Oh, the silly things I spend my time on...

The deed is done. My little program recorded the time at exactly 01:02:03 on 04/05/06 today. For some reason, it capture the a.m. event, but not the p.m. event. But at least I got one.

It's funny what triggers my memory. Yesterday, I surmised that I must have missed the 12:34:56 7/8/90 incident, but while I was sorting out the files after today's run, I discovered there was, indeed, a file on the drive - a screen shot of my big digital clock - from exactly that time. In the a.m. My memory was jogged by a combination of finding that file, and missing the p.m. event today. As I recall, I had a problem with the program during the p.m. event of 12:34:56 7/8/90. I also remember being upset about it, and I was contemplating setting the computer clock back and creating a screen shot after the fact, but decided against it, knowing that it would bother me to live with the knowledge that it wasn't actually captured during the actual event.

What is it about that?

Anyway, so I have one from back then, and one from today, and TWO screen shots from the original 01:23:45 6/7/89 event. Whoopie!

Here's the proof:



The four screen shot files are DIGCLK1.SCR thru DIGCLK4.SCR, in chronological order. The system does not display the time stamps on the files in seconds, but you can see the dates and times up to the minute. The interesting thing to note is the source file, DIGCLK2.PAS, has a time stamp of 12:35 on it. I just missed 12:34:56 on that day, trying to make a last-second fix to the program to capture the event. That's the one I missed (nearly 16 years ago).

I have a display program, 012345.EXE, that displays all the screen shots that were recorded. I made some composite images, below, so you can see them, too.

For this one from 1989, the two screens looked the same, so I'm just showing one here:


And here is the one from 1990:


And, finally, here is the one from today (oops! I just noticed the display says PM, but it was actually the AM one that got captured - I'll have to fix the prompt):


How silly is that?

You want silly? I just realized today that I have an opportunity to do this every year for the next eight years. And, in light of that, I have set out to make it my mission to record the date & time on each of those eight events...with the same computer and save them to the same floppy disk! This may require some effort to maintain the computer to keep it running. But that's the idea - I want to see how long I can do this with this computer. And, oh, by the way - that's the same monitor, too!

So, be on the lookout for the following dates:
02:03:04 05/06/07
03:04:05 06/07/08
04:05:06 07/08/09
05:06:07 08/09/10
06:07:08 09/10/11
07:08:09 10/11/12
08:09:10 11/12/13
09:10:11 12/13/14

Talk about a time capsule. I'm actually saving times!

What do you do with your time?

UPDATE:
I had another one of my usual quirky brainstorms and realized there are a lot more sequential opportunities to capture - and one that I missed on 04/05/06. If I reverse the order of things (put the date first, use descending numbers, etc.) I find there are numerous additional opportunities to capture some "time sequences" over the next eight years. Including:

04/05/06 07:08:09 (which I missed)
05/06/07 08:09:10
06/07/08 09:10:11
07/08/09 10:11:12
08/09/10 11:12:13
09/10/11 12:13:14
08/07/06 05:04:03
11:10:09 08/07/06
09/08/07 06:05:04
12:11:10 09/08/07
10/09/08 07:06:05
11/10/09 08:07:06
12/11/10 09:08:07
And if I include 24-hour time:
10/11/12 13:14:15
11/12/13 14:15:16
12/13/14 15:16:17

That's 23 total opportunities over the next eight years. And that's just the sequential numbers. I haven't even considered other patterns, like 06:06:06 06/06/06, or 07:07:07 07/07/07, or other sequences that appear in other formats, like 01:23:45 6/7/8 or 12:34:56 7/8/9 etc. I probably won't concern myself with those, but I would like to capture 11:11:11 11/11/11. I'll be lucky if the computer is still working when that time comes.

We'll see!

I have been digging through some of my old stuff lately, so just for fun, I thought I would set up my old IBM PC/XT clone.



As you can kind of see, I had some fun painting it way back when. I wasn't sure it would boot up, but when I turned it on, I was pleasantly surprised.



Wow, check out all that RAM! 512KB - yes, KILOBYTES!

Not only did it boot, but I was presented with my old familiar greeting, welcoming me (and whomever happened to be looking over my shoulder at the time - which was usually nobody) to my world. As you can see, the clock has failed to retain the time. This is a clear indication that the CMOS battery on the motherboard has finally given up the ghost. Not surprising. Though I probably should remove it before it corrodes everything.



Back then, I was known as Wild Bill on many of the local BBS systems in Tucson, Arizona. What's a BBS, you ask? It is a Bulletin Board System. It was more of a localized phenomenon before the Internet became a big deal.

As I was feeling my way around on the computer, trying to remember all my old commands and where my files were located, etc., I was suddenly greeted with a blue screen of death.



This, of course, is a blue screen that pre-dates the Windows Blue Screen of Death (BSOD) which has become so familiar to so many, and the only reason this one is blue in the first place was because I changed my ANSI.SYS settings (via my AUTOEXEC.BAT file) to set the background color to blue. Was this a premonition? Apparently, my aging system drive C: is failing. This event reminded me that I ran into this a year (or two? or three? or ten?) ago when I got my computer out to play with on another occasion. The drive was failing then, and apparently I took steps to recover, because many files had been moved from the C: drive to the D: drive. Fortunately, I have two (count 'em, two!) 20 MB hard drives. That's right, you heard me: 20 MEGABYTES! Wow!

I thought I'd never fill them up.

I realized that my favorite compiler was not working, as it must have been bitten when the C: drive failed the last time I turned this beast on. So, what did I do? I dug out my old installation floppy and re-installed my favorite compiler.



Yep. That's good ol' Turbo Pascal. Version 4. I didn't get a picture of it, but the receipt is tucked inside the floppy sleeve there. I bought this piece of software on 12/22/1987 for a total of $96.26, including tax. What a steal, eh? Actually, that was a lot of money back then (it still is if you ask me).

I rebooted the computer and it booted again - fortunately! That's how I was able to re-install this. And the C: drive worked long enough for me to change to the D: drive and launch my compiler.



Man, this was hot shit back in the day! And, let me tell you, this 8Mhz (yes, MEGAHERTZ) machine was really screaming! Yep. That was back when you could actually read the directory listings as they painted themselves across the screen.

The reason I wanted to load this up tonight was for this little clock program I wrote years ago. You see, I wanted to turn this old computer into a big ol' clunky clock.



Actually, there's a little more to the story than that. You see, I wrote this program for a special purpose. Back in 1989, at 01:23:45 on 6/7/89 in fact, the date and time displayed a nice sequence of numbers, as you can see. 0123456789. This clock, when it encountered that time (in the a.m. and the p.m.) saved a snapshot of the screen to disk at exactly that time. Silly, I know, but I do things like that.

I seem to recall at least thinking about getting 12:34:56 on 7/8/90, but apparently I missed that one. Too bad. However, a friend of mine coincidentally pointed out to me (just yesterday) that tomorrow, there will be a similar situation, at 01:02:03 04/05/06 - a.m. and p.m. So, silly me, I decided to capture the time ... using the same computer ... and on the very same floppy disk.



Fortunately, I was able to modify and recompile my program to accomplish this, and I'm just going to leave it up and running until the time elapses tomorrow. It may be the last thing this computer does. Hmm. Perhaps it was in 1990 that I discovered my C: drive failing (just like my memory!), which may explain why I missed 12:34:56 7/8/90.

Anyway, the clock is ticking!

I have been digging through some boxes of old personal items, and I came across a journal entry that was so absolutely priceless, I had to transcribe it here. It is from November 19, 1979! It reads as follows:

----

I think that computers are starting to take over my life. Ever since school started (even a couple weeks before) I have been working on a computer program. I have (at least I think I have) found the last error in the program.

I have been working on the program every day after school. It would practically be the only thing I would do for the rest of the day. Now that I am almost finished with the program, I am wondering what I am going to do with my afternoons.

It seems like I write a lot of stories that have some relation to computers. Even in this journal I'm talking about computers. I think I'm going to ease up a little bit and take a rest from programming for a while...at least after I finish the one I'm working on.

----

Now, if this wasn't a premonition of things to come, I don't know what is! Looks like the obsession never waned, despite my desire to break away. As my wife said, "you might as well face it - you're a computer junkie."