How is everyone doing? (5 Viewers)

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It’s something like that I’ve been told. I’ve never listened to that version, so I can’t tell you for sure. Those bubble glass helicopters always remind me of the MASH opening.
"Suicide is painless" is the name of that track. (Were y'all even alive in the 70s?)

The helicopters used in the open scene are Bell H-13 Sioux, the U.S. Army equivalent of the Bell 47D-1. The other helicopters upthread are all Bell 47Gs
 
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Salakia offers instruction down past Houston.

I spotted their 47 several years ago when it was in a different line of work.

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Love the floats, not sure where it’s from, maybe I’m too young? Lol
lol probably. I have the vaguest of memories of this show. Actually the only episode I recall any of is when the ranger pilot, flying that helicopter, got sick, past out, and the child star had to land the helicopter on the river.

 
Jim is correct. The g model is what my buddy has. Not as inexpensive to operate as a Hiller but still decent for a helicopter.

My employer just bought two of these.

I’m happy to say I was born before the 70s!!

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What’s funny was this kid help with sale of my employers two 429s. Talked about my wanting to get my heli rating and he wants to bring a Bell 505 up from Ft worth. He is gonna shyt when he sees my shop, than looks over and sees the single wide ready to blow away!! Heck he may even help us speed up moving out of it.
 
When I started we owned the Dauphin like the Coast guard. I referred to it as the Ferrari. Then we upgraded to the Sikorsky S76 C+ and it was definitely the Cadillac. Lots of fun for sure and worked on it for first years of medical school until I could no longer carry the time obligation.

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Gold and Copper; obviously open pit mine.
Copper, mostly. Some of the richest copper ore anywhere. When I was there (92) they told me that they got enough gold out of the process to pay for the copper mining. So pure profit on the copper.

They’ve moved underground now.

And in the “it’s a small world” department, I walked into the geologists office one day there (this is on the rim of the pit, so 14,000’ altitude) to do some of my IT work there and a guy with a beard asks: “is your name Thompson?”

“Yeah, hi.” (What?)

He introduced himself, and reminded that we’d met 11-12 years before, near Tonapah, NV. He’d been a geologist for Anaconda Copper and I was drilling a supply well for their milling and smelting operation.
 
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I've had similar happen a couple times. Most recently I was in Seattle for a cloud conference and one of the guys from Cisco (who had grown up behind the Iron Curtain and was therefore familiar with the computers that were in use in the 1970s (because the USSR was cloning them)) thought I should see a local museum with a bunch of old computers.

There is a similar (but small) community who is into "retro computing", which is essentially restoring old computers. I have a friend who just acquired (and had to move) this entire 5ESS telephone switch: The End of An Era in Telecommunications - https://it.arizona.edu/news/end-era-telecommunications

Anyway, this guy from Cisco that I know, who had gown up in Poland in the 70s was enthusiastic about a local "computer history" museum that had been founded and funded by Paul Allen (who had just died two months previous to when I was there.) "You gotta see it!!", so he and I and a guy who works for me at Netgate went over, but we got there about 45 minutes before closing time.

I'm admiring some of the machines I'd used over half a lifetime ago, and someone walks up and asks, "Did you used to live in Dallas?"
"Um, sure. Why?" "Were you part of the 'lunch bunch'?" That group was a collection of geeks in the DFW area who all used Unix (which you might know as "linux" now). We met once/month for lunch, typically on a Saturday. Bunch of introverts all trying to find anyone to talk to about our nerdy interest. At this point I knew that he must know me from ... 1989 or so, and friends, I look nothing like I did then. In particular, I never wore a beard, or glasses and my hair wasn't anywhere near this grey. Steven was a teenager back then, as you can probably deduce from the picture of the two of us.

But 30-ish years later, he was basically second in command at the museum, and I guess I looked familiar enough that he asked.
That led to a tour for all of us into three levels of sub basement where the work in-progress was kept, including the restoration of the PDP-10 that Paul Allen was attempting when he died. That's a picture of Paul Allen (the taller guy) and Peter Löthberg in front of the PDP-10 KI-10. Built in 1968, it’s the first computer that both Allen and Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates ever used prior to founding Microsoft. I don't know how many of this group know the origin story of Microsoft, but if you do, this is the actual computer that Paul and Bill used in high school that led to the origin story of Microsoft. They'd only gotten it to Seattle (from Sweden) in September. Allen died in October, and I saw it in December.

The parallels between this group and that efforts ate the museum are easy to make.

They were working from original circuit diagrams when they could get them. A lot of parts used back then are NLA, so they have reproductions made. I've included a picture of the recreation of the NLA lamps for some of the "blinken lights". These have to be the correct size and resistance in order to work. They have (had) a large store of now unobtainum parts on shelves to aid in their restoration efforts.

There was a near complete effort of the restoration of an even older computer from the late 50s and early 60s. This is the one in the pictures that has "wings" that open and used the coupled manual typewriter as and input/output console.

Just in-case you didn't know what your family is likely to do with your "old truck" after you're gone, six years later and Paul Allen's sister has put it all up for auction. Seattle’s Living Computers Museum logs off for good as Paul Allen estate will auction vintage items - https://www.geekwire.com/2024/seattles-living-computers-museum-logs-off-for-good-as-paul-allen-estate-will-auction-vintage-items/

Selah

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Wow. That is some interesting history and it needs to be saved. If people can't see where we came from how do we even begin to wrap our heads around where we are now, technologically?
Hopefully someone steps up to save the collection.

Agree, it's bad.

There are a few hundred pics I didn't post. Some of the first computers on the "arpanet" (which was the fore-runner of "the Internet") were there.

This one, a "KL-UDGE" (a KL-10 put together by people at MIT from a collection of spare parts, an activity that the manfacturer did not ... "endorse") was also known as "MIT-MC" on the then arpanet. It ran "ITS" (the Incompatible Time-Sharing System) Incompatible Timesharing System - Wikipedia - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incompatible_Timesharing_System#History

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