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[CM] What was your first home computer?

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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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#13491

RS Wood wrote:
...
> remember your first home computer? This usually provokes a flood of fond
> memories about primitive specs -- limited RAM, bad graphics, and early versions
> of long-since-abandoned operating systems. Now I'd like to pose the same
> question to Slashdot's readers. Use the comments to share details about your
> own first home computer. Was it a back-to-school present from your parents? Did
> it come with a modem? Did you lovingly upgrade its hardware for years to come?
> Was it a Commodore 64 or a BeBox? It seems like there should be some good
> stories, so leave your best answers in the comments. What was your first home
> computer?

  IBM-PC (81-82 era), no graphics at first, 
eventually had a Hercules monochrome widget put 
in it.  made sure it was full of memory.  
eventually added a 40M hard drive and a faster 
clocked CPU.

  still regret giving away the keyboard when i gave 
the PC away in 96.  the machine was still working
just fine as a terminal and if you didn't mind
waiting it would compile things i needed to do for
class work.

  always had a modem, needed that to get to the
campus computer labs.


  songbird

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#13497

On Wed, 19 Apr 2017, songbird wrote:

> RS Wood wrote:
> ...
>> remember your first home computer? This usually provokes a flood of fond
>> memories about primitive specs -- limited RAM, bad graphics, and early versions
>> of long-since-abandoned operating systems. Now I'd like to pose the same
>> question to Slashdot's readers. Use the comments to share details about your
>> own first home computer. Was it a back-to-school present from your parents? Did
>> it come with a modem? Did you lovingly upgrade its hardware for years to come?
>> Was it a Commodore 64 or a BeBox? It seems like there should be some good
>> stories, so leave your best answers in the comments. What was your first home
>> computer?
>
>  IBM-PC (81-82 era), no graphics at first,
> eventually had a Hercules monochrome widget put
> in it.  made sure it was full of memory.
> eventually added a 40M hard drive and a faster
> clocked CPU.
>
>  still regret giving away the keyboard when i gave
> the PC away in 96.  the machine was still working
> just fine as a terminal and if you didn't mind
> waiting it would compile things i needed to do for
> class work.
>
I think at the time, people didn't realize the good keyboards were going 
away.  The original IBM keyboards were expensive, though that soon 
changed.  But who would have thought that they'd get cheap and flimsy with 
time, or that the old keyboards would still work all this time later?

While I dabbled with some IBM PC parts about 1990, I didn't have an Intel 
machine until 2001, when I splurged on a used Pentium so I could run 
Linux.  And by then, the good keyboards were mostly gone from the used 
market.  Had I run an IBM COmpatible earlier, I'm sure I would have 
grabbed a good mechanical keyboard.

    Michael

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#13508

Michael Black wrote:
> On Wed, 19 Apr 2017, songbird wrote:
>
>> RS Wood wrote:
>> ...
>>> remember your first home computer? This usually provokes a flood of fond
>>> memories about primitive specs -- limited RAM, bad graphics, and early versions
>>> of long-since-abandoned operating systems. Now I'd like to pose the same
>>> question to Slashdot's readers. Use the comments to share details about your
>>> own first home computer. Was it a back-to-school present from your parents? Did
>>> it come with a modem? Did you lovingly upgrade its hardware for years to come?
>>> Was it a Commodore 64 or a BeBox? It seems like there should be some good
>>> stories, so leave your best answers in the comments. What was your first home
>>> computer?
>>
>>  IBM-PC (81-82 era), no graphics at first,
>> eventually had a Hercules monochrome widget put
>> in it.  made sure it was full of memory.
>> eventually added a 40M hard drive and a faster
>> clocked CPU.
>>
>>  still regret giving away the keyboard when i gave
>> the PC away in 96.  the machine was still working
>> just fine as a terminal and if you didn't mind
>> waiting it would compile things i needed to do for
>> class work.
>>
> I think at the time, people didn't realize the good keyboards were going 
> away.  The original IBM keyboards were expensive, though that soon 
> changed.  But who would have thought that they'd get cheap and flimsy with 
> time, or that the old keyboards would still work all this time later?

  considering i never had to replace a single key,
cable or plug for that device it was very well 
designed.


> While I dabbled with some IBM PC parts about 1990, I didn't have an Intel 
> machine until 2001, when I splurged on a used Pentium so I could run 
> Linux.  And by then, the good keyboards were mostly gone from the used 
> market.  Had I run an IBM COmpatible earlier, I'm sure I would have 
> grabbed a good mechanical keyboard.

  they are still being made - the case is plastic
now instead of metal and the feel isn't quite the same
but is close enough that i can go through a full day
without my hands having any issues.


  songbird

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#13515

On 04/19/2017 01:41 PM, songbird wrote:
> Michael Black wrote:
>> On Wed, 19 Apr 2017, songbird wrote:
>>
>>> RS Wood wrote: ...
>>>> remember your first home computer? This usually provokes a
>>>> flood of fond memories about primitive specs -- limited RAM,
>>>> bad graphics, and early versions of long-since-abandoned
>>>> operating systems. Now I'd like to pose the same question to
>>>> Slashdot's readers. Use the comments to share details about
>>>> your own first home computer. Was it a back-to-school present
>>>> from your parents? Did it come with a modem? Did you lovingly
>>>> upgrade its hardware for years to come? Was it a Commodore 64
>>>> or a BeBox? It seems like there should be some good stories, so
>>>> leave your best answers in the comments. What was your first
>>>> home computer?
>>>
>>> IBM-PC (81-82 era), no graphics at first, eventually had a
>>> Hercules monochrome widget put in it.  made sure it was full of
>>> memory.

Ooh, I remember when "Hercules graphics" was a plus.

>>> eventually added a 40M hard drive and a faster clocked CPU.

First hard drives were a pair of 5MB drives for the NEC APC.  If you
wanted to install a second one you had to bend several pins (voiding the
warranty, of course) and god help you if you did it wrong or broke one.

A friend had a Winchester in his basement that, even upstairs in his 
living room, sounded like a 747 taking off when he turned it on.

>>> still regret giving away the keyboard when i gave the PC away in
>>> 96.  the machine was still working just fine as a terminal and if
>>> you didn't mind waiting it would compile things i needed to do
>>> for class work.
>>>
>> I think at the time, people didn't realize the good keyboards were
>> going away.  The original IBM keyboards were expensive, though that
>> soon changed.  But who would have thought that they'd get cheap and
>> flimsy with time, or that the old keyboards would still work all
>> this time later?

I killed my 1988 Model M when I spilled a cup of coffee into it.  I
figured the design of the keys would preclude that sort of thing, short
of total immersion, but apparently not. I replaced it with one from 1992
and am much more careful.  We buy every one we see at yard sales.

I like the fact that it could be used, if necessary, as a reasonable
defense weapon.

-- 
Cheers, Bev
    "History started badly and hav been geting steadily worse."
                                          -- Nigel Molesworth

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#13523

The Real Bev wrote:
>> songbird wrote:
>>>>
>>>> IBM-PC (81-82 era), no graphics at first, eventually had a
>>>> Hercules monochrome widget put in it.  made sure it was full of
>>>> memory.
>
> Ooh, I remember when "Hercules graphics" was a plus.

  i rarely even did anything that used it,
but i got it for free when someone else was
scrapping a machine (same with the faster
clocked CPU).

  there was a guy in the mining department 
running a pretty fancy color graphics PC at
the time which spoiled most monochrome for
me...  then the Amiga came along.  how i pined
for one of those, but never got into them (too
busy with work and classes to have yet another
PC hobby).


>>>> eventually added a 40M hard drive and a faster clocked CPU.
>
> First hard drives were a pair of 5MB drives for the NEC APC.  If you
> wanted to install a second one you had to bend several pins (voiding the
> warranty, of course) and god help you if you did it wrong or broke one.
>
> A friend had a Winchester in his basement that, even upstairs in his 
> living room, sounded like a 747 taking off when he turned it on.

  i have a stack of old hard drives, but that
one was still in the machine when i gave it away.
i'm pretty sure it was a Winchester and sounded 
similar.  :)

  considering the many hours of use i got from
that machine, even if it was very expensive, it
was still well worth it.


  songbird

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#13527

On 2017-04-20 14:28:57 +0000, songbird <songbird@anthive.com> said:

>   there was a guy in the mining department
> running a pretty fancy color graphics PC at
> the time which spoiled most monochrome for
> me...  then the Amiga came along.  how i pined
> for one of those, but never got into them (too
> busy with work and classes to have yet another
> PC hobby).

When I was at university I shared a house, and two of the people had 
Amigas. At the time I had my Mac LC - great for Doing Work, somewhat 
less than great for anything else. Games? Pah - the Amiga would blow it 
into a cocked hat. In-built sound? Surely you jest. The Amiga was sooo 
far ahead of its time, and I remember looking at the increasing sales 
of these daft overpriced hunks of metal that was the far, far less 
capable PC and thinking: who the hell is buying this stuff?

That stayed true pretty much until just past the introduction of the CD 
ROM era. It was a long long time before PCs could match the 
capabilities of the Amiga.


Cheers,
Ian
-- 
Check out Proto the album: <http://studioicm.com/proto/>

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#13528

On 2017-04-21, Ian McCall <ian@eruvia.org> wrote:
> On 2017-04-20 14:28:57 +0000, songbird <songbird@anthive.com> said:
>
>>   there was a guy in the mining department
>> running a pretty fancy color graphics PC at
>> the time which spoiled most monochrome for
>> me...  then the Amiga came along.  how i pined
>> for one of those, but never got into them (too
>> busy with work and classes to have yet another
>> PC hobby).
>
> When I was at university I shared a house, and two of the people had 
> Amigas. At the time I had my Mac LC - great for Doing Work, somewhat 
> less than great for anything else. Games? Pah - the Amiga would blow it 
> into a cocked hat. In-built sound? Surely you jest. The Amiga was sooo 
> far ahead of its time, and I remember looking at the increasing sales 
> of these daft overpriced hunks of metal that was the far, far less 
> capable PC and thinking: who the hell is buying this stuff?

After I first saw an Amiga (at a trade show? I forget), as a penniless
student/graduate, I spent some time trying to decide which kidney I was
going to sell to pay for one. Given what happened to Commodore, I'm
glad the answer was "neither".


-- 
Today is Sweetmorn, the 38th day of Discord in the YOLD 3183
                  I don't have an attitude problem.
    If you have a problem with my attitude, that's your problem.

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#13532

Ian McCall wrote:
> On 2017-04-20 14:28:57 +0000, songbird <songbird@anthive.com> said:
>
>>   there was a guy in the mining department
>> running a pretty fancy color graphics PC at
>> the time which spoiled most monochrome for
>> me...

  i think it was a Cromemco system of some
type (now that name comes to mind).  it was
a few boxes on a cart that the guy was working
on for his project.


>>  then the Amiga came along.  how i pined
>> for one of those, but never got into them (too
>> busy with work and classes to have yet another
>> PC hobby).
>
> When I was at university I shared a house, and two of the people had 
> Amigas. At the time I had my Mac LC - great for Doing Work, somewhat 
> less than great for anything else. Games? Pah - the Amiga would blow it 
> into a cocked hat. In-built sound? Surely you jest. The Amiga was sooo 
> far ahead of its time, and I remember looking at the increasing sales 
> of these daft overpriced hunks of metal that was the far, far less 
> capable PC and thinking: who the hell is buying this stuff?

  <waved hand>  it was overpriced, but dang-it, it
was solid and worked and i didn't have to put it
together (i had no time for that with the course work
and work work).


> That stayed true pretty much until just past the introduction of the CD 
> ROM era. It was a long long time before PCs could match the 
> capabilities of the Amiga.

  i just liked that the CPU was Motorola based
and that made sense.


  songbird

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#13539

On 2017-04-21 12:46:40 +0000, songbird <songbird@anthive.com> said:

>   i just liked that the CPU was Motorola based
> and that made sense.

Yep - I remember coming across a far char * declaration in C, realising 
that it was all because of the daft x86 segmented memory model, and 
running screaming back to my flat-addressing 68000 quite happily.


Cheers,
Ian

-- 
Check out Proto the album: <http://studioicm.com/proto/>

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#13545

On Fri, 21 Apr 2017, Ian McCall wrote:

> On 2017-04-21 12:46:40 +0000, songbird <songbird@anthive.com> said:
>
>>   i just liked that the CPU was Motorola based
>> and that made sense.
>
> Yep - I remember coming across a far char * declaration in C, realising that 
> it was all because of the daft x86 segmented memory model, and running 
> screaming back to my flat-addressing 68000 quite happily.
>
I started out with a 6502, mostly because of that article in about the 
third issue of Byte talking about this $20 CPU.

So when I moved on, it was the 6809, and then the 68000.

I thought I'd stick with it forever.  One reason I didn't run Linux until 
2001 was that I was waiting to find a cheap Mac that would run Linux, and 
that didn't happen until I bought a used 200MHz Pentium in June of 2001. 
And then, it was the Powermacs rather than 68000 Macs.

It did matter a long time ago, I remember looking at articles about the 
8080 and thinking "the mnemonics look funny" but it's long past the days 
when we had to program in assembly language.

   Michael

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#13548

On 2017-04-22 00:19:31 +0000, Michael Black <et472@ncf.ca> said:

> I thought I'd stick with it forever.  One reason I didn't run Linux 
> until 2001 was that I was waiting to find a cheap Mac that would run 
> Linux, and that didn't happen until I bought a used 200MHz Pentium in 
> June of 2001. And then, it was the Powermacs rather than 68000 Macs.

What, no A/UX...?

Kidding. The correct answer is "of -course- no A/UX".


Cheers,
Ian

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#13500

In alt.folklore.computers RS Wood <rsw@therandymon.com> wrote:
> Do you remember your first home computer? 
In 1997 I, being between jobs, briefly considered purchasing a 
homebrew 4004 system from a hobbyest who was moving upstream, 
but reason ultimately prevailed. My next employer provided a 
home terminal for the mainframes and my office was four doors 
away from the microcomputer lab, so there was no need for a PC
at home. By 1980 my circumstances had changed and I saw a
classified ad in _The San Jose Mercury News_ for a single-
board 64K byte Z80 system. DBA Stanford Computer Company in 
Santa Cruz had intended to manufacture an integrated keyboard,
monitor, and computer. They got a bad wave solder job on their
initial batch of 60 boards, so they were reworking and salvaging 
what they could. I put down a small deposit. Big Blue announced 
their IBM-PC during the interval before I returned to retrieve
my new board and two eight-inch floppy drives. I provided the
power supply and a terminal. Later I added a homebrew time-of-day
clock and printer interface. Meanwhile the company was on the 
ropes, eventually killed by FUD a year before IBM shipped
product. A few years later I came across two identical boards
in the bargin bin at a surplus store selling for $5 apiece.

I purchased Microsoft Multiplan and later Write, a text editor.
When I was in school I could never interest my advisor in a
numerical experiment that I proposed. I ran that experiment
steadly on the Z80 in the STOIC development environment at home
to my immense personal satisfaction. After the IBM-PC came out 
it benchmarked slightly slower than my Z80 on the sieve test.

-- 
"Sometimes I wonder if men and women really suit each other.  Perhaps they
should live next door and just visit now and then."  --Katherine Hepburn

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#13507

On Wed, 19 Apr 2017 10:35:56 -0700, Jack Myers wrote:
>
> In 1997 I, being between jobs, briefly considered purchasing a 
> homebrew 4004 system from a hobbyest who was moving upstream, 
> but reason ultimately prevailed. My next employer provided a 
> home terminal for the mainframes and my office was four doors 
> away from the microcomputer lab, so there was no need for a PC
> at home. By 1980 my circumstances had changed and I saw a
> classified ad in _The San Jose Mercury News_ for a single-
> board 64K byte Z80 system. [...]

You meant 1977 instead of 1997 in your first line?
-- 
Andreas
You know you are a redneck if
you hang pickled eggs and pop-tops from your christmas tree.

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#13509

Jack Myers wrote:
...
> I purchased Microsoft Multiplan

  do you happen to remember the price?

  i fired that up under dosemu the other day
to make sure it still worked (it did).  i've 
since moved those spreadsheets to Libreoffice 
calc...  last year...  :)


  songbird

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#13517

I didn't have money to buy a home computer until the quite modern ones
came up. However, I guess the following story might eventually be of
some interest to a few of the readers.

The very first computer I used was in a university in 1958. It was a
German-made Zuse 22 and was shared (at any time only one person) round
the clock by faculty members and students. It had a ferrite core fast
memory space of 32 words only and an external storage on a rotating
drum of 8K words. Program codes in assembler language and data were
punched on 5-channel paper tapes (correction of punching errors was a
fairly time-consuming task). Because of the highly limited fast core
memory space, one could for reasons of efficiency only store a couple of
frequently needed constants there and the space of the rest of 32 words
was used as a temprary storage of assembler commands (often even have
to be modified) and data, being continuously input from the drum
storage for processing purposes. When processing errors occurred, one
modified the content of one or more of the 32 fast memory words bitwise
on the console oneself.

M. K. Shen

----------------------------
http://mok-kong-shen.de

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#13519

	Elektronika MK-85 in c. 1992 (yes, I'm that young.)  BASIC,
	2 KiB SRAM, 60 x 7 dot matrix display (with a spacing column
	every 5 pixels; thus giving 12 5 x 7 characters.)  Some claim
	it was the world's first ever 16-bit pocket computer.  [1]

	Reportedly, its case and LCD designs [2] were copied from Casio
	FX-700P [3], but otherwise these two machines had little
	(if anything) in common.

	Followed by several ZX Spectrum clones, and then an Am386-based
	PC in late 1995.

	MK-85 came with a book of ready-to-type BASIC programs, which
	I explored somewhat mindlessly for a time.  And then, while
	trying to change one of them, "it clicked"...

	Speaking of books; likely the first ones on computing I ever got
	were the ones by Hisahiko Hasegawa [4].  That was in 1988, the
	same year they were published in Russian.  Strangely enough,
	I never got hooked on manga, though.

[1] https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/?curid=118667
[2] https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Mk-85.JPG
[3] http://pocket.free.fr/html/casio/fx-700p_e.html
[4] http://worldcat.org/search?q=isbn%3A4274072924

-- 
FSF associate member #7257  58F8 0F47 53F5 2EB2 F6A5  8916 3013 B6A0 230E 334A

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#13547

Mon, 17 Apr 2017 11:01:58 +0000, RS Wood wrote:
> What was your first home computer?

Very first was either one of these [1][2], Salora Fellow or Manager.
Can't for the life of me remember which one. In any case, it had a
couple of nice games that I enjoyed as a kid. The next (real) one was a
Sinclair ZX Spectrum 48K [3]. Again, I mostly played games on it but also
took a dip or two in BASIC programming. With the help of program
listings in Finnish hobbyist magazine MikroBitti [4]. Most kids around
here had C64's, couple of Atari ST's, and even an Amstrad.  Luckily I
had a couple of ZX contacts to get more games from so didn't really had
a reason to complain.

[1] http://www.old-computers.com/museum/computer.asp?c=1117
[2] http://www.old-computers.com/museum/computer.asp?c=1118
[3] http://www.old-computers.com/museum/computer.asp?c=223
[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MikroBitti

-- 
:q!

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