You know you are old when...Y

[venusian]

That's a long time. Five decades. Another country in two ways.

[PFVA]

I'm part of the last generation that remembers leaving before Angola and the other former overseas territories before they became independent. The younger ones are mostly too young to remember much.

[PFVA]

When you remember watching the first Star Wars movies in the big screen.

I should mention that in those times the movies took a few years to get to the cinemas if you weren't leaving in one of the most important world cities.

[MattyP]

First Star Wars movie I saw was The Empire Strikes Back in '80 whilst on a family holiday in Great Yarmouth! It felt like a huge experience back then. Somehow going to the cinema never feels the same these days - and it seems really expensive at between £12-15.

Also Your childhood heroes are passing away.... Sigh. James Earl Jones recently...

[Deckard]

I have to say after not going to the cinema for at least 5 years I went a few weeks back with my dad to see the new Alien film at the local (not a city) multiplex and I was super impressed - Great big screen and the dolby atmos was incredible - if I lived there I would get a monthly pass ticket for 30 quid or so and go twice a week. Felt like a real event

I felt very old and sad when a musical hero of mine died a few years ago - José Padilla - Had some great sunsets with him blasting out the choons at Cafe de Mar back in the day.

[gilesgoat]

When you remember watching the first Star Wars movies in the big screen.

I should mention that in those times the movies took a few years to get to the cinemas if you weren't leaving in one of the most important world cities.

Hey I've done that too in Italy, I rememeber going to the cinema ( that was a BIG thing for the time ) to see it when it just came out !

And so the second and the third.

I VAGUELY rememeber seeing in the cinema with my grandad some other will-never-remember-the-name Sci-Fi movies .. EXCEPT ONE, that YEARS ago I re-watched ( with Jeff ) and surprise surprise there's a super young David Hasselloff in it It's called "Starcrash" (1978) I was 8 years old at the time ..

I did not see it in the cinema but I DO REMEMBER "at some point italian TV shown - at late night - Blade Runner" and I was like ... WOW ...

But yeah cinemas apart "if I think that until 1980 or so .. " let's say around when I was 10 .. 12 .. the sole IDEA that "one day people would have a personal computer AT HOME" was SEMI-SCI-FI .. "unbelievable" .. "what normal people would ever need a computer for ?" ..

Yes we did start with Z80 and 1K ram .. and was costing 300,000 Italian lire, almost 300 pounds of today, not sure how much would come adjusted in today money .. and now we have "30 times a Cray-Y-MP power" in our pockets and we use it to send crap messages and videos around

[Misfit]

Yes we did start with Z80 and 1K ram .. and was costing 300,000 Italian lire, almost 300 pounds of today, not sure how much would come adjusted in today money .. and now we have "30 times a Cray-Y-MP power" in our pockets and we use it to send crap messages and videos around

I had to look that up as I had no idea how powerful a Cray-Y-MP was and it appears...

iPhone 15 runs at 1800 gigaflops
Cray-Y-MP at 2.7 gigaflops

So actually around 666 times faster than that Cray

And the Cray wasn't quite pocket size... The rectangular CRAY Y-MP mainframe chassis, which occupies 98 square feet (9.2 square meters) of floor space, contains the CPU and memory modules, power supplies, power distribution units, and coolant hoses.

[gilesgoat]

Yes we did start with Z80 and 1K ram .. and was costing 300,000 Italian lire, almost 300 pounds of today, not sure how much would come adjusted in today money .. and now we have "30 times a Cray-Y-MP power" in our pockets and we use it to send crap messages and videos around

I had to look that up as I had no idea how powerful a Cray-Y-MP was and it appears...

iPhone 15 runs at 1800 gigaflops
Cray-Y-MP at 2.7 gigaflops

So actually around 666 times faster than that Cray

And the Cray wasn't quite pocket size... The rectangular CRAY Y-MP mainframe chassis, which occupies 98 square feet (9.2 square meters) of floor space, contains the CPU and memory modules, power supplies, power distribution units, and coolant hoses.

And if I remember correctly "from stuff read eons ago" .. it did consume around 128KW of power at 440Hz, altough not sure how much really in the chips and how much for the refrigerant system ( that I THINK weighted around 1 Ton ? ).

Somebody maybe can explain why 440 Hz seems to be "the military standard in USA" I remember even some Italian navy equipment is designed to work at 440 Hz for "compatibility issues" ?

[KlaxonCow]

Umm, well, 440Hz is the A below Middle C. The definition of "concert pitch" tuning.

But, like, that should have nothing to do with anything. As the frequency of power and the tuning standard for an orchestra should have absolutely no connection at all.

But that's the only significance to 440Hz that I can think of. *shrugs*

[gilesgoat]

Umm, well, 440Hz is the A below Middle C. The definition of "concert pitch" tuning.

But, like, that should have nothing to do with anything. As the frequency of power and the tuning standard for an orchestra should have absolutely no connection at all.

But that's the only significance to 440Hz that I can think of. *shrugs*

I read the internet .. apparently it's not 440 but 400 HZ ... the reason is simple .. reduces of 85% the weight/core necessary for transformers, make the filtering for conversion into DC much more light/efficient, increases quite a bit the precision of the "servos" used there and there.

So yeah overall "much more efficient than 60 Hz" ..

[rowan]

Umm, well, 440Hz is the A below Middle C. The definition of "concert pitch" tuning.

Do we have a cold day in hell? It's above middle C.

[KlaxonCow]

Umm, well, 440Hz is the A below Middle C. The definition of "concert pitch" tuning.

Do we have a cold day in hell? It's above middle C.

Oh, oops. Yeah, that's right. Above middle C, not below. Got myself confused there.

[F-ZeroOne]

When you remember watching the first Star Wars movies in the big screen.

I saw "Empire" at the cinema, but for some reason have very little memory of having done so. "Jedi" is the one I remember the most from seeing it on the big screen, and its perhaps why I have a soft spot for that entry in the saga to this day. "INTENSIFY FORWARD FIREPOWER!"

I recall seeing a VHS tape of "Empire" for sale in WH Smiths back in the day once. Now, my memory may be a bit hazy, but I recall the price sticker was something like £40. Thats forty 1980s pounds, with which you could probably buy a small yacht these days.

[PFVA]

I'm old enough to remember the first Canadian Geese crisis.
Around 30 years ago some Canadian Geese decided to stop their migration and stayed in the San Francisco Baylands Preservation Area.
They multiplied faster and faster. Suddenly there was hundreds if not thousands of them around.
People were on different sides.
Several, specially golf players and those who had small planes that used the Palo Alto airport wanted the geese removed. They were interfering the landing and taking off of the planes and with the golf games.
Some got to the point of saying the geese should be shot.
On the other side some defended to get rid of the golf course, the golfers, the airport and the planes that shouldn't be by a birds preserved area. Others defended that the geese should be taught to migrate again.
Hollywood even made a movie about.
In the end they gave away as many geese as they were able of to several parks across America.
They couldn't remove the eggs because the mother geese became aggressively nuts so they ended up replacing them with wood eggs. The mother eventually gave up on those wood ones without creating a fuss.
By the time I left, around 10 years later, the population of non-migrating Canadian Geese had been dramatically reduced.
I suspect they even culled some of them discreetly.

When I saw the pic that bought this new crisis my first thought it was that the man carrying a Canadian goose could be working for a golf course or an airport. Who knows, maybe he was.

[Whiteball]

I recall seeing a VHS tape of "Empire" for sale in WH Smiths back in the day once. Now, my memory may be a bit hazy, but I recall the price sticker was something like £40. Thats forty 1980s pounds, with which you could probably buy a small yacht these days.

I knew (more knew of) someone in the '80s who bought James Bond on VHS and he thought he was getting a bargain at around £70-90 per film. He had all the ones they released but honestly I don't think I could watch them that often to justify that sort of cost then or now.