The Ancient Computer Thread!

I did find a couple of MIST boxes on ebay. Tempted to buy one, but $360 AU and i really don’t need to be spending that right now…

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Not really ancient, but a nice change for the channel for once.

Yup, luckily I can just copy and paste my youtube comment because it’s 1:20am and I’m lazy…

Have been looking at SGI for a few years and while I can can convince myself to buy almost any old tech under the idea that it is for “educational purposes” I could never justify buying any. So next best thing, video of some one playing with one.

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I’m not sure if the OP had mechanical analogue computers in mind and somehow a fitting post for your username :slight_smile:

It makes you wonder - if there were engineers smart enough to build that BCE, what else did they build? You don’t go from nothing to the Antikythera mechanism; did they have anything else - maybe even more complex? I know the theory is that it must have been Archimedes that invented it but I don’t think there is any solid proof.

…but from the little I know that mechanism was way ahead of its time. I think the Chinese had some basic mechanical clocks by the 8th century, but I don’t think anything complex started appearing Europe until the 14th century and we finally gets Harrison’s clock in the 18th century that solves navigation problems at sea, plus other mechanical clocks for predicting orbits and the like around the same time.

Analogue/mechanical computers were still used well into the 20th century (I am sure some are still around) think about the battleship aiming mechanisms and bomb-sights of WW2 aircraft.

Back of T1 Bomb Computer

from: http://www.lancaster-archive.com/bc_maiorbombsights.htm

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Came across this on Twitter:

This is not mine, I do not know the owner

Turned on his computer after 25 years and was asked if he wants to resume from his last save…

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Yeah idk why you tards want these new fangled devices. They explode!

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Just want to let you guys know that I just installed Netscape Navigator 9 on a customer’s computer running Windows 2000

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no you didn’t because 3.x was the last version of navigator. in like… 1996-1997

incorrect, do yourself a favor and look it up before you make a claim

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Install mosaic or ur a traitor

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You’re both incorrect anyways because firefox is the current version of netscape.

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Fair enough, i stand corrected.

But that is/was basically Mozilla with a Netscape badge on it from AOL, not the same lineage.

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Firefox has little to do with Netscape - it’s an open source rewrite, Netscape have no ownership over it. If you’re going to call Firefox a variant of netscape you may as well call Internet Explorer “NCSA Mosaic”.

(which i ran before Netscape Navigator)

Ohh, a sidecar expansion on the a500

I’m not incorrect as I never made an uneducated assertion as to what versions exist or don’t exist.

ur a bird you can’t read

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I’m just now reading this and I now want one really bad

Sat with my mom and talked about mainframes for like 3 hours the other day.

That was wierd.

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