You know you've gotten old when...

[Zac67]

As a result, my mental arithmetic skills are absolutely dreadful.  I can do maths, even quite complex maths, but if you ask me to do anything without a calculator... forget it.  I think that's a bad thing.

Absolutely. I think the kids need to be able to do the calculations in the head first. Only then can they be allowed to use machines.

I'm glad my old math teacher forbade calculators in lower classes, I think we were allowed from 9th grade on.
You need to be able to 'feel' if the results you get are realistic - many times my head's faster than a colleague of mine with Win calc and 50% of the times he's even wrong. :lol:

[koshman]

Yeah, I agree. I was never interested in math (I like computers though, strange...), but on the other hand I don't actually remember ever extensively using a calculator in elementary or high school (and I'm 28) and I can do basic maths pretty fast in my head. Even my friends who need maths for living are sometimes surprised by some quick calculations/guesses. The advanced math they work with everyday makes them rely on their calculators a little too much, I would say.

[skurk]

My first computer was a ZX81 which ran at about 3MHz, if memory serves...

Correct, but only ~25% of that computing power was used to actually process user programs, the remaining ~75% was used to generate the video output.  A "turbo mode" where the video was disabled was also available, IIRC.

So... yeah.  I'm also old.

[skurk]

And you know you're getting old when...

... you try to explain to a young colleague how math works on a 6502:
 "You've got one all-purpose register, two index registers, an ADD and a SUB command - all 8 bit and integer only, of course."
 "And you could actually do calculations with THAT? Where's the FPU???" :lol:

Try to explain kids today how we did 3D graphics on the Amiga.

We had to do it manually, without any libraries.  3D objects were often written directly into the code, due to the lack of a decent editor.  Each point in the said 3D object had to be multiplied several times in realtime for the 3D-to-2D conversion, shaders and texture mappers were coded from scratch.  All this were done in assembly language, and oh, you had to double buffer everything and watch the CPU usage so you'd have everything run at 50FPS, and... and...

[motrucker]

Oh god, what was this about anyway?

[hardlink]

... when you can remember programming on punch cards...  

And you still have said punched cards, as well as blank ones.

[hardlink]

... when your first computer ran on less than one MHz.

Ha! My Jay Miner 800 ran it's 6502 at 1.8 MHz. And I still have it.

[smerf]

hi,

You know you have gotten old when you look at the President of the U.S. and you say what is that kid doing running the country.

When you see all the kids talking about the new droid phone and you are wondering what is so special about a phone.

When you come to Amiga.org, because they are the only ones that understand about what kind of computer you like and use.

smerf

getting old isn't permanent, I hear you feel young again right before you die.

[amiga92570]

hi,

You know you have gotten old when you look at the President of the U.S. and you say what is that kid doing running the country.

When you see all the kids talking about the new droid phone and you are wondering what is so special about a phone.

When you come to Amiga.org, because they are the only ones that understand about what kind of computer you like and use.

smerf

getting old isn't permanent, I hear you feel young again right before you die.

I'm feeling ya man!

[Franko]

When, like yesterday I was standing in the queue at the post office waiting to buy some stamps. After waiting for nearly 45 minutes when I finally got to the counter, I had forgotten for a moment what I'd came in for. Then the spotty little nerk behind the counter said 'sorry mate, pension day was yesterday'...

[Motormouth]

I won't feel old until they stop carding me for alcohol and tobacco products, and the 20something bartender chicks stop looking disappointed when they notice my wedding ring.

tone, you are the man.  I don't ever remember bartender chicks looking at me at all.

[klx300r]

when you still think that you can get everything you need to do on a PC done on a 8 bit computer:afro:

[klx300r]

when you remember BG swore that you would never need more than 256Kb !!

[Jiffy]

when you remember BG swore that you would never need more than 256Kb !!

...and when you forget that the correct amount mentioned in that quote is 640 KB (and BG apparently never even said stuff like that). :-)

[DBAlex]

I would have been 5, but remember some people know about the Amiga from their older siblings having one, and then it being passed down for them to use... I have a pic somewhere of me playing on the Amiga when I was about 8, so Amigas still got given to people after C= died. ;-)

I never knew the Amiga had such a following until I googled it about 5 yrs ago. And the rest is history .

[dammy]

You know you've gotten old when...  

Gee, where to start?

2 of my children were born after Commodore's demise. My favorite computer (c64 - 1982) was released almost exactly 1 decade before my first child was born.

Then there is the whole gray hair thing, the shoddy memory thing.

Let me cheer you up then.  Gray hair is better then NO hair. ;-)