use of computers

[Mushroom]

I read that there are computers in the card room on Harmony. If I don’t need Internet connection, can I use the computer for free (say, download pictures from phone to a thumb drive)?

Thanks!

[DocLC]

3 minutes ago, Mushroom said:

I read that there are computers in the card room on Harmony. If I don’t need Internet connection, can I use the computer for free (say, download pictures from phone to a thumb drive)?

Thanks!

I haven't been on the Harmony yet, but on the other ships the computers did not allow you to use them as computers in the true sense. They were just internet access terminals, probably to keep the computers secure. There was no way to plus in devices. 

[twangster]

Agreed.  From what I've seen you can enter your Voom code, if you bought a Voom plan, or you can purchase a Voom plan from the terminals.  They do allow free browsing to the RC website, but other than that, they are pretty locked down.  

[NS8VN]

If you need to transfer data from a phone to a thumb drive then I would suggest purchasing one with both a USB A and micro USB (or Apple lightning) connectors.  Then you can just plug the drive straight in to the phone.

[jce2]

8 minutes ago, NS8VN said:

If you need to transfer data from a phone to a thumb drive then I would suggest purchasing one with both a USB A and micro USB (or Apple lightning) connectors.  Then you can just plug the drive straight in to the phone.

Fortunately I just bought a 256 GB phone so I should be able to store everything on my trip with no worries. (I actually bought the phone with the cruise in mind!)

[rjac]

1 hour ago, jce2 said:

Fortunately I just bought a 256 GB phone so I should be able to store everything on my trip with no worries. (I actually bought the phone with the cruise in mind!)

Just don't loose the phone, then you WILL have worries!

[RestingBird]

9 hours ago, jce2 said:

Fortunately I just bought a 256 GB phone so I should be able to store everything on my trip with no worries. (I actually bought the phone with the cruise in mind!)

256 GB?! They make phones with that much space?  I need to get out more.

[jce2]

1 hour ago, RestingBirds said:

256 GB?! They make phones with that much space?  I need to get out more.

Blows my mind!  I have been programming computer systems since 1975 (punch cards) and at one time was the big guy on the block because I splurged and had 48 K in my TRS 80.  Terns like Megabyte and Gigabyte were unheard of....and now they sell terrabyte hard drives in the BX!

[DocLC]

1 hour ago, jce2 said:

Blows my mind!  I have been programming computer systems since 1975 (punch cards) and at one time was the big guy on the block because I splurged and had 48 K in my TRS 80.  Terns like Megabyte and Gigabyte were unheard of....and now they sell terrabyte hard drives in the BX!

My first computer with a hard drive (first computer had a tape drive) had a 20 MB drive, and I thought that was something. I also remember going from 300 to 1200 baud modems and thought that was special.

[JLMoran]

OK, if we're talking computer nostalgia...

First computer I owned was an Apple ][e "Rev B" that I got my freshman year in high school. By the time I graduated (1988) I had saved up from all my odd jobs and "tricked it out" as much as possible. I can't remember everything that was in there, but the big items were:

• 1 MB of RAM via an Applied Engineering "RAM Works" expansion card; the fun part was having to buy all the individual RAM chips (64 of them!!!) and socket them into the card by hand!
• A "Zip Chip" replacement CPU, which ran at a blazing 8 MHz (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_II_accelerators#Zip_Chip_.E2.80.93_Zip_Technologies)
  • When I say "blazing", I mean that literally; the first one I installed actually burned out in less than a year, and I had to buy an external cooling fan that clipped onto the slots on the side of the computer to keep the replacement chip from suffering the same fate.
• A 2400 baud modem
• An Applied Engineering "Phasor" sound card (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phasor_(sound_synthesizer))
• An installed copy of GeOS, that gave that ][e a Mac-like GUI OS (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GEOS_(8-bit_operating_system)), along with apps like GeoCalc, GeoWrite, GeoPaint, etc.

For a guy who had wanted a Mac in 1984 but couldn't afford one himself and whose parents didn't want to buy one when there was no software for it, this ended up being a pretty good substitute, and one hell of a workhorse system. It got me through high school and 3 of my 4 years in college before it finally burned out for good and was replaced with a Mac Classic.

[FManke]

On ‎9‎/‎19‎/‎2017 at 8:22 AM, JLMoran said:

OK, if we're talking computer nostalgia...

First computer I owned was an Apple ][e "Rev B" that I got my freshman year in high school. By the time I graduated (1988) I had saved up from all my odd jobs and "tricked it out" as much as possible. I can't remember everything that was in there, but the big items were:

• 1 MB of RAM via an Applied Engineering "RAM Works" expansion card; the fun part was having to buy all the individual RAM chips (64 of them!!!) and socket them into the card by hand!
• A "Zip Chip" replacement CPU, which ran at a blazing 8 MHz (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_II_accelerators#Zip_Chip_.E2.80.93_Zip_Technologies)
  • When I say "blazing", I mean that literally; the first one I installed actually burned out in less than a year, and I had to buy an external cooling fan that clipped onto the slots on the side of the computer to keep the replacement chip from suffering the same fate.
• A 2400 baud modem
• An Applied Engineering "Phasor" sound card (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phasor_(sound_synthesizer))
• An installed copy of GeOS, that gave that ][e a Mac-like GUI OS (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GEOS_(8-bit_operating_system)), along with apps like GeoCalc, GeoWrite, GeoPaint, etc.

For a guy who had wanted a Mac in 1984 but couldn't afford one himself and whose parents didn't want to buy one when there was no software for it, this ended up being a pretty good substitute, and one hell of a workhorse system. It got me through high school and 3 of my 4 years in college before it finally burned out for good and was replaced with a Mac Classic.

Ha! That's nothing! You should have seen me back in 1973, when I got a Texas Instruments calculator for Christmas! I was the coolest kid in the third grade!

[JLMoran]

Just now, FManke said:

Ha! That's nothing! You should have seen me back in 1973, when a Texas Instruments calculator for Christmas! I was the coolest kid in the third grade!

Why do I feel like this is turning into the "Four Yorkshiremen" skit from Monty Python?

Quote

 

Yorkshireman: "We lived in a cardboard box on the street."

Other Yorkshireman: "Luxury! We lived in a hole in the ground!"

Third Yorkshireman: "We got evicted from our hole."

 

[Orange Crush]

23 hours ago, NS8VN said:

If you need to transfer data from a phone to a thumb drive then I would suggest purchasing one with both a USB A and micro USB (or Apple lightning) connectors.  Then you can just plug the drive straight in to the phone.

Alternatively, you may have success using a USB OTG adapter for your phone:

https://www.amazon.com/Micro-Cellphone-Tablet-Non-Retail-Packaging/dp/B00AYPEL56/ref=sr_1_7?ie=UTF8&qid=1505829956&sr=8-7&keywords=usb+otg

You'll need an Android phone that supports USB OTG (many do, but not all).

[ellcee]

This thread is making me laugh! My dad used to make games for me (he was a computer programmer back then, didn't stay with it) that would rival simple games, like Pong, on our Commodore Vic20.

[twangster]

This thread took an unexpected twist.  OK, I did punch cards in high school.  They had to be sent off to the board office to be read.  If some joker inserted a 999 card it crashed the system and all results were delayed a week.  I think we had 3 programs per semester to code.  Very simple add two numbers type programs.  Took all semester to get it done.  Later I was so impressed with 3.5 floppy disks.  Twice the capacity of 5.25 and half the size.  720k! Then...

[jce2]

52 minutes ago, twangster said:

This thread took an unexpected twist.  OK, I did punch cards in high school.  They had to be sent off to the board office to be read.  If some joker inserted a 999 card it crashed the system and all results were delayed a week.  I think we had 3 programs per semester to code.  Very simple add two numbers type programs.  Took all semester to get it done.  Later I was so impressed with 3.5 floppy disks.  Twice the capacity of 5.25 and half the size.  720k! Then...

My first computer class was my senior year in high school.  We didn't even have a computer, just a closet with a couple of punchcard machines.  we would punch out our decks, our teacher would drop them off at the university on his way home and pick up the fan-fold output the next day on his way to school.  Yup!  could take 24 hours to find out you misplaced a comma!!