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*Music*
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[Music]
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Hello and welcome to a new edition of the digression, where I occasionally,
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Almost never, deviate from the topic. I'm Sascha Markmann and I say hello.
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Today's theme is inspired by a video, I think the good man is called Brain?
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No, it's called Zero Brain, but on its second channel Braindump. He posted a video
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It's about why computer technology used to be exciting. This is the title of the video
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And that's where he talks about how his development was. I put the video in my
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Show Notes in, you can have a look. Is really a sympathetic gentleman who makes good videos with
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interesting topics. So long speech, in a nutshell. I'll tell my story now.
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That must have been 91, 92, maybe 90.
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And yes, it was just before Christmas.
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My parents then went to the media market and got advice and then had
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for 1400 Mark a 386 SX25 with 2 MB RAM and a 512 KB graphics card
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Get it. In addition, there was the DR-DOS 6 operating system. Since my parents, or my father and
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My aunt, who was familiar with computers or PCs, who already wanted to get ready,
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that you can get started right away, they tried to install the operating system
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on the incredibly large hard drive of 107 megabytes and that didn't work. And how
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I used to come out of school and my mother reacted in a panic because I did.
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I saw what was in the living room, yes, I had seen that somehow from the outside
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the controller card, where the hard disk and the floppy disk drive were connected,
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somehow this rail was crooked, this slot plate. And then my aunt and
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my father screwed up the computer and saw that the card was either through the
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Transport or was not properly plugged in from the outset. After they are correct
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It was in the 16-bit slot. Did that thing work? Yes, then you could use the operating system
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install. Later, however, I switched to MS-DOS, whereby the DOS is a decisive
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had an advantage. It had already installed network support and that was
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for later, if you wanted to play together, so games in the network important.
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But this is a completely different topic. Yes, that's how I got mine just before Christmas
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The first PC. I didn't get anything else for Christmas and I'm on my birthday,
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Which I had in March, got nothing else but this one PC.
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My parents then almost took the money from all my relatives and so on,
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what they put in the back of a gift and then have the difference amount
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balanced. Yes, but that was still a great gift. I've had it before, I think.
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That was so 87 I started with basic programming on a Schneider CPC 464
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to deal with it. Later I got through a skilful exchange with a calculator
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My aunt's F64 with a bunch of floppy disks. And strangely enough, the tailor's calculator
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I never touched. The Commodore, I picked it completely apart. Da
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floppy disk accelerators were then installed, as additional data buses were soldered in,
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I was able to load 11 times faster and save 7 times faster.
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A second floppy disk drive was used, bought, then already the modern, which is essential
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It was smaller than the original. A printer that was so loud.
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Yes, but I especially remembered the personal computer. The others
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Things had been for gaming, for programming, and now I have to say that the tailor,
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The CPC 464 was really good. There was a Z80 processor in it and so you could
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other real computers, i.e. Linux machines that run programs on them,
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if you have received a corresponding CPM, i.e. the operating system. Then you could go there
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run these developer environments because it was written for this processor the code and
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Everything else was true. You can nowadays, there are still kids, that you can save the memory up to
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It can expand several megabytes. So there are people who are really busy with it,
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You could do fantastic things. Unfortunately, I only had one shortcoming at the time. In the
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Monitor was the power supply installed, so you could not without problem just another monitor
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connect. You almost had to use this monitor to power it.
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I only had a green monitor. Now the thing can also display fantastic colors.
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Of course it all looked a little green. Had something like that from Matrix. But, long speech,
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short sense. I learned to program on these boxes. More on the tailor
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How about the Commodore? I just gambled more. I mean, I kind of had 200 back then.
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There were x games on floppy disks and on each floppy disk. They just all fell to me like that.
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They came in the boxes of my aunt. Yeah, you get all the shit today
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as on the Internet. Free of charge. For most games. A few games, you still have licensing problems,
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But most things get that way. Yeah, maybe I should go back
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Buy a Retro C64 if I only had the money for it. Or, yes, love money.
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My first real PC. What great things did I do? What have I got with
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Do you do great things? Of course, I immediately got into the Quick Basic, which was there,
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or I had brought GW Basic from school and then I
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Basic programming then learned on an IBM-compatible computer, then later
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QuickBasic, then I started Pascal a little later, I think Pascal 6 or 7,
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I actually made the first applications that were interesting to me.
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was. Like orbit, so a tracking for a radio antenna for satellites, so I had to
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First get the Kepler data, that's rail data from the Americans. At that time there were
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the Internet, that was less of a problem and then I wrote the program,
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then the motor control, which was quite simple and could then stop with simple antennas,
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with helix antennas and a radio receiver, because I already had my amateur radio license at that time,
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the smallest, because I was just interested in the high frequencies and
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Not all the long frequencies to just spark around the planet.
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What interested me was that I wanted short, short, short, ultra short and mega, mega, ultra,
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Make ultra short wave so I can stop communicating with satellites or something.
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Yes, I programmed that back then and it was fun, just like this higher mathematics,
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which one needed for the web calculation with the Kepler elements, where then also delays
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are inside. I then, one or two years later, I had upgraded to a DX40,
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That was then just a full-fledged 32-bit processor, because the SX was always such a slimmer.
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This was a 32-bit instruction set, but communication with the meme board was everything.
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16-bit and then had a full-fledged 32-bit computer, i.e. 32-bit memory communication
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and the other peripherals outside the plug-in cards, because that was all only on 16-bit.
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And then I realized that even the processor, which is already so good twice as fast
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was like the processor I had before, not quite enough, because it could do something
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Not quite decisive. He can only do the four basic arithmetic types really well. Now comes
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A small excursion. A normal processor can only add. Now there are a few tricks,
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For example, with those with the smallest possible number, if you add that, you can make one,
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What's the point of doing a subtration? This is because with the one
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Complement and I my multiplication is just that I count plus plus plus plus plus,
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So an addition and a division is just that you look at how often something fits into a number.
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So it is ultimately a more complex subtration.
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And because he can almost only add, well, and stop over the trick with the one complement the subtration
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And then the others, it's a little slower.
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And all the higher functions must always be tricked around.
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You don't get any of that, because he can just do it. That's in the code and there's
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the instructions, the algorithms, but there is a remedy. There is this mathematical
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Coprocessor. This is not a 386, but a 387 and I got it.
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It was then from some cheap provider, I think from Zyrex or something,
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Or how you wrote it back then. And then I put it in, and behold,
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In mathematical applications, the thing was suddenly a rocket. Because,
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when I left earlier and I made almond bread, what 300 times,
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It was 320 by 240 pixels, so I liked to count on it for a day. After that it was
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About ten minutes through. You can imagine what this mathematical
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Coprocessor for a fantastic performance. In the 486's there were no maths.
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Coprocessor, because it was already integrated into the processor. Except for the few 486 SX,
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There was a very short time. That was not the case. Yeah, so you see, I was full then
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in the matter. I think that's when I got my first CD-ROM drive.
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fetched. That was a single speed, a single speed, so at 150 KB/s.
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even double speed with 300 kilobytes per second, but they were, that was about three times
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As expensive as the simple. Then I got the thing and was so happy that I
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I can finally read CD-ROMs. Oh, yeah! Heureka! That was great! I don't know how many times I've been in the
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meanwhile my Windows, my DOS, my Windows had to install because I broke something
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had made or the hard disk was suddenly so full, the so 107 megabytes and at some point
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She smoked me too. Then I had to get a new one and then I went for 400
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I bought a 400 megabyte hard drive. So for a student at the tender age a damn
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Expensive investment. I made a lot of coal at the time. I have very
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A lot of firewood chopped at my grandparents. I don't have my fireworks money for New Year's Eve in
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invested in black powder, but always put aside nicely, so that I can make such gimmicks
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Then they could afford.
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Shortly thereafter they had had an offer at the media market for a fence plastic 16-bit
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Fence map.
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That was the very first one.
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And then I paid for it and got it two months later.
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Deposit so that the price does not expire.
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I understand.
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I bought it for $200 later. I don't know how expensive it was, but that was the biggest upgrade of this card.
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It had controllers, already for several CD-ROM drives, then had a special encryption chip on it,
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on it so you can use special codecs to just make the sound file size much smaller
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make. So you recorded the 16-bit and the thing somehow got in six or so
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Bits stored with these mathematical blah blah blah, I don't know anymore. Yes, I think they
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It cost us more than 300 marks. Suddenly I had an almost
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Multimedia PC, because at that time also a Multimedia PC according to definition a Double Speed CD-ROM-Log-Werk
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had. And that was absolutely wow. There was also an encyclopedia on the sound card.
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English, but it doesn't matter. And that had been so horny that once you put little movies in postcards,
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Postcards, stamp format, so mouse cinema could watch and also a great
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He had tone. And the games, wow! I also had a few games at the time. I have so
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Building strategy games, such as "settlers". I loved it on PC. What else was
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have been. Yes, then it was relatively fast. Then I have my first quadruple speed
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CD-ROM drive. Then came the first 486. That was, I think, a DX480 or 100. 100. The
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The fastest 486 there was. At that time, however, there was already the Pensium and this
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Strange scandal we had at the time with the Pensium. Because the Pensium was wrong.
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That was one thing. That must have been 1994/95. Yeah, and then it went so fast.
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I didn't change the hardware so often, but over and over again. At some point came
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Let's have a good laser printer, not small laser printers, inkjet printers,
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Like everyone else had at the time, from HP. Then Mostec came up with a flatbed scanner, but not so
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modern shit like today, which just scans once and then has the color. No,
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He had to go through it three times to get a color picture. It all lasted then
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Three times as long as if you were just scanning a black and white. Then you had to also
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dealing with SCSI, i.e. SCSI, something you only knew about large computers and something completely different.
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It was magical, because there were up to seven devices and in later
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Connect versions up to 14 devices and that was wow.
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So I had a SCSI card in my computer. I couldn't do anything, but
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great. Then I saw a better SCSI card later on at Conrad,
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1505 or what it was or 15010 from Adaptec and it was very cheap. There I have
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which brought me and with it the thing went even better and then I could finally some other
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Connecting devices. Now it was just like that, all the SCSI clothes were all
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It sucks expensive. So I never really got anything. But I had the opportunity,
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to connect it. It's great. Then at some point a modem tumbled in, so 2400 Kb,
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Baud was said at the time. It was so slow, you could almost watch the picture line by line,
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If it was built up like that. Or if you had connected to a mailbox, you could
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It's like watching a movie when the lines build up like this. It's funny. Then I had
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It was twice as fast, it was faster. And then I had a short
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This is my first internal 14,400 KB. It was about as if you were
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could work. Then I had a 28-eighth, which was of course even faster. And
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Then came my first 56K modem. I think 56800 or so. That was really quick. Anyone who stops
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had a modem back then, this fantastic tone, if you dial in,
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Everyone knows who did something with the hand in remote transmission at that time. At that time I had
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There is also access to the Internet via BTX from Deutsche Telekom. Because my parents will someday
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once went to the station, which was constantly occupied at the weekend in the evening,
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Someday I'll get my second phone line, where I'll get one.
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a certain number of hours a month was allowed on the Internet or on mailboxes and then finally came the big
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DSL. It's fantastic. One megabit per second in download and I kind of believe 100 around 119
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120 in the upload. And also a real flat rate. That was great. No more on it
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Pay attention to how expensive everything is. And we're almost there in the 2000s. So you can see,
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that I really did a steep development at that time and I have so many exciting
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Things discovered. Today it is so, it has lost all its fascination. For me there is a
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Computers and tools. This discussion of whether this is now a Mac or a Windows or a
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Linux machine, it doesn't matter. For me, a computer is a tool. It must work and
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Halfway modern. I need to be able to access the Internet and I need to be able to install programs,
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from the Internet. Then I can set up my work environment and then I can
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program with it, write my texts, cut videos, edit the podcast and so on.
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I don't care about architecture. It's just that I'm doing this
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I have tools. And that's one of the things I've learned over the last few years. It
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Everything has become a lot more boring, unless you have RGB. We all know a computer with RGB
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More and more images per second, FPS. That's always 10 to 20 more. No, seriously,
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It's all so compact and so little flawed today. You used to be in the
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Computer inside an interface card. Ideally, the controller was there for the
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Floppy disk drive, i.e. for the two possible floppy disk drives. Then there was a controller.
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on it for the hard drive, for two. Later there were some where you could find four hard disks
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could connect. Always a master and always a slave. And you had to do that with the hard disks, too.
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Set it up. Then there was a controller card, if not everything together was on one,
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for the serial port, for one and two and for the parallel port. That was sometimes
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All individually or combined or large combined. Then it was called multi-IO cards, where then stops
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All the important entrances and exits were on it. On the meme bot was mostly only the plug
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for the keyboard. A mouse had to be attached to the serial port and that was
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Mostly the 9-pin pin, so that the 25-pin pin remained free for Molem or for another
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Yeah, it was just exciting. I skipped the jump from the 56k modem to DSL. There was
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A few more years ISDN, where you had 128 Kbit/s with channel bundling. You had to have a card too.
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For plugging in, you had to configure it until it worked. And you had to have one
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Insert the network card so that you could use DSL. No one can do that anymore today.
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introduce. It's all on the back of the aperture these days, on the I/O shield. There you have them
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Inputs for a keyboard or just USB. So sometimes there are also PS/2 connectors,
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But it is already obsolete. But you just have the USB ports, then you have the ports for
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Audio, then ports for at least one network device to have better motherboards,
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We have two network devices, then, if necessary, a monitor connection, if the processor is
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still has a graphics unit, so that you actually ideally no longer have any expansion cards in the
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You have the computer in it, but you have the memory in it and you have just
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Yours is a hard drive in the form of an MVE SSD. When you think about what we used to do
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IACUs had to be distributed, there were no conflicts in the
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Address range. Sound cards always ran on 220 by default. Then IAQ 7. But that had
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had a problem because by default the IAQ 7 was also used for the printer port. Then you have
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you packed the printer port on IAQ 5 because most programs that hold the sound card used
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I used the IRQ7 as a standard. And so you always had to change your configuration in
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Keep your eye on it. I also forgot to mention this memory extension back then
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with the SIM modules. Then a plant in Taiwan burned down, suddenly memory modules were gold
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Worth it, prices have exploded. You have for a 4 megabyte module at once 400-500 euros on
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Pay the D-Mark and what you might have paid a hundred for before. Thus, such
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storage quantities incredibly expensive and I had then on the second-hand market more times 4 megabytes
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I bought it and put it in my computer. But I had planned,
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As I said, 2x4 memory modules a 256 KB, i.e. 2x1 MB. So I have 5 MB of RAM
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had and then had the advantage that I could pack all drivers and so on in 1 MB
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and then still had 4 MB free for application, which was an incredible speed advantage
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compared to those who only had 4 MB, because in the end they only had 3 MB available.
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And it was always a configuration, you had to deal with it a lot.
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0:30:22 – 0:30:27
And today that's actually the case, I have this computer that I use now,
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0:30:27 – 0:30:40
When did Intel's 13,900 come out? So shortly afterwards I bought it with a motherboard,
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Memory and SSD and a graphics card and has almost never been
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Again, except that I checked the thermal paste. I have to go there
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Don't set anything, it's all so automated and that's crass, that's so Mac-like, so Mac-user-like.
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Yeah, I don't have to deal with that, it's my operating system, my Mac OS.
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And as I said, that used to be so much fun to deal with and stuff
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Try it out. Today you can also retrofit a parallel port that you can stop eight
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has digital inputs and outputs, either via USB or stop as a plug-in card. And when I think about it,
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that I built my first computer-controlled traffic light system in such a way that I
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Plugged in where there was a long cable. This went on a board and from there
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Off to the reconstructed road with traffic lights. I then ran the program, which then visually
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then had also indicated which lights are now going and what the circuit is like, the clock is
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It is a circuit and so you could see the traffic lights. And because there is also a
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two directional communication, you could also go that you now stop as a pedestrian
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Button presses that then the foot turns red, that you can just walk across the street. And that can
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No more kits today. There are completely different options for this with all the microcontrollers.
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I still remember where in the Computer Club, then on the WDR, the first
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Microcontroller was offered as a kit. With Conrad it was, I don't remember,
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0:32:54 – 0:33:00
What was the name of the thing. The thing really had very few inputs and outputs and could do very little.
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0:33:00 – 0:33:15
In the end, however, it was to be programmed in Basic and in a block-based, i.e. an optical programming language.
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And I had gotten that and had experimented with it and that was great.
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0:33:20 – 0:33:29
But when I think about what you can do with a Raspberry Pi or with an Androido or other microcontrollers,
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that you can carry out such small craft projects and program them quickly,
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0:33:36 – 0:33:44
you have unlimited knowledge on the Internet or can also be helped with Chat-GBT,
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If you have trouble adjusting the code.
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0:33:47 – 0:33:53
That was all I had to learn with my buddy.
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by typing out any listings from books and newspapers for days
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0:33:59 – 0:34:02
To understand how this code works.
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0:34:02 – 0:34:07
It was a completely different, wild time.
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And I am so grateful that in this intergeneration,
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0:34:14 – 0:34:16
I've already made a digression about this,
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who is 77 to 81, 82,
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She had an analog childhood.
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and a digital youth.
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And that was the case with me, I was born in 1977, my father had stopped relatively quickly
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0:34:35 – 0:34:42
At that time the tailor computer was created in the hand family and I was so fascinated by the
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0:34:42 – 0:34:48
Device and as I did in the manual – at that time there were still manuals explaining the circuits
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0:34:48 – 0:34:56
and where it could be deduced how this works – that I then just started
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0:34:56 – 0:35:01
I wanted to deal with programming and understand and later
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0:35:01 – 0:35:08
I have also understood how this works and how I can do something that I can still do today.
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0:35:08 – 0:35:14
I'm still totally fascinated. Today this is on a completely different level and the youth
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0:35:14 – 0:35:21
I've never had so many chances to get in there fantastically. And what do I see?
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0:35:21 – 0:35:30
They all sit in front of their mobile phones, tablets or laptops and consume for the most part fixed
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0:35:30 – 0:35:34
and finished programs and do something with them. Of course, some people do it totally.
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0:35:34 – 0:35:41
Horny shit. They're super creative. I mean, we were back then, too. But when I think about it,
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0:35:41 – 0:35:49
If I had had that opportunity in the early 90's,
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0:35:49 – 0:35:55
That would have been such a brainfuck. I remember not having a computer with me,
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0:35:55 – 0:36:02
but half the adult section to me on the holidays we took in the North Sea,
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0:36:02 – 0:36:08
I always took it with me. So programming, electronics and that I'm doing all this theoretically
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I went through it, took notes, then stopped when I was back home,
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I borrowed the next book and went on and almost everything theoretically for the first time.
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0:36:22 – 0:36:30
I worked out. Yes, that was horny and I think that led to me being the man,
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Which I am today because I had to work so hard at that time. But I still envy them.
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young people today and I say that sometimes in 48 years for these fantastic opportunities,
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which they have. Some people do it, use it and do great things. Others live,
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Work out great creative things with the possibilities they have. And that I
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0:36:56 – 0:37:01
Sometimes I'm a little jealous of the young people today, but
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0:37:01 – 0:37:11
horny time with these aha moments and the deep understanding of how a computer works,
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How does a processor communicate with its memory and peripherals?
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They don't even have to know that today, because the microcontroller, there's everything in there and
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0:37:27 – 0:37:35
There they have it. But now I'm done with my digression, that's 37 again.
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minutes. Thank you for your patience and listening. Maybe you can understand,
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Why am I so passionate about this topic? And even if I study humanities later
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0:37:49 – 0:37:58
I'm still, these days, a nerd in the depths of my heart and I'm super happy
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deal with very extreme technical topics, just as I like to talk about a beautiful
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Sunrise or a perfectly cooked breakfast rope can philosophize. Goodbye, Sasha.
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In this digression,’s becomes nostalgic: Sascha takes you into his digital childhood and youth – from the Schneider CPC 464 to the C64 to the 386 with 387 coprocessor. It's about broken slot plates, network cards, fractals that took a day to render, and the magic of the first line of BASIC code.
Why computer technology used to be so fascinating, how to type programs from magazines, what IRQ 7 and the sound card dispute were all about and why modern computers have become powerful, but also somehow … boring – you can hear all this here.
A tribute to a time when knowledge still had to be developed – and that is why it immersed itself so much more deeply.
Topics Outline:
1. Inspiration & Introduction
- Video by Zero Brain (Braindump)
- Looking back at a time when computers still had magic
2. The first PC – 386 SX at 25 MHz
- Purchasing history: MediaMarkt, Christmas, 1400 DM
- DR-DOS 6, 107 MB hard disk, 2 MB RAM
- Hardware errors: crooked slot cover & controller card
- Network functions of DR-DOS and first LAN experiences
- Family funding – ‘all put on one card’
3. Early calculators and learning curve
- Schneider CPC 464: green monitor, BASIC, CP/M & Z80
- Commodore 64: Swap shop, floppy collections & gambler's paradise
- Craft projects: Data buses, floppy accelerator, second drive
- Different uses: Programming vs.
4. Programming & first own projects
- GW-BASIC, QuickBasic, later Turbo Pascal
- Development of a satellite antenna control with Kepler data
- Amateur radio license and fascination for high frequency ranges
5. Hardware upgrades & computing power
- Switch to 386 DX 40 MHz – finally real 32-bit
- Limitations of the CPU in complex mathematics
- Installation of the 387 coprocessor – almond bread in minutes instead of days
6. Multimedia & Peripherals
- CD-ROM drives: Single speed, later double and quadruple speed
- First sound card with hardware compression & Encyclopedia
- Scanner with SCSI, inkjet printer, first small films on the PC
7. Internet & Networking
- Modems: 2400 baud up to 56k, mailboxes & BTX
- Own telephone line for online times
- ISDN with channel bundling, then the breakthrough with DSL & Flatrate
8. Crafts, crafts, crafts – and the knowledge behind them
- IRQ conflicts, I/O addresses, driver optimization, RAM price jumps
- Memory upgrade and configuration for maximum performance
- Multi-I/O cards, parallel ports, mouse to COM1, printer to LPT1
- Projects such as a computer-controlled traffic light via the parallel port
9. Technology in the change of time
- Comparison of previous computers with today's Plug & Play comfort zone
- Motherboards without plug-in cards vs. once complex furnishing rituals
- Raspberry Pi & Microcontroller today – Getting started easier, knowledge often flatter
10. Reflection & Conclusion
- Gratitude for a youth between Analog & Digital
- What used to be hard-earned is now available in seconds
- Nerddom with soul: Technique as a way to self-education & expression
- An appeal to curiosity – before, today and tomorrow
Links to the issue:
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Contributors to this episode
Sascha
Playing time: 0:42:39
Date of admission: 19.07.25
This episode is from season 4, there are a total of 4 seasons.
One According to Funk Publication Cartel Production - Where stories are transmitted unmistakably.
Podcast license:
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License
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Author: Sascha Markmann
Sascha Markmann is a creative mind with a moving biography – and a person who has rediscovered life after a stroke. After working as a paramedic and elderly caregiver, Sascha found his way into creative expression. As a blogger, podcaster, musician and visual storyteller, he brings together things that just don't fit at first glance: He combines his keen enthusiasm for technology – from self-hosted servers to electronic music production – with emotional depth and an oblique sense of humor. His contributions are somewhere between borderline, acid basslines and assistance – honestly, directly and with a wink. Guiding principle: “Audio-visual dullness with no usefulness – but perhaps that's why it's so valuable.” View all posts by Sascha Markmann
English
Das war echt schön anhören. Ich bin mit einem 286er gestartet, war allerdings weitaus weniger technisch interessiert als Du. Trotzdem eine kleine Audioreise in die Vergangenheit…