Finally have 3 displays set up for working from home. I have these vague memories, as if from some previous life, of using a computer productively with only a single display. How... how did we ever do that?
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48kRAM
Finally have 3 displays set up for working from home. I have these vague memories, as if from some previous life, of using a computer productively with only a single display. How... how did we ever do that?
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Arne Babenhauserheide
@48kRAM 2020s is still missing "watch the progress bar of the web framework to complete" after cloudflare 🙂
corycarson
@48kRAM and your laptop fans spin up because some tab fired up the GPU for a decorative progress spinner.
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48kRAM
I can't move to the Fediverse properly until I reproduce my famous pinned post from the birdsite, so here it is: P.S.A. To all vintage computer and video game collectors: Go through your collections and GET THE DAMN BATTERIES OUT! Now! Don't wait! Seriously, put down the phone, go to your collection and take out all the batteries. Right now! Even if they look "okay" they are NOT SAFE after this much time.
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Christine Munro 🧀
@48kRAM It strikes me I should probably investigate the garage today. There's a couple of PCs I'm not too bothered about (though I perhaps shouldn't be quite so blasé as one is a means of connecting to 8-bit SCSI) plus some ageing cameras and PDAs, including a rather lovely Psion 7. Mostly I'm worried about my Vax workstations though. The 3176 is already poorly but I'll be distraught if the 4060 gets it… I'm guessing the mainboards are multi-layer and not amenable to repair.
Craig Chamberlain
@48kRAM Good advice - here is an Apple Macintosh SE/30 after its battery exploded all over the PCB. I ended up restoring it onto a new PCB by removing all the custom ICs from the damaged board and replacing the others with new parts. Quite a lot of work involved but got it working in the end!
48kRAM
Another group shot for today's #vintagecomputer photo: Part of my collection of "slabtops". Top row (left-to-right): Tandy 200, Tandy WP-2, NEC PC-8201a The Model 100 is rather yellowed, but I only ever notice it when I compare it to its brothers. (re-posted with the photo this time. #mondays) |
@48kRAM
> > "Finally have 3 displays set up for working from home. I have these vague memories, as if from some previous life, of using a computer productively with only a single display. How... how did we ever do that?"
Oh boy, with a statement like that you seem to be trying to instigate a flame war.
So, the secret to being productive on an 800x600 display is to know the "keyboard shortcuts" for your most often used commands. For all other commands, you just look search for them by name in the search bar (with tab completion). This is what you do in Emacs, Vim, and VS-Code. (I think in VS-Code it's Alt-F11, I haven't used it in a while so I can't remember). Does MS Word and Excel finally have this feature? I would be surprised if they didn't by now.
But anyway, I have no idea why people ever put up with menu bars and toolbars for so long. Why comb through a menu or ribbon UI with a mouse when you can just type 3 letters of the name of the thing you want to do, press tab, then press enter and it just works?
@48kRAM
> > "Finally have 3 displays set up for working from home. I have these vague memories, as if from some previous life, of using a computer productively with only a single display. How... how did we ever do that?"
Oh boy, with a statement like that you seem to be trying to instigate a flame war.
@48kRAM My first programming job I wrote code in pencil on a coding pad and sent it out to get punched into cards, then I got it back and desk-checked it against my handwritten code and possibly used the *one* punch in the office to correct a few cards. Then I'd hand it in to be run, get my printout back, and compare the results with what I expected. I typically got two test runs a day.
The first job where I had an 80x24 text terminal and I could edit code and run it right away was mindblowing.