On Jan 5, 6:37*pm, "Maxwell" #$$9#@%%%.^^^ wrote:

Then shame on you for not keeping up. These things have only been around for
25 years.
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Ummm, well... the PC has only been with us since 1982 but the first
stored-program computer system was installed at the Detroit Firemans
Insurance Fund in 1948.

The Navy of course had been using rather primitive 'computer' systems
based on punched-cards for file storage and vacuum tubes for 'memory'
since 1941 and by the mid-1950's such systems were commonly found not
only at shore stations but afloat, on certain classes of Supply
ships. My own involvement with computer systems dates from 1956 and
there were plenty of old hands in the ranks by that time.

When I retired from the Navy in 1976 it was the first time in my adult
life that I didn't have a computer to play with :-) So I built one.
As did a lot of other ham radio operators. The CPU was an Intel 8080
chip, for which I coughed up $300 and change... and had to wait about
six weeks for it to arrive. My first 'memory' card had a whole 1k of
8bit memory.

By the time the PC came along I had a fairly comprehensive system,
running dual 8" floppies with a Tarbell cassette for back-up. I/O
was, initially, a Teletype but that was replaced with a keyboard and
CRT. It wasn't until Intel introduced the AT platform that the
industry finally caught up to what amateurs were using.

As a point of interest, I'm still fiddlingwith it, although I seldom
bother with the software. Too dull (and too time consuming). Younger
hams still find it a lot of fun (fortunately) and have come up with
some remarkable plug & play interfaces, allowing you to simply plug
your ham radio into a suitably configured computer terminal. On the
other side of the coin, in recognition of this market, the
manufacturers of ham radio equipment now regularly provide a digital I/
O module for their transceivers, which often includes an automated
antenna tuner. I know my Yaesu FT-817 can connect me with hams around
the world on virtually any legal frequency... and even aim my antenna
(!!) were I rich enough to own such a thing :-) Of course, it's just
one computer talking to another, from a ship at sea to a ship in space
(!) but by disconnecting all the computer crap and replacing the mike
with a bug, I can still find someone willing to dit-dot there way
through a conversation, be it on bee keeping in Australia to diamond
mining in Canada(!)

-R.S.Hoover