this post was submitted on 12 Aug 2025
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Programmer Humor

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[–] Fiivemacs@lemmy.ca 137 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (15 children)

I raise

edit, actually, it might have been on the back...it's been forever since I touched one

[–] TheRealShadeSlimmy@lemmy.world 42 points 1 year ago (7 children)

I’ll see your raise, and up it:

[–] MadMadBunny@lemmy.ca 66 points 1 year ago (5 children)
[–] threeonefour@piefed.ca 25 points 1 year ago (2 children)

I always see those videos where people give kids a walkman or a rotary phone and ask them to figure out what it is or how it works. I'm imagining some medieval merchant handing me an abacus and laughing because I can't figure it out.

[–] tetris11@lemmy.ml 17 points 1 year ago (6 children)

It's little endian, so the beads on the far right are used to outnumber the big endian beads at the top on the woke left. After several computations, the middle section is just gone

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[–] fubarx@lemmy.world 14 points 1 year ago (2 children)
[–] oatscoop@midwest.social 15 points 1 year ago (3 children)

You kids don't know how good you have it!

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[–] floofloof@lemmy.ca 19 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (5 children)

My age in fond memories:

Commodore PET/CBM 4032

Acorn Atom

I don't have long for this world...

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[–] Onomatopoeia@lemmy.cafe 14 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Ooh, I had a serial mouse (9 pin) from Microsoft of all companies, in the 90's.

Damn good mouse.

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[–] JoMiran@lemmy.ml 129 points 1 year ago (12 children)

Big keyboard jack, serial for mouse, parallel for printer

[–] josefo@leminal.space 32 points 1 year ago (7 children)

Don't forget the serial input for gamepads and joysticks in the dedicated sound board for some reason

[–] BigDanishGuy@sh.itjust.works 36 points 1 year ago (5 children)

Except that wasn't a serial port, it was midi, and the reason it was on the sound card was because the input was analog.

Your joystick was just two fancy potentiometers, and your soundcard decoded the voltage on the middle legs into a position.

Soundcards handled joysticks because they had the fastest ADCs.

[–] cmnybo@discuss.tchncs.de 15 points 1 year ago (2 children)

They didn't even use an ADC. They used 555 timers to produce a pulse. They measured the length of the pulse to determine the potentiometer position. Since there are 4 analog inputs, they typically used the 558 timer which is the quad version of the 555.

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[–] aliceblossom@lemmy.world 90 points 1 year ago (1 children)
[–] LordTE7R1S@lemmy.sdf.org 15 points 1 year ago (13 children)

I got that reference. Fuck, I'm old.

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[–] mercano@lemmy.world 66 points 1 year ago (2 children)

In my day, the RJ-11 jack was for connecting the keyboard, not the phone line.

The original Macintosh keyboard port

[–] iglou@programming.dev 34 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Okay that's something I had no idea about hahaha

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[–] WanderingThoughts@europe.pub 57 points 1 year ago (1 children)

The time of the classic "Keyboard missing. Press F1 to continue."

[–] Darkassassin07@lemmy.ca 26 points 1 year ago (6 children)

You know that thing that you don't have? You should press buttons on it.

Fuck you computer....

[–] palordrolap@fedia.io 25 points 1 year ago

Way back, there were some rare keyboard / motherboard combinations where the motherboard couldn't detect there was a keyboard attached unless a key was pressed on it. That message was for those people with those combinations.

You pressed F1 and the computer would be like "my bad, there is a keyboard there, thanks for your help", or rather it would just shut up and boot.

The message could have been different but it had to fit in a small amount of BIOS ROM, so we got stuck with the one that covered all the bases the best, and unfortunately, most people who saw it didn't actually have a keyboard plugged in, thus, irony.

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[–] LillyPip@lemmy.ca 55 points 1 year ago (12 children)

Bitch

please.

(Kidding, you’re not a bitch and this isn’t a contest. But if it was…)

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[–] nocturne@slrpnk.net 46 points 1 year ago (6 children)

Fairly certain my first computer used something like this for the keyboard. I did not have a mouse.

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[–] Draegur@lemmy.zip 43 points 1 year ago (5 children)

"do you know what ps/2 ports are?"

"holy cow, PlayStation 2? you must be AT LEAST 25!"

[dying inside intensifies]

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[–] cypherpunks@lemmy.ml 39 points 1 year ago (6 children)
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[–] Routhinator@startrek.website 35 points 1 year ago (8 children)
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[–] cupcakezealot@piefed.blahaj.zone 33 points 1 year ago (4 children)
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[–] Quexotic@infosec.pub 31 points 1 year ago (6 children)
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[–] HocEnimVeni@lemmy.world 28 points 1 year ago (5 children)

Back in my day they weren't color coded.

[–] fartographer@lemmy.world 43 points 1 year ago (2 children)

That's because color hadn't been invented yet and therefore people could only see in black and white. That's why old shows don't have color.

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[–] DoucheBagMcSwag@lemmy.dbzer0.com 26 points 1 year ago (2 children)

PS/2

No, not the PlayStation.....

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[–] halyihev@lemmy.world 26 points 1 year ago (2 children)
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[–] Sam_Bass@lemmy.world 25 points 1 year ago (3 children)
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[–] LordCrom@lemmy.world 25 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Look at you with your fancy ps/2 keyboard port. Where's my AT port and 9 pin serial mouse.

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[–] lime@feddit.nu 22 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (3 children)
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[–] YetAnotherMe@lemmy.world 21 points 1 year ago (4 children)

if I remember correctly my first PC had the bigger DIN connector for the keyboard and a DSUB9 for the mouse. Guess I'm old ;)

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[–] locuester@lemmy.zip 19 points 1 year ago

lol PS/2 ports are the newer ones. There were larger AT ports and ADB ports in addition to the 25-pin(!) LPT port (printer mostly) and COM ports (random peripherals including early mice, pre ps/2)

[–] darkreader2636@lemmy.zip 19 points 1 year ago (1 children)
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[–] Carvex@lemmy.world 18 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Yeah well my first computer typed in cuneiform so get off my lawn you kids

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[–] Codpiece@feddit.uk 17 points 1 year ago (1 children)

But the keyboard is the computer, mice haven’t been invented yet and where do I plug the tape deck in?

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[–] Lushed_Lungfish@lemmy.ca 15 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Oh I first learned to type by typing "The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dogs" over and over on a wireless keyboard.

Called a typewriter.

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[–] 1stQ@feddit.org 15 points 1 year ago
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