Then and Now

In 1995 I bought a PentaScanner+ and Super Injector for a little over $5000.

The day before yesterday I used it on a job to test some cable drops. (Mine is getting old, the display is faint, and the case on the PentaScanner is cracked)

Yesterday I bought two sets off Ebay for $120 each.

Reply to
Bob La Londe
Loading thread data ...

Hi Bob,

Yea, I have had those days.

Why not get the replace the display on the old one and sell it on eBay for $120 bucks??

Then again the repair may cost more than $120 bucks. And you scored two for that number. Kudos!!

Quite a number of years ago I was doing network cabling in a School District. I explained to the Maintenance Manager that I could only test the pairs for proper continuity but could not test, verify and certify the quality of the install. Couldn't afford the right tool. He said what do you need?? I said well there is this tool made by DSP-100 Fluke Cable Tester. It cost a little over $5000. He said, order it we will buy one.

I did and it worked great. I asked a couple of years ago of the new Maintenance Manager if I could borrow the meter for a job I was doing elsewhere. They could not find it.

Just checked eBay and there is one there with 28% Off, priced now at $122.39

Boggles the mind!!!

Later,

Les

Reply to
ABLE1

Reading all of this just gave me a great idea to submit to the TV networks.

It would work like this:

The TV Network crew would travel around the country, stopping in major citi es and people would come in with all kinds of odds and ends that they paid lots and lots of money for years ago. There would be experts on hand that w ould review the items and tell the people how cheaply the items could be bo ught for today.

The show would be called Obsolestique Roadshow.

Reply to
Jim

Jim,

Now that is funny and would be worth a view for at most, a couple of shows.

Les

Reply to
ABLE1

GASP! And they both work!!!!!

Reply to
Bob La Londe

Big THUMBS UP for you Bob!!

If I was still doing a lot of network stuff I might consider calling and working out a lease agreement. :-)

Congrats!!

Les

Reply to
ABLE1

I imagine back in the day Rentelco made a few dollars doing that sort of thing.

Reply to
Bob La Londe

Way back sometime in the past millennium I rented a Durantz Power Analyzer from GE Rents. Cost a little over $500 for a month. REALLY USED it for for that month and sent it back. It provided printouts of excellent details on KW, KWH, AMPS, KVARS, and beyond. Analyzed every piece of machinery in the plant, ran spread sheets to determine daily/weekly/monthly/annual power consumption and the cost of all production equipment. Nobody ever knew that the cost to run 3 compressors 24/7 was over well over $6000/year(then). Added 600 gallon surge tank with regulator and reduced that by 50%.

Ahhhhhh those were the days............................

Reply to
ABLE1

Customer of mine has n his keychain a memory chip that one time costs $25,000 for a main frame computer of course worth nothing now

Reply to
NickMark

I remember back in my early PC days when I was just a computer geek and computer geeks weren't cool... The owner of a local computer store used to keep all his latest generation loose computer memory in a large fanny pack on his body at all times in the store. Now I have single memory chips laying on shelves and falling on the floor that are larger than every piece of memory he owned combined back then.

Reply to
Bob La Londe

LOL You guys are really messing around with some antique memories.

When I bought my first "computer" I got it on a 30 day trial period. It was called the "Timex Sinclair 1000" and it had on board 2k of that memory stuff. Price tag was $99 as I remember. I opted to get the extra 16K added memory module for an additional $39.00. What a bargain that was..................

formatting link

Just checked on eBay and there are a bunch up for auction or buy it now. Amazing!!

Ended up returning it and got my money back. Then I went out and bought a real computer...... the Atari 400. LOL

Adding to my memoirs, I had taught myself on the Timex how to write a basic language program to generate a 3 digit random number. On a Thursday night I was on the phone with my Dad and explaining about this "computer" thing I had. He said, what does that thing do?? I tried to explain but he was not getting it. I said that I wrote this program that can generate a 3 digit number............. you know Dad, like the lottery. I will run it and will see what comes up. I did and the number was 272. I said, the computer says 272, so when you buy your lottery tickets(which was every week) play 272. He said, OK and we shortly hung up the phone.

Needless to say on Saturday night at 7pm I decided to watch the Lottery drawing on TV. The machine was running then the balls came up......... 2 ....... 7 ....... 2 I freaked out and called by Dad right away. I said, YOU WON!! The number came up.

There was a long silence...................... He said, "I didn't buy any tickets, I forgot".

WHAT?!?!?!

He was kicking himself for a long time after that.

BTW if you feel that this is a fabricated story you would be wrong. Totally true.

Dang it, the memories are still in the gray matter. SCARY, very Scary.

Later,

Les

Reply to
ABLE1

Way back when I wanted a Timex Sincalir 1000. It was one of the first portables. It wouldn't have been my first though. I started with a Commodore Pet 2001. I learned BASIC and file handling on that machine with its manually started and stopped onboard cassette deck. Do you remember Squiggle? I copied the program out of the manual and studied how it worked to learn to write BASIC. Then we moved on to a Heathkit H89a with a Z80 micro processor and actualy floppy drives. We thought we were the kings of computing when we got a double sided floppy. We talked about getting a Winchester drive like it was the Holy Grail. I wrote some simple game program on that computer. A numeric version of Mastermind. Black jack against the computer based on a single deck. Strictly text based.

In 1980 I got to play with an HP9825a. It was the first time I got to play with anything that had real math functions and A PLOTTER. I made tons of pretty graphs with it, and wrote a simple high speed memory game. That was a stretch with its single line text display.

I didn't get into video game writing until 1981 when I got access to some Apple II+ computers in my senior year in high school. I think every guy in the class wrote his own version of Space Invaders or Pong. I wrote a text based DND style game on it too. I used a array storage file on a floppy to mimic a map, and got it stuck in a loop doing random disc access. Smoke poured out of that one. It was the first time I managed to damage hardware with software, but it wasn't the first time I saw smoke in conjunction with computing.

In 197X I was coding madly on the H89a to write a poker game. Back then I could holds all the variables in my head. I'ld been writing code for about

9 hours straight when I heard this huge pop and flames shot up the wall in my folks kitchen. My dad said I did a back flip out of my chair, but I don't believe it. APS had dropped a leg across a wire somewhere and we were taking a few hundred more volts into the house than we should have. The surge suppressor plugged into the wall exploded and burst into flames.
Reply to
Bob La Londe

Geez Bob, isn't it amazing the things we use to do..................

Really kind of boggles the mind.

Reply to
ABLE1

Reply to
JoeRaisin

Cabling-Design.com Forums website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here. All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.