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| From | Michael Black <et472@ncf.ca> |
|---|---|
| Newsgroups | comp.misc, alt.folklore.computers |
| Subject | Re: [CM] What was your first home computer? |
| Date | 2017-04-18 23:40 -0400 |
| Organization | National Capital Freenet, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada |
| Message-ID | <alpine.LNX.2.02.1704182332310.13827@darkstar.example.org> (permalink) |
| References | (2 earlier) <elm91nFin4bU1@mid.individual.net> <alpine.LNX.2.02.1704181429000.13067@darkstar.example.org> <20170418201052.d19c3279d4199af3d8e1941f@eircom.net> <87fuh5v6qh.fsf@elektro.pacujo.net> <od61ia$gh$1@dont-email.me> |
Cross-posted to 2 groups.
On Tue, 18 Apr 2017, Robert Swindells wrote: > On Tue, 18 Apr 2017 22:46:46 +0300, Marko Rauhamaa wrote: > >> Ok, all this hardware. What did you do with it? >> >> I bought an Atari 520ST. A big disappointment. You couldn't do anything >> with it. It came with the lamest imaginable Basic interpreter and a Logo >> turtle. I joined a local Atari club, but nobody was interested in >> programming so I quit. > > The Atari ST had several good free C compilers for it, you could write > whatever software you wanted. > > I ran Franz Lisp on mine too, it was a lot cheaper than a Sun workstation. > I thought the Atari 520 was great, certainly it was more in my price range. I spent $300 in 1989 for mine, it was a clearance item. It had great potential, and at that point lots of programs (I was buying ST Format that came from the UK, for the cover discs, still floppies then. And I picked up a copy of the Mark Williams C COmpiler when some local dealer was dropping the Atari, so it was cheap. The problem was, my ST was flakey. I got it, it worked as far as it could without a floppy drive. MOnths later I get a floppy drive, and the ST isn't working. The power supply had a problem, which I fixed, but one of the RAM ICs was damaged. I was lucky, one was noticeably warmer than the rest, so getting that out and a new one in fixed that problem. But there wsa something else wrong, maybe the reason I got it cheap. Every so often it would scramble a floppy disc, which made it too unreliable, so I eventualy gave up on it. I did like it, it gave me a 68000 without the cost of a Mac. When I did get a Mac Plus in late 1993, a hand me down with a flakey connector to the deflection coil, it felt lacking. I had to get a hard drive, my first, because a single floppy drive wsan't very useful, and a second one from Apple (they being non-standard) was almost as much as a hard drive, so I went with the hard drive. But the speed and greater memory just seemed to be used up with the GUI operating system, like I'd moved forward and then back two steps. The Atari had more built in hardware (of a more universal kind) and seemed snappy enough. I was even lucky, at a local amateur radio flearmarket, I bought bunch of Atari ST boards that were in various shape, so I did have spare parts, but I just never got my Atari ST going reliably. ALmost thirty years later, it was such a different time. Now, so much better hardware is out there on the used market, and if anything breaks down, it's easy and cheap to find a replacement. Circa 1989, the computer world was bigger than the hobbyist world, but not by that much. Michael
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[CM] What was your first home computer? RS Wood <rsw@therandymon.com> - 2017-04-17 11:01 +0000
Re: [CM] What was your first home computer? Andreas Kohlbach <ank@spamfence.net> - 2017-04-17 15:05 -0400
Re: [CM] What was your first home computer? Ian McCall <ian@eruvia.org> - 2017-04-18 11:45 +0100
Re: [CM] What was your first home computer? Nyssa <Nyssa@flawlesslogic.com> - 2017-04-18 11:14 -0400
Re: [CM] What was your first home computer? Roger Blake <rogblake@iname.invalid> - 2017-04-18 15:27 +0000
Re: [CM] What was your first home computer? Rich <rich@example.invalid> - 2017-04-18 15:47 +0000
Re: [CM] What was your first home computer? Nyssa <Nyssa@flawlesslogic.com> - 2017-04-18 11:52 -0400
Re: [CM] What was your first home computer? Michael Black <et472@ncf.ca> - 2017-04-18 14:46 -0400
Re: [CM] What was your first home computer? Nyssa <Nyssa@flawlesslogic.com> - 2017-04-18 16:52 -0400
Re: [CM] What was your first home computer? Michael Black <et472@ncf.ca> - 2017-04-18 14:40 -0400
Re: [CM] What was your first home computer? "Kerr Mudd-John" <admin@127.0.0.1> - 2017-04-18 21:14 +0100
Re: [CM] What was your first home computer? Michael Black <et472@ncf.ca> - 2017-04-18 14:32 -0400
Re: [CM] What was your first home computer? Ahem A Rivet's Shot <steveo@eircom.net> - 2017-04-18 20:10 +0100
Re: [CM] What was your first home computer? Marko Rauhamaa <marko@pacujo.net> - 2017-04-18 22:46 +0300
Re: [CM] What was your first home computer? Rich <rich@example.invalid> - 2017-04-18 21:04 +0000
Re: [CM] What was your first home computer? Robert Swindells <rjs@fdy2.co.uk> - 2017-04-18 21:47 +0000
Re: [CM] What was your first home computer? Andy Leighton <andyl@azaal.plus.com> - 2017-04-18 17:57 -0500
Re: [CM] What was your first home computer? Michael Black <et472@ncf.ca> - 2017-04-18 23:40 -0400
Re: [CM] What was your first home computer? Jason Howe <jason@tatooine.smbfc.net> - 2017-04-19 04:34 +0000
Re: [CM] What was your first home computer? JimP. <solosam90@gmail.com> - 2017-04-19 11:59 -0500
Re: [CM] What was your first home computer? scott@alfter.diespammersdie.us (Scott Alfter) - 2017-04-19 18:17 +0000
Re: [CM] What was your first home computer? Jason Howe <jason@tatooine.smbfc.net> - 2017-04-19 18:45 +0000
Re: [CM] What was your first home computer? Michael Black <et472@ncf.ca> - 2017-04-19 19:59 -0400
Re: [CM] What was your first home computer? Mike Spencer <mds@bogus.nodomain.nowhere> - 2017-04-19 03:28 -0300
Re: [CM] What was your first home computer? Marko Rauhamaa <marko@pacujo.net> - 2017-04-19 12:55 +0300
Re: [CM] What was your first home computer? Larry Sheldon <lfsheldon@gmail.com> - 2017-04-19 05:40 -0500
Re: [CM] What was your first home computer? Nyssa <Nyssa@flawlesslogic.com> - 2017-04-19 10:02 -0400
Re: [CM] What was your first home computer? Michael Black <et472@ncf.ca> - 2017-04-19 12:49 -0400
Re: [CM] What was your first home computer? Bob Eager <news0006@eager.cx> - 2017-04-19 15:44 +0000
Re: [CM] What was your first home computer? "J. Clarke" <j.clarke.873638@gmail.com> - 2017-04-19 22:05 -0400
Re: [CM] What was your first home computer? Richard Thiebaud <thiebauddick2@aol.com> - 2017-04-19 12:05 -0400
Re: [CM] What was your first home computer? JimP. <solosam90@gmail.com> - 2017-04-19 12:11 -0500
Re: [CM] What was your first home computer? Michael Black <et472@ncf.ca> - 2017-04-19 12:44 -0400
Re: [CM] What was your first home computer? bartc <bc@freeuk.com> - 2017-05-14 11:22 +0100
Re: [CM] What was your first home computer? Walter Banks <walter@bytecraft.com> - 2017-04-19 13:38 -0400
Re: [CM] What was your first home computer? Morten Reistad <first@last.name.invalid> - 2017-04-20 07:09 +0200
Re: [CM] What was your first home computer? Andreas Kohlbach <ank@spamfence.net> - 2017-04-19 13:58 -0400
Re: [CM] What was your first home computer? Mike Spencer <mds@bogus.nodomain.nowhere> - 2017-04-19 02:37 -0300
Re: [CM] What was your first home computer? Ian McCall <ian@eruvia.org> - 2017-04-20 11:47 +0100
Re: [CM] What was your first home computer? Osmium <r124c4u102@comcast.net> - 2017-04-20 08:56 -0500
Re: [CM] What was your first home computer? Marko Rauhamaa <marko@pacujo.net> - 2017-04-20 17:07 +0300
Re: [CM] What was your first home computer? Larry Sheldon <lfsheldon@gmail.com> - 2017-04-21 22:18 -0500
Re: [CM] What was your first home computer? Anssi Saari <as@sci.fi> - 2017-04-21 14:10 +0300
Re: [CM] What was your first home computer? Marko Rauhamaa <marko@pacujo.net> - 2017-04-21 15:00 +0300
Re: [CM] What was your first home computer? jmfbahciv <See.above@aol.com> - 2017-04-21 12:53 +0000
Re: [CM] What was your first home computer? Andreas Kohlbach <ank@spamfence.net> - 2017-04-21 15:01 -0400
Re: [CM] What was your first home computer? Marko Rauhamaa <marko@pacujo.net> - 2017-04-21 23:35 +0300
Re: [CM] What was your first home computer? Andreas Kohlbach <ank@spamfence.net> - 2017-04-18 15:44 -0400
Re: [CM] What was your first home computer? Brian Reay <no.sp@m.com> - 2017-04-18 22:23 +0100
Re: [CM] What was your first home computer? Jon Elson <jmelson@wustl.edu> - 2017-04-17 14:38 -0500
Re: [CM] What was your first home computer? Alan Frisbie <Usenet03_REMOVE@Flying-Disk.com> - 2017-04-17 18:17 -0700
Re: [CM] What was your first home computer? Gene Wirchenko <genew@telus.net> - 2017-04-17 20:06 -0700
Re: [CM] What was your first home computer? Gene Wirchenko <genew@telus.net> - 2017-04-18 22:50 -0700
Re: [CM] What was your first home computer? Michael Black <et472@ncf.ca> - 2017-04-19 12:38 -0400
Re: [CM] What was your first home computer? isw <isw@witzend.com> - 2017-04-17 20:41 -0700
Re: [CM] What was your first home computer? ANTant@zimage.com (Ant) - 2017-04-17 23:00 -0500
Re: [CM] What was your first home computer? The Real Bev <bashley101@gmail.com> - 2017-04-17 22:13 -0700
Re: [CM] What was your first home computer? Michael Black <et472@ncf.ca> - 2017-04-18 14:27 -0400
Re: [CM] What was your first home computer? Walter Banks <walter@bytecraft.com> - 2017-04-18 12:02 -0400
Re: [CM] What was your first home computer? Dave Garland <dave.garland@wizinfo.com> - 2017-04-18 21:58 -0500
Re: [CM] What was your first home computer? songbird <songbird@anthive.com> - 2017-04-19 10:09 -0400
Re: [CM] What was your first home computer? Michael Black <et472@ncf.ca> - 2017-04-19 12:52 -0400
Re: [CM] What was your first home computer? songbird <songbird@anthive.com> - 2017-04-19 16:41 -0400
Re: [CM] What was your first home computer? The Real Bev <bashley101@gmail.com> - 2017-04-19 20:31 -0700
Re: [CM] What was your first home computer? songbird <songbird@anthive.com> - 2017-04-20 10:28 -0400
Re: [CM] What was your first home computer? Ian McCall <ian@eruvia.org> - 2017-04-21 10:47 +0100
Re: [CM] What was your first home computer? Huge <Huge@nowhere.much.invalid> - 2017-04-21 09:50 +0000
Re: [CM] What was your first home computer? songbird <songbird@anthive.com> - 2017-04-21 08:46 -0400
Re: [CM] What was your first home computer? Ian McCall <ian@eruvia.org> - 2017-04-21 18:00 +0100
Re: [CM] What was your first home computer? Michael Black <et472@ncf.ca> - 2017-04-21 20:19 -0400
Re: [CM] What was your first home computer? Ian McCall <ian@eruvia.org> - 2017-04-22 11:18 +0100
Re: [CM] What was your first home computer? "Jack Myers" <jmyers@n6wuz.net> - 2017-04-19 10:35 -0700
Re: [CM] What was your first home computer? Andreas Kohlbach <ank@spamfence.net> - 2017-04-19 17:06 -0400
Re: [CM] What was your first home computer? songbird <songbird@anthive.com> - 2017-04-19 16:29 -0400
Re: [CM] What was your first home computer? Mok-Kong Shen <mok-kong.shen@t-online.de> - 2017-04-20 10:49 +0200
Re: [CM] What was your first home computer? Ivan Shmakov <ivan@siamics.net> - 2017-04-20 10:13 +0000
Re: [CM] What was your first home computer? Kara M'bola <maxupixu@in.val.it> - 2017-04-22 09:42 +0000
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