I'm so old I Remember when:

My first was an Apple 2C. No hard drive. Had and internal 5.25" floppy and an external 5.25" floppy. I taught myself how to program in Applesoft Basic. Wrote my first program to show profit or loss trading stocks with Charles Swab. Then I wrote my second program to monitor diet nutrition using the USDA booklet "Nutritive Values of Foods". Then I went and got a degree in Computer Information Systems.
 
The first computers I ever worked on were Radio Shack TRS80s ("trash 80"). They had (2) 5.25" floppy drives.

They ran the printing program in the dark room. You set up the negative, entered the RGB numbers the analyzer gave you, and fiddled with the magenta and yellow dichroic filters till it beeped. It assigned a number to that negative, and you could recall it any time in the future to reprint that negative. You wrote the number on the acetate negative sleeve with a Sharpie pen. Customer service "educated" the customer on NOT cleaning those numbers off!

The disc held about 1000 numbers, IIRC. The most used darkrooms had holders with 10-20 discs. Nope, didn't use the old numbers much.

What was really helpful was the program would give you the exposure for ANY magnification. Want an 8x10, 11x14, 16x20, and a 30x40 of the same neg? Piece of cake. There might be a couple 1/10ths of a second tweak, but it was all "test and run." The program ran the enlarger for the timed exposure too.
 
When you walked into the darkroom and booted up the computer, it called up the last number generated. You gave the job a name too, and you got a whopping TEN characters to use.

There was a darkroom set up to run 8x10 negatives for the large commercial customer stuff. I didn't print that. My boyfriend worked there too, and that was his job.

I did print all the contact sheets, and occasionally I'd have to do an enlarged contact sheet. So I'd go in there ("the Fotar room" as that was the name of the enlarger), and do those at the end of the night when he was done with the commercial stuff.

One night, I want in, and the name of the last job was:
WILUMRYME?
 
I remember school lunches being $0.30 and when I started driving, my father said: Gas is over a dollar now! (Dad.. I wish it was still!!)
I remember buying a green ticket like they used at the football games and they cost 25¢ when I was in the first grade. I think they went to a dollar when I was a senior.
 
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When you walked into the darkroom and booted up the computer, it called up the last number generated. You gave the job a name too, and you got a whopping TEN characters to use.

There was a darkroom set up to run 8x10 negatives for the large commercial customer stuff. I didn't print that. My boyfriend worked there too, and that was his job.

I did print all the contact sheets, and occasionally I'd have to do an enlarged contact sheet. So I'd go in there ("the Fotar room" as that was the name of the enlarger), and do those at the end of the night when he was done with the commercial stuff.

One night, I want in, and the name of the last job was:
WILUMRYME?
Was that "WILUMRYME" directed at you? And if so, WTWSURANSR?

do tell.
 
My favorite - but not the first - computer was one my sons designed and built with parts from New Egg... back when that company was worth a darn.
It reminded me of the rockets and whatnots my brother and I would design and build with parts from the local Radio Shack brick-and-mortar store. Ditto the worth a darn.
 
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