• tiramichu@sh.itjust.works
      50·
      5 days ago

      And the power switch was like KA-JUNK when you pushed it, because it was a big ol’ switch that actually physically connected and disconnected the power.

      “It’s now safe to turn off your computer” went away after we moved to software power control, where the operating system could signal the power supply to turn off.

      • CileTheSane@lemmy.ca
        23·
        5 days ago

        I had my computer plugged into a power bar and we’d turn off the power bar to turn off the computer so that we wouldn’t wear out the switch on the computer.

        People actually thought you’d have a computer long enough to wear out its power switch.

      • Duamerthrax@lemmy.worldEnglish
        9·
        5 days ago

        I knew far, far too many people in HS that just hit the power button without actually shutting it down.

    • Grabthar@lemmy.world
      16·
      5 days ago

      The one I remember best was having to use the DOS ‘park’ command before you shut down the PC. I guess I am that old.

      • Björn Tantau@swg-empire.de
        10·
        4 days ago

        Huh, never ever seen that. We always used the rule "you can shutdown the computer when you can see the C:".

        What does park do? Put the HDD arm into a parked position? Never needed that for ours, but we also had a blazingly fast 486 with a massive 250 MB hdd.

        • Grabthar@lemmy.world
          15·
          5 days ago

          Yeah, old drives didn’t autopark like the IDE drive in your spiffy 486. I had an XT growing up, and dad was militant about having us remember to park the drive when we were done with it. I think by the end of the 80s, all drives were IDE and were autoparking, so the command was deprecated.

          • humorlessrepost@lemmy.worldEnglish
            2·
            4 days ago

            Damn, I had a Tandy 1000HX (very much not a 486) and never had to do that. Maybe because, despite having a hard disk, it had DOS on its own ROM.

            • Grabthar@lemmy.world
              2·
              4 days ago

              Cool, I’ve wanted an OS ROM chip since the early nineties, and often wondered why nobody seemed to be doing it. Guess they were all along!

              You technically didn’t have to park the old MFM and RLL drives, but if you didn’t, then you just had the drive heads resting on the platters after you shut them down. Then if you bumped or moved the PC at that time, it could scratch the disk like a record. If you never tried to move it, there probably wasn’t much risk.

              From the sound of it, the HDD in your Tandy probably would have been an MFM or RLL drive, and depending on the drive model, it either autoparked the drive heads or didn’t. As a PC clone running MS-DOS, the command was probably supported, but maybe not needed. Or you may have just been the equivalent of one of those rebels who held down the power button every time they wanted to shut down the PC and always got away with it!

          • bus_factor@lemmy.world
            5·
            5 days ago

            I never had to do that, because our computer didn’t have a hard drive. We booted DOS right from the floppy.

    • boughtmysoul@lemmy.worldEnglish
      2·
      3 days ago

      I had a friend who edited the .jpeg or whatever in the shutdown sequence to say “it is NOT safe to shut off your computer” and waited for his family to freak out.

    • NιƙƙιDιɱҽʂ@lemmy.world
      24·
      4 days ago

      Random tangent, my dad edited the system file that contained that message to “It’s not safe to turn off your computer” when I was like 5 and it kinda fucked me up for a bit.

  • cuteness@sh.itjust.works
    13·
    4 days ago

    The standard 5” floppy. The best part was putting down the latch on the drive and that sweet sound it made.

  • Lushed_Lungfish@lemmy.caEnglish
    23·
    4 days ago

    Heh, this is brand new software and tech as far as I’m concerned. I remember when the computer did not automatically boot into windows and you had to cd c:\windows and then win.exe.

      • sp3ctr4l@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
        1·
        4 days ago

        1: You a veteran?

        2: Yes. No. I don’t wanna talk about it.

        Camera zooms in on 2, fades to montage:

        MiG 21 thundering overhead at tree top levels, while blasting ‘Hush’, which is being comically raised in pitch to squeaking chipmunk levels as it approaches, and then instantly downshifts by two octaves into quaalude voice after it passes overhead… it is being pursued by an f4 phantom who fires off all of his seeking missiles in a quick burst, all of which guide themselves into your convoy of m113s, as well as a nearby mortar emplacement

        squad is slowly advancing through Hue with no resistance thus far… and then suddenly, from 3 different directions, VC on mopeds, blasting ‘Surfin Bird’ and headbanging maniacally, rapidly approach the unit… 2 are shot, but one makes it through, moped detonates with the force of 4 bundles of TNT

        … rocket pod armed mi8s and hueys pieroutting around each other in the night sky, throwing unguided rockets everywhere, taking out ground bound friend and foe alike, both ultimately running out if ammo and then crashing into the ground sideways and upside down…

        Camera pops back to 2, slowly zooms out.

        2: … I don’t … don’t wanna talk about it.

      • cazssiew@lemmy.world
        5·
        5 days ago

        Oh man, I found chip’s challenge again a few years back (it took forever because I couldn’t remember the name) but I totally forgot about rodent’s revenge!

      • Penny7@lemmy.worldEnglish
        2·
        3 days ago

        I didn’t shut down the computer that way, I’d go through the menus and such. At that point I’d just have to shut off the monitor. If I had to do a restart 'cuz the damn thing froze then yeah, I’d use my foot.