[NTLK] Fact Check

[Frank Gruendel]

> (my first modem was a 1200bd modem built into my 80x24 column "CGA" laptop--a
> Tandy, with a 10 meg hard drive)

Hey, MY second computer did not even HAVE a hard drive. It was a 2MHz Z80 computer with a whoopin'
64 kiloByte of RAM. Assembled in my parent's cellar with an 8 bucks soldering iron using (wherever
possible) parts from old TV sets. Eight RAM chips cost me about USD 200.00. This beauty booted its
CP/M operating system (pip lst:=, anybody?) from its eight inch floppy disk in less than a minute.
It took about 90 seconds from switching it on to beginning work with Turbo Pascal. Or playing
Ladder. Of course, after my tinkering with the mainboard a bit to increase the clock frequency to an
amazing 4MHz, things became much faster.

Today, my PC at work is a 4GHz (that's 2048 times the speed of my second computer) dual core CPU
laptop with 4GB RAM (that's 65536 times the memory of my second computer) running Windows XP. When I
switch it on in the morning, booting XP requires more than twice the time it took  my second
computer to boot CP/M. And that's only the beginning. After that it's the turn of what our cherished
IT fellows consider necessary WHENEVER a computer is booted. It takes almost 5 minutes before this
computer's sluggishness disappears and any real work can begin.

I guess these days my old computer's whole RAM wouldn't be enough to even load the keyboard
driver...

And all my younger colleagues consider this completely normal.

Boy, must I be old...

Frank

PS Did I mention that my very first computer, a ZX81, booted its OS from ROM in a couple of seconds?

-- Newton software and hardware at http://www.pda-soft.de