recneps7 wrote:…When I say “COMPUTER” is was just an old shoebox covered by a piece of twig but it was a computer to us…..

Aw man! I just read through pages of comments to see if someone beat me to it, and sure enough, another geek beat me to the punchline. As we all engaged in one-upmanship (or one-downmanship?) all I could think of was

"A BEAD abacus?"

"Aye...."

"Ha! You were lucky.

"There we were, an entire scientific community, huddled around a single piece of string running through a line of stale popcorn, which we had to carefully slide along one by one lest they crumble and fall apart."

"Hm... plain old string, you say? You were lucky...."

syrinne wrote:In the late 70's. It's one purpose for me at the time:

10 Print "You are awesome."
20 Goto 10

I had self-esteem problems.

Then you may have been familiar with ELIZA, the computer therapist. ELIZA and Zork got me through many lonely Saturday nights...
The second conversation is more typical of mine.

abellee wrote:In the spirit of can you top this, my first computer was a slide rule.

My first job had me lugging a box ( or ten ) of punch cards up to big blinky to process. Picked up the print out the next day. If you ever dropped the box, there went a day or two of work.

Cheers

Yep, had to learn the slipstick in school back in my day.

And you just gave me a serious punch card flashback (shudder), now I'll have nightmares for a week about endless loops...lol.

jaburg wrote:Hard drives? Dude, we used magnetic audio cassettes to store data. And that was brand new at the time!

Umm... try paper punch tapes

grenade01 wrote:3mb a sec is slow to me, my current thumb drive gets over double this. I use it mostly to transfer movies to my downstairs mediabox so 6gb at a time that would crawl for my uses. I'll just stick to my 16gb and do two movies at a time when I want them downstairs.

Transferring 10x 6GB movies:
* Even at 10 MB/s [you said over, not how far over], it would take about 20 minutes to copy two files to your drive. Then take out the USB stick, go downstairs to the other device, wait another 20 minutes for the files to copy to that machine. Then take it out again and repeat five times, or
* transfer all 10 movies at 3MB/s, about 5.5 hours and then another 5.5 hours downstairs.

The former means that you are going back and forth, pretty much working on it constantly for over three hours. The latter can be done in two batches. Set it up to copy and run over night and then do the second transfer in the same way in the morning.

Even though it is taking a lot longer, it is also requiring a lot less of your personal time.

smerfj wrote:like this?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silent_700

I could see wasting hours on that...

Holy crap, great find! Thanks, smerfj! I don't know if this is the exact model my Dad used to bring home, but it's way closer than anything else I've seen.

Altazi wrote:Be cautious. Just saying "USB 2.0" doesn't specify the speed. The manufacturer says "USB 2.0 standard speed," which is not technically a proper speed callout. USB 2.0 supports high speed (480 Mbps), full speed (12 Mbps), and low speed (1.5 Mbps). The manufacturer gives this drive's read & write speeds as 3 MB/s. At 3 MB/s it will take about six HOURS to completely transfer 64 GB of data.

So less than an hour per 10 gigs? That's not really that bad. I mean, it's not good but the purpose of this stick is large portable storage. Doesn't get much more portable than a data stick and 64 gigs is great. Especially for $50.

For those who want an alternative, NewEgg very recently had a name brand 32gb USB 3.0 memory thingie for $39. I don't know the read/write speed of the memory but USB 3.0 should help with transfer. Do a search on NewEgg if you're interested.

sdcaclint wrote:my first computer had a 120 MB hdd. I'm feeling really old now.

My first couple computers didn't support Hard Drives. The first one I had that could support a Hard Drive I spent $600.00 to upgrade, and about all weekend, and a case of beer, to finally add a huge 10mb drive.

I think that was the same weekend that the dinosaurs became extinct.

sdc100 wrote:Then you may have been familiar with ELIZA, the computer therapist. ELIZA and Zork got me through many lonely Saturday nights...

Ha! Absolutely. I thought ELIZA was brilliant, though obviously very limited. I remember being impressed at its halfway-decent ability to recognize syntax, subject/object, and wondered what such a program would be like in the future. What's the ELIZA of today? There must be one.

It was more satisfying to me than Zork, because I could never figure my way past the whole dam area, and would frequently get flummoxed by the program's lack of vocabulary (and/or my inability to guess the right words), earning me the annoying "I don't understand" (and whatever other "huh?" responses it might have had) x infinity.

Still, I've always regarded Zork and Rogue as being the godfathers of just about every computer RPG, adventure game (and various others to an extent) ever released in their wake. (And no Rogue w/o ye olde tabletop Dungeons & Dragons, of course!) I could go on, as endlessly as Eliza....

All you guys talking about your old computers and what not prolly need some couch time with Dr. Sbaitso

toddinfl wrote:A thumbdrive?!? Really? I thought everything was moving to the clouds.

Not if you work for the same company as I do.

All I can say is that my last big "deal" with Centon was a total headache. Plugged it in and it died almost immediately. Waste of $29.99 not to mention my time. I will stick with the more prominent brands.

justmenan wrote:Well if you feel old, my first computer had 2 X 5 1/4 Floppy Drives. I know most of you probably don't know what I'm talking about. It was the mid 70's. LOL

My first computer had no hard drive, only one 5 1/4 floppy and 128K ram. For people who complain windows still loads to slow try loading your operating system off of a floppy drive every time you turn on your computer.

sdcaclint wrote:my first computer had a 120 MB hdd. I'm feeling really old now.

Precisely what I was thinking! And 64 K of RAM. K! Not MB, K! Although I don't feel particularly old because of it.

jaburg wrote:Hard drives? Dude, we used magnetic audio cassettes to store data. And that was brand new at the time!

LOL, me too: Commodore 64 (w/ massive 64KB of ram -- yes KB). Took about a minute to load a 2KB program from the audio tape. They don't make 'em like that anymore...

jgary wrote:You kids today. My TRS-80 Model I was decked out with 48K of RAM. IIRC a floppy held 86K of data. I thought I'd never fill one up.

my first computer had NO hard drive and a singly 512k 3.5 inch disk drive... which was cutting edge when other computers had 5.25 disks with 256k drives! yikes. now i'm the old one i guess.

SevenStarSonata wrote:My first laptop, back in 2005, had a 60 GB hard drive. I'm not sure whether to marvel at technology or feel very, very old.

Let's take this in another direction... My laptop STILL has a 32GB hard drive.
(Note: Not really a "laptop" anymore. I use it as my primary desktop, as the screen broke off)

RogerHarris wrote:LOL, me too: Commodore 64 (w/ massive 64KB of ram -- yes KB). Took about a minute to load a 2KB program from the audio tape. They don't make 'em like that anymore...

yes. these were awesome. but they were too expensive. my mom didn't let me buy a computer until several years after these things were cool.

Is it always waterproof, or only with the cap on?

syrinne wrote:Aw man! I just read through pages of comments to see if someone beat me to it, and sure enough, another geek beat me to the punchline....

I'm glad to see someone finally "got" it!
I was beginnig to doubt the geeksmanship of these Wooters.

SevenStarSonata wrote:My first laptop, back in 2005, had a 60 GB hard drive. I'm not sure whether to marvel at technology or feel very, very old.

Either way, this is a kickass deal.

2005? Old? Gimme a break! My first computer had two 360k floppies. My first hard drive was 5 Megs. Yes Megs! Be grateful you don't know what old is. Yet.

BigRedDogATL wrote:I bought two of the Centon DataStick Pro 32GB during a Woot-off and I have problems with both.

For copying smaller files or small amounts of data, they work find. If there is a larger file, like about 1GB size, then they have all sorts of problems. Mostly, the copied file is corrupted.

I don't trust the Centon DataStick Pro 32GB with any really important files.

I have found this true for all thumb drives. However, I find if I reformat the drive using NTFS instead of FAT32 format, large files are transferred with no problems.

I'll throw my $.02 into the pile

My first computer was a Commodore 64 that I won at a raffle at school. It had an external hard drive, which I had to purchase separately for about $150 in 1984 dollars. Of course, they were ALL external drives. My word processing program was from C64 magazine. They had programs each month which you could key in (in hex) or get the $40 upgrade to the subscription which included the disk - way too much money for me in my college days. So I typed in about 10,000 lines of hex code.
To run the programs, you had to load them from the disk into memory, then execute. I don't think I could have even imagined Windows7 back then.

You young-uns are making me feel ancient: I remember when I added a 20Mb hdd to my *second* computer (which came with floppy drives only.)

sdcaclint wrote:my first computer had a 120 MB hdd. I'm feeling really old now.

jgary wrote:You kids today. My TRS-80 Model I was decked out with 48K of RAM. IIRC a floppy held 86K of data. I thought I'd never fill one up.

I had a VIC-20 with 1 MHz 8-bit processor and 5K of memory. A real screamer.

jaburg wrote:Hard drives? Dude, we used magnetic audio cassettes to store data. And that was brand new at the time!

I had one of those. A Tandy/Radio Shack 64K TRS-80 Color Computer II . It used three methods of storage/input.
1. Magnetic audio tape
2. Cartridges
3. Floppy Disk Drives (way back when they were actually floppy and 5 1/4 inches)

It had no hard drive and possessed a meager 64 KB of memory. It did not have a dedicated monitor. Instead you connected it to your television set.

I loved it back then. Of course, looking back I wonder how I ever got anything done with that thing. I was writing a report once, and as the memory filled up it merely deleted older text to allow room for the new text.

I didn't give up my typewriter until I got a Mac SE/30. But I had to pay a huge fee to add 4 megs of RAM to upgrade from the existing 1 MB that it came with out of the factory.

(I feel so old now. Where is my AARP pillow so I can weep quietly?)

I lose these too fast to buy one

Do you have any waterproof laptops coming up use it with?

F0rSaken wrote:Hell, while we are taking a trip back to memory lane... Remember Bulletin Board Systems (BBS) using 1400 baud modems? Wasn't that fun?? Ha!

300 baud was much more fun. 1400 was freaking fast... the text scrolled down the screen very quickly!

showcaller wrote:This sounds like a great idea in theory but terrible in practicality - I.E. the perfect impulse buy. I only use thumb drives as temporary storage as I am in production on various shows and using a thumb drive is perfect for getting an updated script or graphics deck. If the info is on my thumb drive for more than three days, that is alot and it never approaches 64 gigs! Everything that I have read about thumb drives says you should never think of them as long term storage. Aside from never needing anything this large, the reviews on this would never convince me this is a good idea.

I believe that your analysis is the the bottom line on this product. Portable, reliable, and fast storage is what technology needs to deliver to the consumer, but instead a product like this is produced to be bought by consumers who have not really thought through whether it is even useful for their application. What good is 64 GB when you can't even access it? Technology can be kewl and useful, but I hate to say that most of the time, implementation falls way short which leads to disappointment and frustration, wasted money, and impedes productivity instead of making our lives more productive - a little pet peeve of mine.

What is the size of this drive... not capacity but dimensions of the device?

I have the 32 GB version of this drive and it works great. The cap is really nice too, highly recommend this.

bek wrote:300 baud was much more fun. 1400 was freaking fast... the text scrolled down the screen very quickly!

There was no 1400 baud. 1200 was the next step up from 300.

dbcooper wrote:There was no 1400 baud. 1200 was the next step up from 300.

Although there was eventually a 14.4. And text scrolled up.

(Getting all misty about my 48K Apple II Plus, with the Videx keyboard enhancer and 80-column card and off-brand 16K card. Maybe I'll load up an emulator and play Crush, Crumble, Chomp this rainy weekend...)

SevenStarSonata wrote:My first laptop, back in 2005, had a 60 GB hard drive. I'm not sure whether to marvel at technology or feel very, very old.

Either way, this is a kickass deal.

Very, very old?

My first PC:
http://oldcomputers.net/trs80ii.html

(Not "mine"-- my brother's, but I sure spent a great deal of time on it!).

TrifeVT wrote:I don't know if there has ever been a time where I've wished that my USB drive was waterproof... Seems like a weird combination. Like a bulletproof dishwasher.

Dive into the swimming pool when a kid falls in. You will wish your phone, key fob and thumb drive were water proof. That said, 90% of thumb drives are fine. They are mostly sealed tight.

TrifeVT wrote:I don't know if there has ever been a time where I've wished that my USB drive was waterproof... Seems like a weird combination. Like a bulletproof dishwasher.

Too funny! Or maybe a pair of steel toed house slippers.

par60056 wrote:Dive into the swimming pool when a kid falls in. You will wish your phone, key fob and thumb drive were water proof. That said, 90% of thumb drives are fine. They are mostly sealed tight.

In my case it would probably be the KID who wished the contents of my pockets were waterproof as he painfully watches me empty the contents piece by piece as he sinks inch by inch.

Oh my... I guess I am OLD!

My first computer was a stick and a patch of sand. Then I upgraded to a pencil and paper. The slide rule really was a leap in tech and then came along my Sinclair ZX1000. 1K yes K of RAM and a 300 baud cassette interface for storage. I upgraded the RAM to 64K and wrote a 4Kbaud cassette interface stayed in NVRam that I added as part of the 64K upgrade. Fast forward, now it's i7 Macs and PCs, Clusters UNIX, Linux, that virus called Windows and OSX. Even Cyber's, Cray's and IBM Big Iron. (Yeah I am a geek)

Sort of getting your driver's license on Fred Flintstone's car and now owning a fleet of rocket ships.

I look forward to what is next. A Starship???