboards they came with. Kids would pull off the caps and move them around, but those keyboards were almost indestructible and went plink-plink-plink when you typed on them.

Speaking of typing, I do have some old IBM typewriters I've managed to find at thrifts, like a Selectric, a WheelWriter and a couple Executives and Model 11s from the 1950s. At work I had an IBM Electronic 95 that was a mechanical marvel.

As far as memory goes, I retired almost four years ago and can't delete anything from my brain no matter how hard I try. It's hard-wired, like the phones I collect.  ;)  Sometimes I dream I'm back at work, but it's more like a nightmare. Or I start thinking about it and can't get to sleep at night. At work I was always the one who got the "old stuff" to work on and I loved it. Funny, they called me from work a couple months ago to ask where something was and I knew.
Jonathan

digoxy118


- 19and41, thanks for the welcome. I worked for Ericsson Radio systems for several years, as a project manager I traveled all over the place managing this installation of towers, MSC's and BSC's. Many upgrade projects as well. I always enjoyed hanging out at the install sites and talking with installers. Being a hobbyist and a real interest in the work being done, I am sure I could be a real annoyance with all of the questions I would have. I did enjoy the radio side, all of it at the time was for the build up for cell phones. I remember being on some of the huge NOC's for these systems as well. I dont miss the work but do miss the technology and seeing all of this stuff in a working environment.  Thanks so much for poppin in and saying hi.

- jsowers, I had a tendency to hang on to many projects, computers and other area invading bulky mass electronics, I have since learned how bad it is to be a collector. I sold off much of my collectible stuff years ago, so, I can totally understand why you wouldn't have these edu systems anymore.

I had a couple of type writers for a long time, one electric and one manual, I dont even remember the brands or anything, I wound up giving them to my daughter, no telling where these have gone now. The old school word processors :)

To funny, I try to block out as much as I can, much of it was a nightmare as you say.