Buried Treasures

Several months ago my wife and I decided that our house was too big for us and it was time to downsize. Moving is a pain in its own right but when you’re going from a 2800 square foot space to a 1900 square foot space you start thinking a bit more about what you can get rid of. We still had lots of boxes tucked away in various closets around the old house but we I didn’t want to just start tossing them into the recycle bin without seeing what was inside. Little did I remember what treasures were waiting for me. What follows is a small sampling of the more entertaining finds. Enjoy!

: Graphics for the IBM PC in BASIC. Complete with line numbers and 5 1/4 floppy. They could have at least made the physical disk match the rainbow one on the cover. Copyright 1984.

: I’m not sure what the guys on the cover are doing but I think the one on the right is getting reprimanded. The guy on the left has this expression that says “WTF? Another GOTO?” Also, the built-in full-screen editor apparently turns your PC into The Grid from TRON. Copyright 1986.

: Structured COBOL. A glance through this book made me very happy I never learned COBOL. I think there’s some potential for the COBOL Coding Form to make a comeback though. Ok, maybe not. Copyright 1986.

: IE3 backup installation media. Disks 1 – 8…of 9…

: My, how times have changed…

: Windows DNA, aka: Windows Distributed interNet Applications Architecture – yes, this was a thing.

: Classic ASP with examples in VBScript. I had a VBScript book at one point too although I’m not really sure why…

: The manual for Microsoft’s short-lived photo editor. After flipping through it I think “Lorem Ipsum” and bad hair styles are forever etched into my retinas.