Stuff you USED TO know how to do on the computer

My list (Mac-centric just because I have historically been Mac-centric):

a) In the flat-out failure division (i.e., I’ve actually tried it and flunked), being able to make an ftp connection from a command line and download files to my local hard drive or upload from local hard drive using “get” and “put”. Damn! (Yeah, I can look it up, but still…)

b) In the “I probably still could but it’s been a long long time” division: To send out an email with a file attachment, first BinHexxing the file attachment (converts it to ASCII text with each line limited to 70 or 80 chars or some such) then uploading it to IBM 3090 Server running VM then creating the email and doing SOMETHING (??) from the command line to append the BinHex file to the email message text.

c) Same division: To embed a font in a document file so that you would not have to have that font installed to view that document properly, by doing something (hold down option key when clicking Open, maybe?) to Font/DA Mover to get it to open files other than the System file or a Font Suitcase, and then move the font into the document file.

d) Pretty sure I remember how to do it: Adjusting the system heap. If you thought memory management was pathetic in MacOS 9, you’ve forgotten System 6. Some very parsimonious assumptions were made about how much RAM would be needed for the accoutrements of the OS itself. But if you filled all available slots for Disk Accessories (15) and crammed your system with fonts, you could eat up the entire system heap and it would be very unstable, even unbootable. (I don’t remember if INITs and CDEVs also ate into the sys heap or not; if they did, there had to have been sysheap hell to pay for lots of folks).

e) Pretty sure I remember how to do it: Resetting the IBM 3090 session. A soft reboot of your own session. “IPL CMS” from the command line.

f) Pretty sure I remember how to do it: Force-quitting a hung app from the MacsBug debugger prompt. There was this little plastic thingie you’d physically snap into your computer on the oldies, whereas on the newer computers Command-Powerkey would bring up the prompt, no plastic widgets necessary. You’d get a “>”. And you’d type SMFA700A9F4, hit return, type PCFA700, hit return again, then type “G” and hit return. Hung app would be force-quit and you could save your work in other apps and restart the OS gracefully. Well, decently often for a non-protected-memory environment.

g) I have only dim memories: Setting the interleave ratios on hard disks. As unlikely as it sounds, hard disks could spin faster than the data-path architecture could keep up with. Early Mac hard drives had to be interleaved for best performance, meaning that what the computer perceived to be consecutive sectors were actually first, third and fifth, with the intervening sectors ignored untll the second spin. In fact I think the really old ones like the Mac Plus used a 3:1 interleave so it only tried to read from or write to every THIRD sector. Anyhow, it was something you did when you formatted your new HD.

h) I have only dim memories: Doing something to the hardware so it would recognize the extra RAM you just installed. Something about a resistor that had to be cut on the old Mac SE if you had the audacity to install more than 1 MB of RAM.

i) Pretty sure I remember how to do it: Resetting the PRAM before System 7. Instead of the ⌘-Option-P-R thingie, you’d hold down a key combo while selecting Control Panels. I’m pretty sure it was Command and Option.

j) I have only dim memories: Starting from a RAM disk. Something you could do if you had no hard disk and only one floppy drive but a decent amount of RAM (very common on the Mac Plus). There was a trick you could use that would make it load the entire floppy that the OS was on into RAM, then spit it out and you could use the floppy drive to insert diskettes containing your programs.
Yours? (PC users, not to mention Amiga and other platform users, fully welcome)

10 print "Booya! "
20 goto 10

I think that was it.

I used to be able to make my washing-machine-sized hard drive dance across the room just by flicking a few lights, but that feature was long gone before we even had FTP.

I’m a frequent victim and therefor have become a big fan of negitive learning experiences.

I used to be The DosMaster back in the day when playing a PC game involved fiddling around with EMS, XMS, and boot disks- and you had to know the configuration for your sound card if you wanted to hear anything more than “Bleep Bleep Bloop Bip” when you were playing.

A few months ago we were trying to get an old DOS game (I can’t even remember what it was now) running in DOS mode, and all I could remember was “C:>CD\Game” “Dir/w”, and “Game.exe”. Sure, it got it working, but with no sound- and I couldn’t for life of me remember how I used to fiddle with all this stuff when I was a kid to get it working properly. :smack:

Yup, same here. I’m also afraid to sit down at a *nix console, as I suspect I won’t be nearly as clever about it as I was when I was 12.

My last feat of command-line wizardry was to add CD-ROM support to an emergency boot disk by editing the config.sys and autoexec.bat files with COPY CON.
Does Windows have anything to replace “DIR > TEMP.TXT” yet? People at my office send screen-shots of the Windows “search results” window in e-mails because they aren’t proficient with DIR.

making the screen flash different colors while beeping was cool with BASIC.

Ah… fond memories of the ol’ TRS-80.

About five years ago, I transferred a bunch of videotapes onto the hard drive and made SVCDs of them. This was before DVD writers were really affordable. So I got so far and stopped, thinking I’d get back into it when I could make DVDs. Now I can’t remember what the procedures were, or what software I used. I never got as far as rendering video the first time, and I’m not even sure what that means; there’s so much I don’t know about, so I just sorta gave up on it. But I need to take it up again.

Oh wow… this is kind of timely.
I was pondering ideas for a story where someone gets sent back in time, and started thinking out the implications of that from a personal perspective.

I thought “oh yeah, I’ll be set- I’m a competent IT professional; I’d have no problem in 1985”.

Then I started thinking about it, and realized that I’ve forgotten everything I ever knew about Novell, and what I do know about DOS is generally 5.0 or later stuff, not 3.3 or whatever was in vogue at that point.

That’s not to mention that I never did know any of the myriad of WP 5.1 keyboard shortcuts, and that I didn’t ever know Lotus 123 all that well either.

I decided that I’d probably be worse off going back than I would have been at 13 growing up.

I used to also know a fair amount of C64 stuff that I’ve forgotten, as well as stuff about RLE and MFM hard drives, etc…

I also used to be pretty slick with Hayes modem commands (ATDT, etc…) but I don’t remember squat anymore. Same goes for using modems & stuff.

I used to be able to make a really kewl winking guy with a big nose but I forgot…or did you mean something else?

Hmmm, the joys of thermal printing are indeed long gone.

So was manually changing the colors of the “Blue” Screen of Death individually on every single one of the 200+ computers at my high school, and then crashing them 50 at a time to subtly change the entire color scheme of the computer room. :smiley: Can’t do that anymore.

WordPerfect

The stuff you STILL know can be fun…

…in a previous job, while bored, I started rummaging through all the crap shoved into a walk-in cupboard. Which ranged from spare mice (useful), through unopened Win2K packages (possibly eBay-able but try putting that on a County Council finance form), to the actual computers just sat there, forlornly.

I can’t help but boot these things up, just for the sake of it. So I did. And had to recall all of those DOS commands which I hadn’t used for however long. I kept on typing Linux ones, even though I’ve (yet again) given up on Linux.

I did eventually manage to get the database running and load one of these files, output it as a text file, and use a floppy disc (IIRC we wiped a Win3.1 one for this) to transfer this across to a proper computer with Excel (to import the table) & stuff, and from there to the modern database. We did this for the rest of the hard drive’s contents, and felt well chuffed :slight_smile:

Finding we could access anything on the network by using Word macros was good fun…this was in 3.1 days, I think…the servers might even have been OS/2…

I, for one, miss OS/2. Warp 4 was oh so far ahead of Windows 95. In fact, I switched from XP to OS/2 Warp 4 for a while. How you’ve broken our hearts, IBM.