I sometimes look at the book of the BBC TV series The Ascent of Man by Jacob Bronowski. I am sure it is on the web somewhere. Interesting to compare the then state of the art computing.

I have up in the attic one of the modems which you drop the telephone handset into. No plastic, wonderful wooden box! Lots of historic computing hardware in the memory.

Warning I think this thread could be a major diversion.

 
I have so many thoughts.  And memories.  And so much to write; whether anyone actually wants to listen (or read) is another matter.  And time is a one-dimensional "thing" but thoughts and memories head off into all sorts of directions - ideas, comments where I can go multiple ways, boring people, and yet only one can be taken in each moment.

I am - for the the first time in years - relieved to not feel a huge pressure of "I must do X" as I wake up; for sure I've a thousand things I want to do but only a few of them these days are in the committed "MUST" section and there is a bigger overlay on a Venn diagram with the "WANT TO" and "ENJOY" circles.

So much I don't know where to post - to avoid boring my audiences to the point of loosing them; stuff that falls into the "enjoy" and "want to" intersection and should be found a home.  "Nothing to do with public transport" you may say.  And you may be right - but yet that is another dimension, and the dimension we are being selective about here on the Coffee Shop.  I am posting this in "Introductions and Chat" an know that my friends here will let me stray; it's brief stray as in a few minutes I'll be gathering last minute papers and thoughts and headed out for a bus and a Taunton experience ...

I wrote - for a decade - a blog of technical articles called "The Horse's Mouth" with technical tips and other wanderings - and there's a resource (or rubbish tip?) of 4000 articles plus, including the occasional gem.  The interface is an old one that makes editing impractical, and reading laden with browser warnings about it being insecure, but I have got some early experiments with a new interface - a bit clunky, distorted - but yet starting at https://grahamellis.uk/writings/ and with coding (I still do some of that) which changes on-page enclosures to https from http.  The - default - article is of course a public transport post from Melksham ... which is that "want" and "enjoy" stuff. News in the default article was not good, but it does feel good looking back and noting how far we have gone.

I must go, though, and get ready for Taunton.  But I want to brain dump first where I stated this thought with weather forecasting and my technical job with Tektronix and travelling all over the UK to sort out software issues in some exiting fields - like weather forecasting ... https://grahamellis.uk/writings/hm1641.html

And - from looking around yesterday, fond old computer memories and I really need to thank people who have shared these pictures in the "retro computer" group that lead me off on another tangent yesterday.