Rambling by crustyasp

[crustyasp46]

Anybody who has read my introducing myself knows I am 64 years, May 19, 1946. Grandfather to seventeen, great grandfather to 3. father to six great kids.
Just reading all the posts and the ones most fascinating to me are those related to technology as it has fascinated me all my life. I grew up in a small town in Northern Ontario. a place called Garson, a mining town. Where I lived there was no electricity and the only technology we had at home was a radio. It wasn't even a battery radio as my Dad had to put a powder in the back of it about once a month and if I remember correctly, there were two or three copper rods in the box that had to be cleaned before the powder was put in. We listened to the radio every evening at 6:pm for the news and Friday nights at 7:pm until 8:30 to old time radio shows, and Saturday nights we listened to the hockey game. When I was 7 or 8 I discovered crystal radios, these you made your self and for an antenna you connected a wire from the radio to the barb wire fence, and they only worked well at night. I would lay in bed and try to find radio stations far away. I remember listening to radio stations in Detroit and Boston 400 t0 500 miles away.
My point is that I am just learning to use the computer and I love gaming, but things are just progressing too quickly for me to keep up. I envy the younger generation for their knowledge and understanding of the new technology, but I also hope they acknowledge and preserve the past technology as well. Because the pioneers of the past helped forge what is here today.
Have a great day everyone, and please help keep this site viable, vibrant, and a great place to visit for your favorite rom or emulator.

[Kherr]

Hey, crusty, can you please direct me to a history of Garson, Ontario? I can't seem to find any information about it except that it was formed in 1888 as a logging camp. I cannot find anything else, because everything I look for redirects to Sudbury, Ontario. I want to know about that town. I can't find information, and now because I can't find info about it, I want to know.

[Hot Trout]

Well said crusty.

I am the original computer generaton. First computer game was pong at the age of 7 in 1979 next came the Atari 2600 in 1980. Afte this was my first real computer a Sinclair ZX Spectrum 16k in 1981, followed in 1983 by a Commodore 64 (firstrelease). In 1987 I bought a Commodore Amiga A500 in Canada and brought it back to the UK much to the amazement of my friends. I stayed with the Amiga for a long time and owned several versions (I now have every model in the collection) but at the same time started to program on a Commodore PC1 (8088) in basic and DBase3. I move on to DBase4 and Clipper for programming and then built my first PC from parts. It was a 286DX compatable with a 10MB RLL hard disk card. I learnt a lot from building, playing and messing with that PC and a year later I order the parts and built from scratch my first 486/DX2-66 based PC. It had a modern 100MB IDE drive, 4MB Ram and a VSBus display card with 1MB onboard. It was at that time a monster and quite a few people came to see it in operation.

After this came many other PC versions and in 1990 I set up my own company building and selling PC's and spares. In my late 20's I found myself with disposable income and strted to collect in earnest. Since then I have managed to collect the largest majority of 8bit consoles/handhelds and computers. I have also amassed quite a lot of 'BIG' systems like VAX Vms, PDP-1 etc.

Anyways now I am rambling.

[crustyasp46]

Hey, crusty, can you please direct me to a history of Garson, Ontario? I can't seem to find any information about it except that it was formed in 1888 as a logging camp. I cannot find anything else, because everything I look for redirects to Sudbury, Ontario. I want to know about that town. I can't find information, and now because I can't find info about it, I want to know.

When I was growing up Garson was a mining town, The mine owned by Inco, and virtually the town was owned by them as well. The doctor I first saw was a company doctor, the police were also hired by the mine. The one section of town was housing for the miners, and the other part of the town had a small business section.
Around 1952-54 Inco started selling the houses they owned to the renters at very reasonable prices, for that time period.
I lived about 4 miles outside Garson, In a log building that was at one time a bunk house for the loggers, I think my Dad paid $475 dollars for it and 7 acres. We had a beaver dam on the property and that was our swimming hole.
An interesting note was when it was hot and humid, the sulpher from the smelter in Copper Cliff would hang in the air and burn your lungs when you breathed. The logging had pretty well disappeared when I was a kid, and totally disappeared in 1956 when a forest fire swept through the area.
A little history on my hometown. My Mom had a book about the history and original settlers there, I either have it packed away, or my brother has it. I'll look and if I can find it, I may be able to give you more info.
I think the reason you may be having trouble locating information is that they have went to regional government and I think is all termed as the region of Nickel Belt. You could try Falconbridge as they were our closest small town neighbor.
PS: I don't know a lot of the history, as in school during my time, we were taught American history, i can tell you all the Presidents, but I have to really think on our Prime Ministers!

[crustyasp46]

I was about 32-34 when we got our first computer, It was a Timex-Sinclair TI99 I think. It cost $99.99 and the expansion memory was I think $29.99. My kids enjoyed it and one of my sons did programming on it. Our next computer was a Coleco. We got it when Coleco was just about finished. I spent hours playing Zaxxon.
We also had Atari, Nintendo, and other systems as they became available. I was fascinated . I tried convincing my kids that this was the future for them. That they should learn as much as they could about computers and programming. Unfortunately they all decided otherwise.
We always had a computer, but I kind of let myself slide away from them, and would only on occasion play a game.
Then as the grand kids started to come around, and play on the PS1, I started to join them for fun. It was as the family started to grow and the arguments over the one system and who was supposed to play next, that I dug out the Atari and the Nintendo, to try to quell the arguments. It helped somewhat, but the arguments changed to who was to play the old school stuff, so yard saling, and junk stores I went. That is how I started collecting, to restore peace. Hopefully down the road they will really appreciate and care for what I started.
I try to convince all of them that what I call old school today, and what they call new and cutting edge today, will be old school to their children and grandkids. I also try to show them how one technology leads to another advancement or an offshoot technology.
My biggest regret is that I, instead of advising my kids on what they should do, was following through on my own advise. But i have the rest of my life to learn!