Who is, or was, the mod who went by the name of "The Gauge"? He only made 13 posts and his profile says he hasn't been on since 1969....
Mystery Man: The Gauge
- Thread starter CNWman
- Start date
COMBAT said:A better question is..... WHY are you asking?
Cuz I'm bored and I'm waitn for ma dinner
Actually, for whatever reason, 1969 is the default set for a lot of forum software.ezdays said:And if you're still not satified, try looking here, then draw your own conclusions....
BTW, the Gauge was started in Dec. 2000 and any references to 1969 anyone might come across is a quirk in the software database.
You are right, as you might recall, if you had an older computer in 1999, you had to update your BIOS or it would roll over to 1969 at the beginning of the new year. I don't know the correlation there, but our database will show a lot of people not having posted or not having visited here since Dec 31, 1969. That kinda bothered me for a while, but I got over it since there's nothing I could do about it and it had no affect on my quality of life...sign1 sign1Cannonball said:
Now in fact, there are three members registered as "the gauge" in one form or the other and they all registered when the Gauge first started up. The only one to post anything is the original owner of the Gauge, Dave Hagen. If you look closely at the other two, you'll find one has the title of a moderator and the other as an administrator. I think all three are self-explanatory. We would never let anyone else register using that as a screen name.
The mystery man in question is also the guy who came up with the world wide web as a start, so what would be better than that, the obvious, THE GAUGE - lol
ezdays said:
I could be wrong here but I was believe the correlation refers to the year the Internet first came online.(1969) It was a military application that was initially called the "Arpanet". As time went on, it became available to the rest of us. As for what the abbreviation "ARPA" stood for, I don't recall off hand. Better dig up my notes.
You could be very right, but I'm thinking that this was the default date of any machine that wasn't updated for Y2K. That was a while back so I could be totally off base here.MadModeler said:
Hah! I just remembered, I have an old 386 laptop, I think I'll plug it in and see what date comes up.
Now if I can only remember where I put the thing... ops:
Don, that would be interesting to see. My first PC was a 286 about 16 years ago, but I can’t remember having seen 1969 as a default setting. I think it was something in the 80s. But it’s a long time and I nearly forgot all the "fun" I had with this machine (remember how much fun it was to install extended memory above 640k on a 286? Today I often curse Windows, but compered to that …
)
OK, I was wrong on two counts. #1, that old laptop is a 486 running Win95 and it does come up with a four-digit year, so that was no help. But I did find it. #2, 1969 was not the default date. I found this while searching for the default date of an old machine:
Oh yeah, I had trouble firing up the laptop since it never got converted from coal to oil. I managed to start a wood fire and was able to stoke up the charger and got it to stay on long enough to check the date. It sounded to me like the bearings were in need of some oil though... Man, some of these antiques are tough to work with.sign1 sign1
#2, 1969 was not the default date. I found this while searching for the default date of an old machine:So, when an old BIOS rolled over to 2000, it thought it was 1900 and then defauts to that 1980 date, which is indeed the correct answer.:thumb:
Oh yeah, I had trouble firing up the laptop since it never got converted from coal to oil.
I managed to start a wood fire and was able to stoke up the charger and got it to stay on long enough to check the date. It sounded to me like the bearings were in need of some oil though... Man, some of these antiques are tough to work with.sign1 sign1cidchase
Active Member
Jim Krause said:
BINGO! :thumb:
I should have researched before posting. Here's the link. Just searched on "ARPANet".
http://www.webopedia.com/TERM/A/ARPANET.html
Speaking of old computers. I confess that I'm still using my 1986 Wyse Technologies 286for CAD. It's been in near-daily use since late '86 and except for adding some RAM and installing a bigger (30 Mb!) hard drive in '88 (RAM at that time cost about $100 a megabite!) it's never had the lid off. Still the original keyboard even. The newer machines I've used for Windows and the net seem to go through keyboards and power supplies on an almost annual basis.
I use VersaCAD in 2D mode only (I've really no need for 3D --- VersaCAD has 3D but other than experimenting with it, I never bothered with it.) and the only functions that are obviously slow are screen redraws and calculations. Beyond those I cannot imagine any advantage in running this DOS software (last update about 1990) on a faster machine. And don't laugh at the 30 Mb hard drive. The images aren't bit map, and I have hundreds of drawings stored on that hard drive.
I tell myself that some year the thing is going to go up in smoke, but now it's become somewhat of a challenge to see just how long it will last.
Bill S
I use VersaCAD in 2D mode only (I've really no need for 3D --- VersaCAD has 3D but other than experimenting with it, I never bothered with it.) and the only functions that are obviously slow are screen redraws and calculations. Beyond those I cannot imagine any advantage in running this DOS software (last update about 1990) on a faster machine. And don't laugh at the 30 Mb hard drive. The images aren't bit map, and I have hundreds of drawings stored on that hard drive.
I tell myself that some year the thing is going to go up in smoke, but now it's become somewhat of a challenge to see just how long it will last.
Bill S
Well - if you must know... When you set up a bulletin board "someone " has to volunteer to be the first member... Since you always want to be creative in your user name, the newer boards "Default" the first name to the Bb URL in this case the-gauge (note hyphen)
When an Admin comes on board, in order to test different functions and just post random items (in this case announcements) without it effecting your post count, you create an "alter ego" in this case, The original owner Dave Hagan created The Gauge (no Hyphen) and posted 13 items... The date 1 - 12 - 2000 is a BB default from the version that existed 5 years ago It's the date that the member was activated online. The 69 date (Registered member) is the default date of the BBs software
Then "I" came along and I wanted a Beta test alter ego so i followed my mentors and created The_Gauge so I can make sure changes I do as Admin will or wont work to a registered user.
.................. And That's The Way it Is............
When you set up a bulletin board "someone " has to volunteer to be the first member... Since you always want to be creative in your user name, the newer boards "Default" the first name to the Bb URL in this case the-gauge (note hyphen)When an Admin comes on board, in order to test different functions and just post random items (in this case announcements) without it effecting your post count, you create an "alter ego" in this case, The original owner Dave Hagan created The Gauge (no Hyphen) and posted 13 items... The date 1 - 12 - 2000 is a BB default from the version that existed 5 years ago
It's the date that the member was activated online. The 69 date (Registered member) is the default date of the BBs software Then "I" came along and I wanted a Beta test alter ego so i followed my mentors and created The_Gauge so I can make sure changes I do as Admin will or wont work to a registered user.
.................. And That's The Way it Is............