M.I.T. Dorm

Jack · Post by **Jack** » Mon May 29, 2006 2:09 pm

Walden wrote:
Nanohedron wrote:Waidaminnit. Girls can be geeks, too, you know. Mighty ones.
I bet even geek girls wouldn't go out with me.

If I were a geek girl, I would.

anniemcu · Post by **anniemcu** » Mon May 29, 2006 2:16 pm

Walden wrote:
Nanohedron wrote:Waidaminnit. Girls can be geeks, too, you know. Mighty ones.
I bet even geek girls wouldn't go out with me.

Hey, just because they are geeky doesn't make them smart enough to recognize a great opportunity when they are offered one.

Denny · Post by **Denny** » Mon May 29, 2006 2:26 pm

microwaves???

kids!!!

herbivore12 · Post by **herbivore12** » Mon May 29, 2006 2:46 pm

Lordy. I'm still a fairly young guy (mid-thirties), and I had a (ancient) typewriter and a hotpot. And a boombox-type radio-thingie. No fridge or microwave or computer, and certainly no MIDAS system.

I got a computer from my folks for my nineteenth birthday, during my last semester as an undergrad, almost too late to actually use the thing for school. Two floppy drives, no hard drive. One of those gawdawful dot-matrix printers that sounded like a machine-gun was going off in the room: "Bb-bb-rr-rr-rr-aa-aa-aa-aappp!!! <chunk!> Bb-bb-rr-rrr-aaa-aaaaa-pp-pp-pp! <chunk!>".

A friend got a Mac with a 20 MB hard drive, and we all teased him: "How could anyone possibly need that much memory?!", etc.

I think if anyone had done to their room what these guys have done, we'd probably have taped them to a flagpole. And we were good kids!

Jack · Post by **Jack** » Mon May 29, 2006 2:48 pm

To be fair, the computer I have isn't mine. Since I attend a school for low-income students, they give each student a laptop but the student doesn't own it until graduation.

SteveK · Post by **SteveK** » Mon May 29, 2006 3:44 pm

Back when I went to university we had an Edison cylinder machine and an ice box. Also a small kerosene stove.

Post by **Dale** » Mon May 29, 2006 4:16 pm

chas wrote:TV fridge and microwave? We were pretty cool because we had two sets of speakers for the stereo. Well, not really -- were were cool because we had a FLUORESCENT black light and enough posters and space-cadet music to use it to its full extent.

Actually, I m wrong. We had a little toaster oven--not a microwave.

Dale

SteveShaw · Post by **SteveShaw** » Mon May 29, 2006 4:21 pm

SteveK wrote:Back when I went to university we had an Edison cylinder machine and an ice box. Also a small kerosene stove.

This is genuine. I could cook a substantial hot meal with just an electric kettle. Drain tin of tuna. Wild Canadian salmon if you're rich. Soak label off can of baked beans. Punch small hole in top of bean can. Stand can in kettle. Boil kettle and use water to make reconstituted mashed potatoes. In the meantime the beans have been heated. So you have tuna with mashed spuds and baked beans. Delicious with ketchup. As a variant on the tuna, you can instead boil eggs in the kettle. There are two risks: (a) your mash may taste faintly of eggshells; (b) the eggs may burst and then you're really in trouble. I must emphasise that I'm telling you what I did. I am, most decidedly, not telling you what to do.

BTW Steve, never change that beautiful avatar of yours!

izzarina · Post by **izzarina** » Mon May 29, 2006 4:39 pm

herbivore12 wrote:A friend got a Mac with a 20 MB hard drive, and we all teased him: "How could anyone possibly need that much memory?!", etc.

I was telling my 16 year old daughter about our Mac Classic that we had quite a few years ago, and that it only about about 20 MB in it. She was shocked, and wondered how on earth could anyone possibly use such a small amount of memory!!

gonzo914 · Post by **gonzo914** » Mon May 29, 2006 5:23 pm

Well, when I was I college (the first time), we only had a crappy J.C. Penney portable stereo that was only stereo if you got really close to the speakers because they were only 14 inches apart. This was before home computers; it was before Pong, for christ's sake.

No in-room fridge -- we had to walk outside and next door to get cold beer -- and the only microwaves around were in restaurants and cost thousands of dollars. Popcorn meant heading down to the kitchen and either getting out a pan or scorching some Jiffy Pop. Cable TV was five years away.

If it hadn't been for a practically endless supply of good Kansas ditch weed harvested from the nearby alleys, I don't know how we would have made it. That and Joe's doughnuts. And we didn't have toaster ovens, either, so we had to dry our dope in the dorm kitchen downstairs and the seeds popped all over the oven and it smelled up the place something awesome. (Yes, young'uns-- dope used to have seeds.)

alurker · Post by **alurker** » Mon May 29, 2006 7:10 pm

"You were lucky. We lived for three months in a paper bag in a septic tank. We used to have to get up at six in the morning, clean the paper bag, eat a crust of stale bread, go to work down t' mill, fourteen hours a day, week-in week-out, for sixpence a week, and when we got home our Dad would thrash us to sleep wi' his belt.

And you try and tell the young people of today that ..... they won't believe you. "

http://www.phespirit.info/montypython/f ... iremen.htm

Lambchop · Post by **Lambchop** » Mon May 29, 2006 9:11 pm

Teeny fridge, hotpot, electric clock, one of those too-small desk lamps, a supply of #2 pencils, fountain pens, and a Smith-Corona electric typewriter.

My mother was furious that I bought the electric typewriter . . . she was campaigning for a manual. "What are you going to do when the electricity goes out!!!! Mark my words! You'll be sorry!"

fearfaoin · Post by **fearfaoin** » Tue May 30, 2006 9:01 am

Wow, and I thought it was impressive when the guy down the hall
turned his peephole into a doorbell. We did connect all our computers
into a suite-wide LAN so we could share a dialup connection. That's
all moot now that every dormroom has a high-speed port...

Post by **Dale** » Tue May 30, 2006 9:19 am

fearfaoin wrote:Wow, and I thought it was impressive when the guy down the hall
turned his peephole into a doorbell. We did connect all our computers
into a suite-wide LAN so we could share a dialup connection. That's
all moot now that every dormroom has a high-speed port...

I had an interesting conversation with a college administrator about high-speed Internet access in dorm rooms. He said it poses a really difficult problem for colleges and universities. On the one hand, they know that by arranging for students to have that kind of continuous 'net access, they are going to lose a certain number to Internet addiction. But, they also know that they can't recruit effectively anymore unless they make it available.

fearfaoin · Post by **fearfaoin** » Tue May 30, 2006 9:22 am

Dale wrote:On the one hand, they know that by arranging for students to have that kind of continuous 'net access, they are going to lose a certain number to Internet addiction.

We used to call that "weed-out". I can't believe how they coddle the
kids these days...