[ansel12]

For those who don’t remember, the hatred against SDI was white hot from the media of America and the West.

I naturally had no idea if it could work or not, but I could continue to study the Soviet Union, and SDI seemed to panic and anger them more than anything that I had seen in my life.

SDI was a massive bludgeon against the Soviet Union, they were totally agitated and confused by it and it seemed to totally wreck their seeming unflappability, and normally confident and arrogant negotiation style.

It was the first time that I could remember when a President seemed to have them by the important parts.

[nascarnation]

Isn’t one of Baraq’s few verified documents from the 1980s an anti-Reagan anti-SDI screed written in some Columbia U. publication?

[SgtHooper]

It was the massive resources of the US that eventually hastened the demise of the Soviet Union. The SDI was just one. In many ways, it is like filing a lawsuit, forcing your opponent to expend enormous amounts of money on his defense. The USSR could never go the distance.

[Nowhere Man]

For those who don’t remember, the hatred against SDI was white hot from the media of America and the West.

I naturally had no idea if it could work or not, but I could continue to study the Soviet Union, and SDI seemed to panic and anger them more than anything that I had seen in my life.

I remember that too, the lefties were in an uproar. I figure it could have worked, it does not take a lot of computing power to calculate the trajectory of missiles and the way to intercept them, in theory, a Timex Sinclair 1000 or Commodore VIC-20 (or even an Atari 2600) could do it but if you want something better, an Apple //e, Commodore 64, Atari 400/800 could do it quite well. If course, there are claims you can overload the system so you might need multiple stations controlling their one sector and of course their computer control systems. BTW, there was a book series from the founder of Creative Computer, "David Ahl's Book of Games Volumes 1 and 2." Many of the simulations, written in Microsoft BASIC back in the 1970's, had scenarios where you had to intercept missiles and so on, ala SDI, some of those took about 2K to 8K of RAM. I had a TI-99/4A at the time and converting those to TI-BASIC was a pain in the butt, less so with the Extended BASIC.

Those were the days, we do lots of neat stuff with our computers today, but a side of me misses those old machines. Every once in a while if I have the time, I still play those old Apple //e games from that time. I feel like I want to hook up my old Atari too. B-)

Sorry for some OT stuff, but growing up in that era was fun, I think it was the last true time to be a kid for real just prior to all these nanny-staters coming out of the woodwork.

P.S. - I made it my goal between now and the time I croak to program all of those games in plus the third book for "Big Computers" David Ahl released back then. Wish today's PC's came with BASIC, I might have to bring out my 486SX, Apple //e and/or TI-99/4A, the last one only uses a cassette drive.