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From: Joel Koltner on 18 Feb 2010 19:39 "krw" <krw(a)att.bizzzzzzzzzzz> wrote in message news:rtkrn51hvfcfm17cjrvhp0uf9o81koupr0(a)4ax.com... > Didn't everyone have PCs by then? In 1994, when I received my BSEE, of the engineering students I knew, I doubt that even half had their own PCs. That was still the era of very large computer labs -- I took some computer science class to learn C, Pascal, and FORTRAN (probably in 1992), and while I had a good enough job that I could afford to buy copies of Turbo C and Turbo Pascal for DOS, I knew FORTRAN was a pretty dead language already and used the college's computer lab. FORTRAN was taught on Macs and the main lab was a huge, poorly-ventilated room in the basement of a ugly concrete building with literally hundreds of Macs and students side-by-side. It wasn't exactly a nice atmosphere! The next semester I took "assembly langauge on a VAX" -- a room of a couple dozen terminals, much more room per student -- and "data structures and algorithms" -- a room of perhaps 50 HP PA-RISC workstations running HPUX --, and those were actually pretty nice environments. I had an Amiga 3000 at the time... and while Berkeley SPICE was available, the guys with PCs were already running the free version of PSpice which had much better graphing abilities. Laptops were quite new and insanely expensive (and machines mere mortals could afford had the crappy highly-multiplexed monochrome LCDs). How far we've come -- today I'd wager >99% of engineering students have PCs, almost all of those are laptops (all active-matrix LCDs now), and nearly all campuses have ubiquitous WFi. ---Joel
From: Joel Koltner on 18 Feb 2010 19:42 Thinking back, at the time a desktop PC still cost the equivalent of perhaps 30 college textbooks. Today, a reasonable laptop is perhaps all of 5...!
From: krw on 18 Feb 2010 20:02 On Thu, 18 Feb 2010 16:39:51 -0800, "Joel Koltner" <zapwireDASHgroups(a)yahoo.com> wrote: >"krw" <krw(a)att.bizzzzzzzzzzz> wrote in message >news:rtkrn51hvfcfm17cjrvhp0uf9o81koupr0(a)4ax.com... >> Didn't everyone have PCs by then? > >In 1994, when I received my BSEE, of the engineering students I knew, I doubt >that even half had their own PCs. Amazing. Where did you go to school? >That was still the era of very large >computer labs -- I took some computer science class to learn C, Pascal, and >FORTRAN (probably in 1992), and while I had a good enough job that I could >afford to buy copies of Turbo C and Turbo Pascal for DOS, I knew FORTRAN was a >pretty dead language already and used the college's computer lab. FORTRAN was >taught on Macs and the main lab was a huge, poorly-ventilated room in the >basement of a ugly concrete building with literally hundreds of Macs and >students side-by-side. It wasn't exactly a nice atmosphere! Being forced to sit in a room full of Mac-heads? ...I can only imagine. ;-) >The next semester I took "assembly langauge on a VAX" -- a room of a couple >dozen terminals, much more room per student -- and "data structures and >algorithms" -- a room of perhaps 50 HP PA-RISC workstations running HPUX --, >and those were actually pretty nice environments. We had a few rooms of 029s (perhaps sixty). They were clean and very bright, if littered with cards and chad. I only took one CS course (well, I started a PDP-8 assembly course but got sick so dropped it). >I had an Amiga 3000 at the time... and while Berkeley SPICE was available, the >guys with PCs were already running the free version of PSpice which had much >better graphing abilities. > >Laptops were quite new and insanely expensive (and machines mere mortals could >afford had the crappy highly-multiplexed monochrome LCDs). How far we've >come -- today I'd wager >99% of engineering students have PCs, almost all of >those are laptops (all active-matrix LCDs now), and nearly all campuses have >ubiquitous WFi. Sure. That stuff is all cheap now. OTOH, PCs have always been cheap compared to tuition. Even in '82 an entry level machine was about the same (in the same $$) as my HP45 in '73.
From: krw on 18 Feb 2010 20:03 On Thu, 18 Feb 2010 16:42:27 -0800, "Joel Koltner" <zapwireDASHgroups(a)yahoo.com> wrote: >Thinking back, at the time a desktop PC still cost the equivalent of perhaps >30 college textbooks. Today, a reasonable laptop is perhaps all of 5...! Textbooks have gotten expensive. ;-)
From: Jim Thompson on 18 Feb 2010 20:07
On Thu, 18 Feb 2010 16:42:27 -0800, "Joel Koltner" <zapwireDASHgroups(a)yahoo.com> wrote: >Thinking back, at the time a desktop PC still cost the equivalent of perhaps >30 college textbooks. Today, a reasonable laptop is perhaps all of 5...! My first 386 with a 387 co-processor cost me around $4K, and it was a clone (~1987) ...Jim Thompson -- | James E.Thompson, CTO | mens | | Analog Innovations, Inc. | et | | Analog/Mixed-Signal ASIC's and Discrete Systems | manus | | Phoenix, Arizona 85048 Skype: Contacts Only | | | Voice:(480)460-2350 Fax: Available upon request | Brass Rat | | E-mail Icon at http://www.analog-innovations.com | 1962 | I love to cook with wine. Sometimes I even put it in the food. |