Funny Math Cartoons Coffee Talk Snl

I AM NOW ON VACATION !

What an exhausting and long year since last August – my last full vacation!

And exhausting … for ALL OF  US! I am so fortunate to have been able to  work with such amazing and incredible colleagues at The Computer Help Desk over the past … 500+ DAYS! Yes, it has been that long since we started working remotely, late in March of 2020!

Without ALL of their support, humour, leadership, imagination, guidance  and every single possible ' intangible ' that each and every single one of them, ALL BRING to our Teams meetings, emails, texts, GIFs, Emojis, Jeopardy, Quote Contests, it would have been impossible to accomplish a fraction of what WE ALL DID AS A TEAM!

THANK YOU ALL!

A few key UVic and BC websites for returning to campus in September for everyone!

  1. Return-to-Campus Guidelines now available
  2. Return to campus info for students
  3. Communicable Disease Plan now available
  4. UVic News
  5. Update on getting your COVID-19 vaccine
  6. Remote work arrangements announced for the fall
  7. Working remotely
  8. Post-secondary studies during COVID-19
  9. NEW COMPUTERS IN CALL! YAY!
  10. NEW FURNITURE IN CALL! YAY!

Not to worry . . .

August 30th to prep for
. . . Septem . . . PURR !!!!

Pandemic


I will bring Empire Donuts when I return to UVic !

~~Bogman~~

Bold Italics Comic Sans
. . . or . . .
Word Processors Through the Years

Typewriter! Whiteout! Ribbon! Carriage Return! That was MY technology when I was writing term papers back in 1975-1982 at the University of Calgary!

Those late nights AND early mornings, pounding away, literally, on my Smith Corona typewriter – trying to balance SPEED with ACCURACY! There was no such thing as DELETE or UNDO … unless you count going through gallons of whiteout! BUT, I had a very HI-TECH version of correcting mistakes!

Basically, it was a dry 'tape', with dryer white 'chalk' on one side, and a more inert opposite side. But first, you had to recognize that you did INDEED make a typo, AS YOU WERE TYPING! There were no spellcheckers back then! And then, backspace manually TO THE MISTAKE, insert the correction tape, powder side TOWARDS the error, TYPE THE ERROR AGAIN to literally WHITE OUT the mistake, backspace AGAIN, and manually type in the corrected letter! Good times, good times! All this with a single, ORIGINAL, piece of paper in the typewriter! ARGH! And no automatic page feeds so I often ran out of room on my PRISTINE and ORIGINAL PIECE OF PAPER! DOUBLE ARGH!

And then I took my first computer science course! Although technically NOT a word processor, a massive desk with a punched card reader could be consider an early form of a word processor! Every mistake in code ( FORTRAN !) I made, took about 30 minutes to actually DISCOVER from the Punch Card Elders who took my deck and ran it into the giant Punched Card Monsters! Then I had to dig out the SINGLE CARD that had a typo or bad code, and type it in again!

The day I discovered the 'Function Switches' feature, which would mirror all the text was like a miracle! I would press the copy button, then STOP, type in the corrected command or typo, then continue with copy and the card would appear at the end! Reinsert, hand over the deck and … ANOTHER TYPO FURTHER INTO THE DECK! Repeat as many times as necessary! Good times, good times!

Commodore SX-64
Commodore SX-64

And then, I graduated, not only from U of C, but onto SUPERIOR TECHNOLOGY! Well, at least, at the time, it certainly WAS superior technology! My first teaching gig was not only teaching a Beginner Computer Science course, but DESIGNING IT AS WELL! I earlier posted about Desktop Publishing , but … it was really just basic Word Processing with Apple and Commodore Computers!

Yes, that is the manual for my own Commodore SX-64 that I used for some Grad courses at U of C! And I used the worlds best FREE word processor at the time … SPEEDSCRIPT ! A future post will discuss just how amazing the SX-64 computer was! AND IT STILL WORKS!

SpeedScript was free, had a spell checker and even had a PREVIEW of the final page, which was YEARS ahead of anything else out there! And did I mention it was … FREE! YES FREE! And amazingly, it used a markup language that is INCREDIBLY SIMILAR TO WHAT HTML IS NOW! Commodore computers were definitely ahead of their time!

And then a commercial word processor – PaperClip came along and … well, due to budget cuts, only 1 copy was purchased for me! Free is free, right!

And the first ever 'office suite' was actually a cartridge based system for .. you guessed it … my SX-64! It was called VIZASTAR and had … EVERYTHING you ever needed for what is now considered an 'Office Suite' – Spreadsheet, Database and Graphics … but no word processor sadly !

Why here? A future post will be about my SX-64 AND the cool software I still have, including one of he worlds first ever … LIGHT PEN called Flexidraw ! VERY COOL even by today's standards!

I brought up my Commodore SX-64 to our Systems Open House a few years ago! The theme was ' Time Travellers – Meet the Team:Systems Through Time ' Click here to see some photos from a previous post! (Yes, always, more Product Placement!)

And then .. progress marches on. The next generation of hardware and software was WordPerfect on a Commodore IBM clone. What? I bet you didn't know that Commodore made IBM clones! THEY DID!

And I might start an argument, but I always preferred Corel WordPerfect (MAC) to pretty much any flavour of Word through the years! Okay, so maybe now Office 365 is better! But when I was helping to publish our CALL Proceedings , I made WordPerfect the recommended application. Of course, everyone ignored it, but WordPerfect did Word, BETTER THAN WORD back then! AND IT WAS CANADIAN TOO!

Apple even had their own versions of word processors, including Apple Writer , ClarisWorks , MacWrite , MacWrite Pro , AppleWorks , and now Pages . All good! Used them all for various reasons with great success!

And then there is another package that I have briefly used, and is free for both current WIN and MAC platforms called Libre Office , which was once known as Open Office. I have only used it sparingly, basically enough to answer basic questions about it, and I am not sure it is installed on any computers at UVic anymore, with Office 365 kinda taking over … for free for students and staff! Which, by the way is a VERY GOOD THING!

And then there are now Text Editors – basically a blend of raw ASCII text with minimal word processing features. So, yeah … they are word processors! There are SO many of them, we all have our favourites and they are quick and dirty to see CONTENT as far as I am concerned. If you are using a text editor for word processing …. then let's talk! LOL!

Soothsayer Cat
    Old School Cat

And if you think about it, creating a post here on OAC is a perfect blend of word processing AND text editor! I can switch to Text if I want to change some nuts and bolts thing with HTML, or just use the New Post and … see what happens! YAY FOR OAC! Many thanks to "mvh" for his patience whenever I have an OAC question for him!

Some interesting links to tickle your funny bone or perhaps feel compelled to put pen to paper – in a manner of speaking! Remember, I am old school!

Enjoy!

  1. SpeedScript – Wikipedia
  2. Speedscript – C64 Wiki
  3. SpeedScript 3.2 for the Commodore 64
  4. Speedscript 3.0
  5. Computer GAZETTE for Commodore Personal
  6. PaperClip Professional Word Processor
  7. PaperClip – Wikipedia
  8. Commodore 64
  9. Commodore PC Compatible Systems
  10. WordPerfect 3.x (Mac)
  11. WordPerfect – Wikipedia
  12. Corel – Wikipedia
  13. Microsoft Word – Wikipedia
  14. On the Origin of the Word Processor
  15. The Evolution of Word Processing – Pencils to Wikis
  16. Vizastar – Wikipedia
  17. Flexidraw
  18. Light Pen – C64 Wiki
  19. Apple Writer – Wikipedia
  20. Everything About Punch Cards
  21. Punched Card – Wikipedia

As long as there are words … and Word Processors … out there, there will be interesting topics!

E N J OY!

T T F N !

Commodore History – The PET
Part 1 of 8

Remember WordPerfect?
Where Are They Now?

WordPerfect Tutorial
VHS from 1987!

The Oldest Office
for Microsoft Windows

Medieval Help Desk

The History of
Word Processors

Computer Chronicles
Word Processing (1983)

MS-DOS Word Processors

1975 What is Word Processing?

I Excel at PowerPoint
. . . or . . .
Computer Puns and Jokes

Taken
Taken

I don't know who you are or why you stole my copy of Microsoft Office …. but I will find you. You have my .. WORD! I hope I have ' Taken ' your attention away from whatever you were doing! Just when you thought it was safe to blog again … COMPUTER PUNS AND JOKES!

CALL Facility Klingon & Sindarin
CALL Facility Klingon

I always try to sneak in jokes, puns or riddles into many of my CALL Facility orientations and handouts too! I once included ' Klingon ' in a handout of languages that The CALL Facility had resources for! And it is still at ZOHO !

Soothsayer Cat
Soothsayer Cat

And then UVic goes and offers a course in Alien Languages (Klingon & Sindarin!) ! That makes me a soothsayer! I wonder if that means a pay raise or not! My guess …. NOT!

And more ' Product Placemen t' as I posted a previous Bog Blog about … Puns titled ' When is a Door Not a Door? When it is a Jar "!!

The best part of puns are when they are impromptu and happen instantly! All too often, my eyes widen or roll about and that is an early warning system for colleagues … PUN ALERT! PUN ALERT ! People know me all too well! I would be horrible at poker ! LOL!

I found one site where a computer was programmed to CALCULATE the funniest puns and it came up with the following….. and …. yeah, NO! Even I have lines I do not cross … and they are often …  lines of code! LOL!

I often say that if I am having fun, then the students are having fun too! There is so much stress nowadays that humour IS good medicine! I won't bother telling you my absolutely favourite jokes and puns other than …

… it is always my NEXT ONE!

Some interesting links to tickle your funny bone, or perhaps, seek medical attention afterwards!

Enjoy!

  1. XKCD – A Webcomic of Romance, Sarcasm, Math, and Language
  2. Explain XKCD Wiki
  3. 25 Computer Puns That Will LAN You In A Pool Of Laughter
  4. Computer Puns
  5. Com­puter Jokes
  6. Puns about Technology (Misc. Computer Puns)
  7. Fourteen Computer Puns That Only Tech Heads Will Understand
  8. 10 Computer Geek Jokes and Truisms
  9. A Computer Made a List of the 5 Funniest Puns it Knows
  10. Computer Programming Puns
  11. 55+ Best Computer Puns

As long as there are words out there, there will be interesting topics!

E N J OY!

T T F N !

30 Awful Computer Puns
(in Less Than 2 Minutes)

31 Jokes for Nerds

XKCD Eternal Flame Explained

Think Different . . .
. . . or . . .
Apple Commercials
Through the Years

Think Different Albert Einstein
Think Different


Think Different.
As iconic as the '1984' Mac commercial is, this may be one of the most remembered Apple campaigns … EVER! Well, at least for me. I have this poster in my office at home. I uncovered a bunch of them years ago, doing an annual cleanse of some closets we once used as storage! Serendipitous for me!

There is no question that Apple has one of the best marketing programs … in history! This post is predominantly about their ads in video format, which range from poignant and dramatic, to humorous and sometimes silly! They truly do …. Think Different …. all the time!

Kevin Costner - Lisa
  Kevin Costner – Lisa

And at the time, obscure actors might have shown up too! Kevin Costner will forever be linked with the introduction of the Lisa computer , which is a whole different post too!

The BEST ads are cast with actors who don't take themselves too seriously and actually parody their on-screen presence … and blend it with their off-screen personality!

The Rock x SIRI
     The Rock x SIRI

Dwayne 'The Rock' Johnson did this perfectly in his ad for Siri a few years ago. I doubt Apple could afford him now!

What Will Your Verse Be?
  What Will Your Verse Be?

My absolute favourite commerical of ALL TIME is probably not what you might think. Oh yes, I do like the 1984 commercial (Directed by Ridley Scott – Gladiator, The Martian, Thelma & Louise, Blade Runner, Alien .. yes THAT Ridley Scott !) but my favourite is for the iPad Air with Robin Williams narrating his poetry speech over some amazing world moments. Do you remember which movie this came from? HUDDLE UP!

As a summer project many years ago, I decided to find as many Apple Commercials on YouTube as I could and learn how to create movies and burn a DVD, dedicated to only Apple Commercials!

YouTube was relatively new and it might not have even been bought by Google yet! Still, I learned how to create and edit movies, burn DVDs and improve my knowledge of various video formats, editing techniques and making movies!

iMovie HD 2005
  iMovie HD 2005

A future post, once we return to UVic, will be about using iMovie HD ! What? You have never heard of that version? That doesn't surprise me!

iMovie HD was one of the very first versions (2005!) and can only

MovieBox DV
    MovieBox DV

run under a macOS that is named after a kitty! But it is surprisingly robust, has simple and intuitive editing controls and works with some old hardware called MovieBox DV (2003!) that can digitize VHS cassettes! Sometimes you can teach an old dog new tricks!

And one more thing … Apple has long been the target of parody ads! There is one for a new iPhone at the very end of the videos below. But the BEST one is called 'The Power to Crush the Other Kids". It is nowhere to be found on the internet and YouTube has pulled it due to copyright infringement concerns, by NBC's ownership of Saturday Night Live. If you can find it, it is truly hilarious!

Some interesting links below with even more background to Apple's numerous ads throughout the years!

As long as there are words out there, there will be a site that Google finds for each of us!

Enjoy!

  1. The most memorable Apple ads of all time
  2. 15 Best Apple Commercials of All Time
  3. The 14 best Apple ads of all time
  4. 10 Apple ads that show how the brand has evolved
  5. 289 Best Apple Ads – Pinterest
  6. The best 18 Apple commercials of all time
  7. The best ad Apple produced from each year since its 1984 Super Bowl hit
  8. THE BANANA JUNIOR 6000: COMPUTERS AND COMEDY
  9. The 10 Funniest Apple-Ad Parodies
  10. The 10 Funniest Mac Apple-Ad Parodies

As long as there are words out there, there will be interesting topics!

E N J OY!

T T F N !

Think Different
Narrated by Steve Jobs

What Will Your Verse Be?
Apple iPad Air

1984 Super Bowl Ad

The Real Story Behind
Apple's 1984 Commercial

Best Apple Commercials 2020

29 Best Apple Commercials
of All Time

Complete 66 Mac vs PC Ads

Best Apple Commercials

Every Apple Computer Ad

Top 10 Iconic Apple Ads

Best Apple Commercials

Best Apple Commercials

30 Years of Mac Ads
1984 – 2014

15 Funny Apple Ads

iPhone Parody
A Taller Change

New from Apple, the iCan.

I'm Sorry Dave . . .
. . . or . . .
My Favourite Computer & AI Voices
in Movies and TV

2001: A Space Odyssey

I'm sorry Dave. I'm afraid I can't do that. If there is one singular voice and image, representing a computer or AI, it is HAL 9000 from Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey .

This will be my list of my favourite computer/AI voices from Movies and TV shows that I have seen and grew up with! They can be human or actually computer generated. So some of them will no doubt be VERY obscure for many of you young folks! LOL! But that does not mean you should disregard them!  They might prove to be dated, but they have all influenced how we percieve computers and AI, to this day!

The voice of EVERY computer in every episode and movie of Star Trek is Majel Barrett, who was married to Gene Rodenberry! She even voiced the computer in the Star Trek:The Animated Series too! Outside of Michael Dorn ( Worf ), Majel Barrett has appeared in more episodes than ANY OTHER ACTOR!

Robocop morphed a critically injured policeman with state of the art technology to enforce police protection. What could go wrong? Well, more than you can imagine, including a horrible remake of this classic movie!

And at the time, TRON was the greatest computer movie OF ALL TIME! The graphics were amazing, the storyline was new and amazing and I remember watching it multiple times!

And then they made a reboot of it TRON:Legacy .. and I liked that one too! It got bad review, but I still liked it! And the graphics were amazing too!

                            TRON                                       TRON:Legacy

TRON Master Control
WALL-E

And how could ultimate cuteness and the end of the world combine any better than in WALL-E ! Eve and WALL-E have instant chemistry, albeit confrontational at first, but it is still one of my favourite animated series and WELL ahead of its time in terms of environmentalism!

And probably the most iconic computer/AI interface, at least recently is the combined character of Vision in the MCU (Marvel Cinematic Universe). Vision is 'powered' by the Mind Stone, one of the Infinity Stones .

And … if you got this far, then you have seen the movies! Vision is a weird blend of the personality of Tony Stark (Iron Man), Ultron (his 'Frankenstein-like AI), JARVIS (his own AI 'butler') and the power of Thor to kick-start him! Yeah, you had to be there … multiple movies and multiple personalities … what could go wrong! Actually, he is a pretty good character and very strong too!

And a childhood favourite that I waited for each Sunday night was Robbie the Robot from Lost in Space – the original series ! DANGER WILL ROBINSON! DANGER! This even pre-dated Star Trek by a year!

And the rebooted series is fantastic too! The new robot, although not named Robbie, is unique, integral to the storyline and has amazing graphics! And it is filmed in Vancouver too! But only one season left! Sigh …… I remember building a model of this robot too!

Another TV show ahead of its time was Knight Rider ! A virtually indestructible AI car (K.I.T.T. – Knight Industries 2000) guided by a secret organization dedicated to fighting injustice! Whoa, wait … NOT ELON MUSK! LOL! It kind of looked like a cross between Elon Musk and a Cylon! And we don't want to go THERE either!

And having mentioned HAL 9000 above, did you realize that there was a SEQUEL to 2001? 2010: The Year We Make Contact featured SAL 9000 (voiced by Candice Bergen) as the upgrde to HAL that did not quite meet factory specifications! LOL! The most obvious difference (no spoilers here!) is that SAL is a blue orb'!

And coming up to just a couple more examples! There are SO many, that I really did limit myself this time! I had previously written posts about favourite computers in all kinds of media at " Shall We Play a Game . . . or Fictional Computers " but that did not focus on anything but the computers themselves. This post is on their actual voices used! Okay, a small distinction! So that does mentioning a previous post count as … Product Placement or what! LOL!

War Games ! Just go find it somewhere and have a great popcorn time! A young hacker breaks into a High Security computer, unknowingly trying out a 'game' called Global Thermonuclear War and … well, the use of the modem is hilarious! But the voice of WOPR is amazing! If it makes you think of Stephen Hawking …. no spoilers here! A great, great movie!

And I will never hear the end of it from all my colleagues if I don't include those two wacky robots from a relatively unknown cult classic … C-3PO and R2-D2 . Did you ever wonder WHY they are called … R2-D2  and C-3PO ?

Perhaps the quintessential use of voice to convey language! C3PO is designed to be able to talk to ANYONE with his linguistics programming and R2D2 happily whistles, clicks, bings and we can all understand exactly what is going on! The classic straight man out of vaudeville humour and it works so well! Arguably the best parts of Star Wars are those two! Note: Yoda is NOT a computer! LOL!

All the voices mentioned above are in YouTube videos below. I hope I got them all! I might even do a sequel to this in a future post – there were many I have left off and they deserve a listening to as well!

Enjoy!

  1. 10 Unforgettable Voices In A.I. Movie History
  2. Computer, Obey Me! Hollywood's Best Sci-Fi Computer & Robot Voices
  3. The top 50 robots and AI computers in the movies
  4. The Story of a Voice: HAL in '2001' Wasn't Always So Eerily Calm
  5. The 5 Best Computer Voices Ever
  6. The Most Memorable Voice Performances in Sci-Fi History
  7. 10 Famous Actors Who Are Incredible At TV Voice Work
  8. 10 TERRIFIC VOICES BEHIND GREAT SCI-FI CHARACTERS
  9. The All-Time Top 100 Voices in the Movies

As long as there are words out there, there will be interesting topics!

E N J OY!

T T F N !

Top 10 Quotes from
Robocop

War Games
Shall We Play a Game?

I'm Sorry Dave
I'm Afraid I Can't Do That

Dr. Chandra and SAL 9000
2010: The Year We Make Contact

Majel Barett
The Voice of Star Trek Computers

Master Control Program
Quotes

WALL-E Meets Eve

All Iron Man and Jarvis
Quotes

Best of Vision Quotes

Lost in Space
DANGER Will Robinson! DANGER!

Knight Rider
KITT – Knight Industries 2000

R2-D2 and C-3PO
Being Best Friends

And can you identify
any of the computers/AI in the shows below?

I'll Take WIN WIN WIN
for $200 Alex
. . . or . . .
CALL JEOPARDY REBOOT !

CALL Jeopardy is one of my favourite parts of working for The Computer Help Desk! What could be better – a captive audience, a fun way of training current, new and returning Consultants and … brekkie and lunch provided!

I realized that the MOST RECENT version of CALL Jeopardy: ReBoot ,  had not been made available for anyone to try! It is based on the very first CALL Jeopardy, a few years ago, but updated with new information, yet a bit of a retro feel to it!

Unfortunately, it did not really work out the day we tried it online/remote! Somehow, I had an echo, it literally stopped opening up each slide and it fizzled out spectacularly! Oh well, if you are not trying, you aren't learning!

The original format is PowerPoint but OAC WordPress does not permit PowerPoint files. But the versions here are all in .pdf format, which works equally well, except for some animation and other whiz bang effects that I usually include! Why put a Fireworks option into software without any disclaimers about … design! LOL!

CALL Jeopardy: REBOOT VERSION

The most recent version is clickable on the images beside and below, and your browser should download a .pdf version or present the .pdf in a new browser tab. Either way, you can meander through using the menu or just going through slide by slide. That way, you are assured of seeing each 'Question' and 'Answer'.

I always have a 'Twist' to each Category and question. This time, the categories are "OSX …. but not Cats", "WIN WIN WIN", and "CALL Stuff".

In true Jeopardy fashion, each 'answer' must be phrased in the form of a question, identifying which movie each quote came from! No, it has nothing to do with ANYTHING at CHD, but the next slide does!

CALL Jeopardy: Famous Movie Quotes

And all of the previous Jeopardy versions are below and all you have to do is click on any image and it will do what your browser does best – either download it or present it in a new Tab to try.

And the first training session below is a history of CALL. It is NOT in 'Jeopardy' format, so just 'slide' through it if you want to find out a bit more about CALL over the years.

And I am all for accepting any questions you think should be included in any future version of Jeopardy!

And thanks to Tomoyo and Scott for 'driving' for me – actually running the computer & PowerPoint file, while the rest of us have fun with CALL Jeopardy in our training sessions!

Enjoy!

E N J OY!

T T F N !


CALL Workshop – What is CALL?


Jeopardy: CALL


Jeopardy II: CALL++


Jeopardy III: Knee-d-ful Things

Jeopardy IV: Endgame

Jeopardy V: Pop Culture

Jeopardy VI: REBOOT VERSION
(Famous Movie Quotes)

Jeopardy VIII: DUAL re-BOOT

Jeopardy VIII: TRIPLE re-BOOT

Open the Pod Bay Door HAL
or
Computers I Have
Owned or Worked With!

Not exactly comforting assistance from a computer/AI blend there, Stanley! SPOILER ALERT – I might give away some movie endings! (Psssssst… did you know there was a sequel to 2001?)

Full Disclosure :Every single computer listed below, with the exception of HAL, really existed!!

DOUBLE Full Disclosure : I have owned and still own, most of these computers, oh, except for HAL! Yeah, I am a real packrat as far as computers go! And most still work too!

HAL : Affirmative, Dave. I read you.
Dave: Open the pod bay doors, HAL.
HAL: I'm sorry, Dave. I'm afraid I can't do that.
Dave: What's the problem?
HAL: I think you know what the problem is just as well as I do.
Dave: What are you talking about, HAL?
HAL: This mission is too important for me to allow you to jeopardize it.
Dave: I don't know what you're talking about, HAL.
HAL: I know that you and Frank were planning to disconnect me, and I'm afraid that's something I cannot allow to happen.

Perhaps the  most famous computer in all of film history – the HAL 9000 from Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey ! But this post is not about how computers or AI go awry! That will be a future post! This post is about all the computers that I have worked and/or owned since the first day I actually SAW A COMPUTER! Yup, life changing moment and it involved … GOLF!

The first computer I ever 'saw' was on a trip to a Life Insurance company through the youth program at my church. We were in this huge room and a giant golden tube was behind glass. The 'terminal' was a teletype style typewriter and … we played GOLF on it by simply typing a number!

'1' was a 1-Wood and you hit 'Return' and it typed out something like '200 yards. Straight down fairway'. And that absolutely fascinated me!

The first computer I ever OWNED was a kit from Science Fair named ' SF-5000 Electronic Digital Computer '! I spent HOURS cutting wire, measuring it to fit the distance between connections and then I was rewarded with a '2 + 2 = 4' on the 'monitor' across the top of the kit! And then I would do it all over again on a different project! I don't have the computer anymore, but somewhere in my basement, is the Owner's Manual! I will have to dig it out and look at it soon! MADE IN CANADA TOO !

Then in High School, Grade 10, I became the proud owner of a Texas Instrument SR-51A with a 'Pod Bay Door' to put in dedicated chips! I was on top of the computing world! I still have it! It doesn't work. But I still have it!

Then on to the University of Calgary and using the Mainframes there! I don't remember what KIND of mainframe, only that I had to present my stack of punched cards to the 'Elders of Data', they would present my offering to the Oracle (card reader!) and I would then lovingly be handed back my offering. Then wait 15 minutes for the printout and find I had a spelling mistake in my FORTRAN code! Then fix the ONE punched card and … repeat!

But then, I entered the Faculty of Education and was hired as a TA for a grad course 'Computers in Education' and had access to a PDP 1170 and my own teletype! It was Nerd Heaven for me! My very own (almost a..) mainframe computer!

And then in the early 1980's I did some volunteer work and had access to an Apple computer that a high school had bought with the proceeds of a 'Cake Sale' Fundraiser and they did not know what to do with it!

Turns out, I used it in my student teaching practicum year and absolutely transfixed all the staff and students in the school I was a Student Teacher in! BEST.TEACHING.RESOURCE.EVER !

And then the dreaded INEVITABLE HAPPENED! I had taken TOO MANY COURSES, HAD PASSED THEM ALL and … they made me graduate from the University of Calgary! D'Oh!

And my first 'real' job was working with the finest (and cheapest!) home computing power that has ever been used in the history of computing – COMMODORE COMPUTERS! My first classroom had Commodore VIC-20 computers , then were upgraded to Commodore-64s and I was tech support for all the PET computers as well! Basically – I was The Computer Help Desk for an entire building! LOL! And we even had 3 Commodore PC computers running WordPerfect at the time!

Then I bought my first REAL computer – the Commodore SX-64 ! 25 POUNDS of 'luggable' computing power! And I still have it and it still works! I can play C-64 games on it and can hook it up to my 45″ tv! Still works! Grinds and clunks away and I brought it to our Systems Open House a few years ago!

Fast forward to moving to Victoria and buying my first Macintosh – the venerable Mac SE with TWO FLOPPY DRIVES AND 1 MB OF RAM! Awesome! What worlds would I conquer with this screaming hot computer! Turns out …. not too many! And again, and this sounds like an echo … echo … echo …. I STILL HAVE IT AND IT STILL RUNS!

And then a sequence of buying only Macintosh computers: Mac LC520, Graphite iMac G3 and 27″ iMac that is now TEN YEARS OLD! Yes, I am still using a TEN YEAR OLD COMPUTER – but as my media centre for Apple TV and other videos and stuff! And … insert echo here … IT STILL WORKS !

Fast Forward to working at home now! Thanks to Allison, Patrick, Adam and everyone AT CHD and I have a nice Dell Latitude laptop, my daughter's old ' Zelda ' quality monitor and enough computing power to … work from home!

If anything, working with computers through the years describes one undeniable fact about technology – there will ALWAYS be a faster and more powerful computer coming … soon. But make use of what you have, use your imagination and you can do amazing things!

You might not be able to teach an old dog new tricks, but you can use old computers to do new tricks like YouTube, digital videos, webpages, audio, page layout and watch … The Avengers!

And the usual assortment of recently searched interesting links, videos and other walks down memory lane …. literally if the memory involves RAM chips!

PS: And I own an iPhone SE now … but it is 4 years old and ….
IT STILL WORKS! LOL!

Enjoy!

  1. 2001: A Space Odyssey – Wikipedia
  2. Altair 8800
  3. SF-5000 Electronic Digital Computer Kit
  4. Welcome to Steve's Old Computer Museum!
  5. List of home computers – Wikipedia
  6. 10 Classic Computers You Had as a Kid
  7. 28 Best Old Computer Images – Pinterest
  8. PDP 1170 Mainframe Computer – 1970's
  9. Timeline of Mac Models
  10. 10 Most Popular Computers in History
  11. 10 Worthwhile Ways to Breathe New Life Into Old Computers
  12. Avoid the Trash Heap: 15 Great Uses for an Old PC
  13. 5 Creative Ways to Reuse an Old Mac at No Cost
  14. Twelve things to do with an old Apple computer

As long as there are words out there, there will be interesting topics!

    E N J OY!

T T F N !

Open the Pod Bay Doors Hal

The Computer That Changed Everything
Altair 8800 – Computerphile

1977 Tandy Digital Computer

Commodore SX-64 Computer Review

1984 Apple's Macintosh Commercial

"It's a fantastic computer! It's so old that none of today's hackers know how to hack it!"

Is Your DOS – sier
Up to Date?
Best Do a CHKDSK!

DOS is not exactly a buzzword, nor will it ever trend ever, ever again. SPOILER ALERT – this is REALLY OLD TECHNOLOGY!

Full Disclosure : I have even worked on OLDER technology (punched cards) that made DOS seem like sliced bread when it came out!

DOUBLE Full Disclosure : The single greatest computer program ever used in The CALL Facility for languages … needed DOS! And …. IT IS STILL RUNNING!

Yes, the first ever computer program that was used in The CALL Facility was a package of 4 languages – French, German, Italian and Russian! And the operating system used was called MS-DOS – short for DISK OPERATING SYSTEM!

How can an operating system from the mid-1980's, still be operating on MACINTOSH COMPUTERS, which did not even EXIT until 1984, and still be useful? It is technological MAGIC!

I really don't know HOW they work, but they do! And this would have been the LAST summer for McBookmaster French with LMF ! Our resident CHD Magician is Patrick F. and he knows all the special commands and magical chants to make it work on dual-boot iMac computers running Windows 10, running DOS Box ! THANKS PATRICK!

And this computer record will never be broken – McMaster French has been running for over 30 YEARS and has never once crashed! NEVER! And it has served its' purpose well – Beginner French, simple text correction, grammar rules and instant feedback! ALL STATE OF THE ART back in the late 1980's and early 1990's!

Below are some sample screens of what was presented to a student. And this was WELL before any kind of security involving ANY kind of UVic credentials. You simply turned the computer on and selected from a menu of language programs. Good times, good times!

I always enjoyed introducing this software to French students as they would be 'Time Travelling' to a distant past where Bill Gates was only a MILLIONAIRE, when the only mouse in the room was a biologic, and that they really needed to know where the arrow keys, CTRL, ATL, DEL and ESC keys were on an ACTUAL CLICKY KEYBOARD!

And to actually exit the program, you had to hit a sequence of keys, then get to the command line and actually type: exit … or logoff … or quit …. I CAN'T REMEMBER! LOL!

And there were no keyboard shortucuts either! Raw computing power harnessed for the good of education! Good times, good times!

To type the answer, the EXACT ANSWER FROM START TO FINISH, required using combinations of keys that often resulted in a sprained wrist, especially for RUSSIAN!

I remember Mary S., the CALL 'expert' at the time, fussing and fuming about fonts, .exe, .bat and .cnf files and making sure our 'network' of computers were all working! AND THEY DID! Mary did back then, what Patrick does no! LOL!

The Continuing Studies French Summer Immersion La Maison Française , relied on this software for MANY years after it was no longer " de rigueur " by any other Instructors. But alas, technology has surpassed even the oldest of computer programs. The last time I spoke with the Instructors using McBookMaster, they were 'okay' with not using it anymore, if it could not be installed on pending new hardware/software and operating systems!

The software worked REALLY WELL! And it served its' purpose and can now go enter as the first member of ' The CALL Facility Software Hall of Fame '!

ALLONS – Y!

And at the time, we did have other MS-DOS based programs for other languages. We even had an Apple IIe with dual floppy disks to run LATIN PROGRAMS! Sadly, we removed this hardware years ago. Too bad, it would have fit really well with our Systems Open House a few years ago!

What happened after MS-DOS? Not many people remember but the first ever version of WINDOWS in CALL was actually written FOR MS-DOS and was really just a cosmetic version of MS-DOS itself!

Once you booted to DOS, you than would 'run' WINDOWS as an executable file! WOW! And then, the rest is history!

And the usual assortment of recently searched interesting links, videos and other walks down memory lane …. literally if the memory involves RAM chips!

Enjoy!

  1. DOS – Wikipedia
  2. Timeline of DOS operating systems – Wikipedia
  3. MS-DOS – Encyclopedia Britannica
  4. MS-DOS: The Operating System You Loved To Hate
  5. 50 Underrated DOS Games
  6. MS-DOS Commands
  7. HUMOUR for DOS USERS
  8. MS-DOS Characteristics
  9. What is DOS?
  10. DOS (Disk Operating System)
  11. Operating Systems (DOS/WINDOWS)
  12. U.S. Nuclear Weapons No Longer Need Floppy Disks

A master was explaining the nature of the Tao to one of his novices,
"The Tao is embodied in all software — regardless of how insignificant,"
said the master.
"Is the Tao in a hand-held calculator?" asked the novice.
"It is," came the reply.
"Is the Tao in a video game?" continued the novice.
"It is even in a video game," said the master.
" And is the Tao in the DOS for a personal computer? "
The master coughed and shifted his position slightly. "The lesson is
over for today," he said.
         — Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming"

As long as there are words out there, there will be interesting topics!

    E N J OY!

T T F N !

All Versions of MS-DOS
1.0 – 8.0

How to Run DOS Games
on a Mac

MS-DOS 6.22
Best OS . . . Ever?

Basic DOS Commands

How to Pick the Best
Gaming Laptop for MS-DOS Games

The Computer Chronicles
MS-DOS 6.2 (1993)

When is a Door
not a Door?
When it's a
JAR!

And you knew it was coming eventually! My propensity (proPUNsity!) for puns and wordplay! SPOILER ALERT – you might groan at some of them!

Full Disclosure : I am always trying to think of puns, much to the consternation of my family, friends and colleagues!

DOUBLE Full Disclosure : So many puns to cook up, so little thyme for them all! Deal with it!

By definition a pun is:

PUN (Dictionary.com)
Noun: the humorous use of a word or phrase so as to emphasize or suggest its different meanings or applications, or the use of words that are alike or nearly alike in sound but different in meaning; a play on words.
the word or phrase used in this way.
Verb: (used without object), punned, pun·ning.
to make puns.

Pun (Merriam-Webster)
Noun: Definition of pun (Entry 1 of 2)
: the usually humorous use of a word in such a way as to suggest two or more of its meanings or the meaning of another word similar in sound
Verb: punned; punning
Definition of pun (Entry 2 of 2)
intransitive verb: to make puns

Even Wikipedia has a Pun entry ! And no, I did not contribute to it!

And as William Shakespeare said, ' Aye, there's the rub ", which comes from perhaps his most famous soliliqoy in Hamlet, you know … the one about a pair of bees!

And the 'rub' part Ole Bill is referencing is in the Merriam-Webster definition which includes the two words " usually humorous "! And thus the punishment begins!

Why Do Puns Make People Groan? "Puns are threatening because puns reveal the arbitrariness of meaning, and the layers of nuance that can be packed onto a single word,"

Word Nerd: Ode to the pun — 'the lowest form of humour …' Puns have been much maligned by a host of commentators. Freud described puns as "cheap," and Oliver Wendell Holmes assailed them as "verbicide." …. Punning has been a language fixture through the ages.

And that is very true! The greatest Punster of ALL TIME is … William Shakespeare !

And there are even some particularly punny NUMBERS as well! The punnist number of all time is ' 288 '. Why should this number NEVER be mentioned in conversation? Because it is two gross.

But even puns can be ruined by the nature of their origin or their historical context. And that includes Ole Bill too with a very saucy pun … at the time!

Romeo and Juliet, Prologue:
"From forth the fatal loins of these two foes,
A pair of star-crossed lovers take their life."

The word 'loins' would originally have been pronounced the same as 'lines'.
This pun refers to the fatal blood lines of Romeo and Juliet – the families that they descended from are the reason for their death, as well as their 'loins' (their physical relationship).

Kinda 'runes' the moment when any joke is dissected …. or explained! Sheesh! Get with the program, Bill!

In my o-pun-ion, puns are the highest level of .. funny! I admit, they don't always work, but when they dew, the subsequent tsunami of rolling eyes, repressed rage and 'Get thee to a winery!" looks are worth it!

A specialized sub-set of puns are Dad Jokes ! Yup, I qualify there too! Nothing better than getting an eye roll from my daughter! It is in every Dad Job Description and we have to meet all our Dad obligations!

Star Trek, Star Wars and just about any pop culture media is rife with puns, memes and running jokes! Although how a Horta runs is Star Trek:Beyond me!

And who can argue with Obi-Pun-Kenobi!

And I even own a book on puns, entitled ' Upon the Pun " …. a crisp analysis of verbal and visual ambiguities … extremely entertaining anthology of frightful jokes …."

I can lend it to anyone …. anyone? anyone? Bueller? Bueller?

And of course, computers are not immune to puns and jokes, in fact, some of the best jokes are technology based!

How am I with PowerPoint?
You could say I Excel at it.

That one even made ME cringe … but Full Disclosure: I still intend to use it one day! BEWARE!

OH, and I could go on, but I better knot!

Enjoy!

  1. Why Do Puns Make People Groan?
  2. Word Nerd: Ode to the pun — 'the lowest form of humour …'
  3. Shakespearean Puns
  4. 20 SHAKESPEARE PUNS: THE GOOD, THE BAD, AND THE AWFUL
  5. 15 of History's Greatest Puns
  6. 99 Funniest Dad Jokes
  7. Fourteen Computer Puns That Only Tech Heads Will Understand
  8. 25 Computer Puns That Will LAN You In A Pool Of Laughter
  9. The 10 Best Dad Jokes In Shakespeare
  10. Computer Puns

As long as there are words out there, there will be interesting topics!

    E N J OY!

T T F N !

A Song Made Entirely
of Puns

73 Bad Puns
in 5 Minutes

Dad Jokes You Laugh You Lose
Will Ferrell vs Mark Wahlberg

Short, Clean Jokes & Puns
Get a Laugh Every Time

10 Best Puns
of All Time

1, 2, 3, …..
or
My Favourite Language Lesson
of All Time!

Count for me. Yes, count for me. Simple question. Or … is it? Okay, I will ask you to count for me again. Did you repeat your answer or did you ….. count differently?

Full Disclosure : I have used this lesson in classes that I have taught from Elementary to Junior High/Middle School to Senior High – and even on university students!

DOUBLE Full Disclosure : I never tire of this lesson! And maybe, just maybe, you can win a bar bet with it! I haven't myself, but you might!

TRIPLE Full Disclosure : Is anyone counting my … Full Disclosures?

What was your response? Nearly 100% of the time, the response will be "1, 2, 3, 4, 5 ….." and then a bit of a hesitation! I neither prompt, direct, encourage or judge the response!

At the point of hesitation, I repeat the request, 'Count for me".  Now, about 50% of the time, I get the same response, but the fascinating part of this is that now, I can get a COMPLETELY DIFFERENT RESPONSE !

"10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 …." and then it usually ends with 'ZERO' or 'BLASTOFF!

"2, 4, 6, 8, 10, ….."  or "5, 10, 15, 20, 25, …"

Or it could be counting that totally surprise me! And that happened this morning, as you will see below, but first, a bit of techy, geeky, codey stuff!

You now need to see the 'new language' (code) that I was introducing to my computer science class at the time.

I used this BASIC lesson to describe perhaps the simplest and yet MOST COMPLEX cognitive task possible! COUNTING! Yes, I am oversimplifying this! But my ultimate purpose of this lesson was to teach problem solving, coding and a new language!

Consider the following BASIC programming code, from my old RAM chips:

FOR I=1 to 10
     PRINT I
     I=I+1
NEXT I

So not only is it basic, it is BASIC which is short for:

Beginners All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code

Okay, so maybe my dredged up BASIC programming skills are not perfect! But that is what I 'remember' showing students how to program a computer to …"COUNT"! YOU just did the exact same thing when I asked YOU to … COUNT!

There were FOUR CRITICAL PREMISES you INSTANTLY, and it is an INSTANT response, that your required to complete my request, and I did not tell you ANY of them!

    1. Where to START counting
    2. How much to INCREMENT your counting by
    3. Where to END counting
    4. Method of output

So, the basic 1,2,3, 4, 5 …..
Start at 1
Say outloud

Increment by +1
Stop … where ?

So simple, yet so complex!

So I enacted a small social/digital/Teams experiment this morning. I asked 3 of my colleagues, via Teams, to ….'Count for me'. That is all. I prepped them by asking them to respond quickly, automatically and instantly. And the results were:

  1. 1 (delay)          2 (delay)          3 (delay)         24 (delay)       249
  2. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5…
  3. in Japanese

ABSOLUTELY FANTASTIC RESPONSES! Thanks to ALL of you for your responses! Totally surprised me too with the never before seen responses! And we used TEAMS TOO! AWESOME!

I then asked them to count for me … AGAIN! And got this:

  1. lightning storm gif (brainstorming!)
  2. C, XC, LXXX, LXX, LX, L
  3. hehe …. good topic …..

THEY CHANGED THEIR UNDERLYING PREMISES!

I only have quasi-super powers, but I successfully managed to change the premises of counting for 3 of my colleagues in less than 5 minutes! LOL! Fortunately I have chosen to use my super powers for good, not evil!

The hardest premise to learn, is always the method of output !

I usually turn the tables on students by asking THEM to ask ME … to count! And I change one thing .. DRAMATICALLY!

I usually go to the chalkboard (yeah, old school, literally!) and 'OUTPUT' my response with chalk … and in some sequence they were not expecting, such as starting at ZERO and going NEGATIVE "ZERO, -10, -20, -30, ….." Output could be verbal, printed, sign language, tapping toes, sound … ANYTHING that could convey the output!

Who counts in negative numbers? COMPUTERS CAN! Or even counting the slices of pizza that are rapidly disappearing in the CHD kitchen after extra pizza boxes brought down by Marcus after a big meeting! LOL!

FOR PIZZASLICESLEFT = 34
     CONSUME 1 PIZZASLICESLEFT QUICKLY
     PIZZASLICESLEFT = PIZZASLICESLEFT – 1
NEXT PIZZASLICESLEFT UNTIL NEXT MEETING

Apologies to BASIC ! I am so embarassed, I might just have to … TURTLE this one out!!

So, hopefully I have made you think a little differently the next time someone asks you to count how many people are in the lineup at Mystic to get a slice of pizza or how many computers just arrived in shipping!

Enjoy!

  1. Counting
  2. History of ancient numeral systems
  3. The History of Counting
  4. The Mathematics of Counting
  5. A brief history of numbers and counting
  6. When did humans first learn to count?
  7. Counting – History, fingers counting, the tally system
  8. Early Counting Systems
  9. 40 Facts About Numbers That Will Make You Feel Like a Mathematical Genius
  10. Number Facts
  11. Who's Counting?
  12. FUN FACTS ABOUT NUMBERS
  13. Numberphile (YouTube videos)
  14. Googol , no not … Google

As long as there are words out there, there will be interesting topics!

    E N J OY!

T T F N !

A Brief History of
Numerical Systems
Allesandra King – TED Talks

History of
Mathematics

Base 12
Numberphile

58 and Other
Confusing Numbers – Numberphile

The Opposite of
∞ Infinity ∞ – Numberphile

6 Things You Didn't Know
About Numbers – TED Talks

mccraytintery.blogspot.com

Source: https://onlineacademiccommunity.uvic.ca/callmebog/tag/cartoon/

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