Ask Slashdot: What Was Your First Home Computer? 857
We've recently seen stories about old computers and sys-ops resurrecting 1980s BBS's, but now an anonymous reader has a question for all Slashdot readers:
Whenever I meet geeks, there's one question that always gets a reaction: Do you 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?
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?
A homemade 6809 (Score:5, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
A wire-wrapped homemade 6809 system, bought from a friend when he got his first IBM PC
The thing had 168K of RAM, two floppies and managed to run Unix with 3 users
Wow, that sounds like a massively cool project! Did your friend document his wonderful adventure?
Re: (Score:3)
I'm sure you can still find instructions somewhere, and I know that several DIY / wire wrapped computers are extensively photographed online.
You should read Hackers [infogalactic.com], particularly part 2, for the state of "the scene" in the late 70s. People were forming clubs and starting magazines to pass around schematics and software. By the mid-70s, you could buy proper computers, either in kit form or fully assembled. Making PCBs at home was getting practical too, but wire wrap was still preferred for prototyping.
Re: (Score:3)
The 6809 was a really nice processor. It came on the market a little too late, unfortunately, or it would have been in everything.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Many of these s
ZX81 (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3)
Apple ][+ (Score:4, Interesting)
48KB RAM + 16KB extended, two floppy disk drives, green monochrome CRT display, and a joystick. It was amazing at the time, at least to me.
My parents bought it for their business, but they never really used it, and it eventually became mine. I learned how to program on that computer using AppleBASIC. I also learned that line numbers suck for programming, and only went to 32767 (one of my bigger projects). I eventually learned why there was such a "strange" limit like that after I learned about binary numbers.
Favorite games: Choplifter, Wizardry, Karateka, Aztek, and a few adventure games I can't remember the names of.
Re: (Score:2)
Same. Only mine was later upgraded with a 16KB RAM card (for a total of 64KB, like the later //e), a Mockingboard sound card, an 80-column text board, and I even did a little hack where I connected a line from the shift key to one of the paddle buttons on the motherboard, so that you could use the shift key like it was meant to be used in AppleWriter.
Re: (Score:2)
Very much the same here if you swap the greenscreen for a TV and add Lode Runner and some Ultima to the list of games.
I have such a fondness for that old Apple, I've spent the last few weeks writing an emulator.
Re: (Score:2)
Indeed, I spent $1789 of my hard-earned summer job money to buy my Apple ][ in 1979 and was the first person in our residence with a computer in their room.
A fact I was rewarded for by having people in my room day an night playing Dave's Midnight Magic. I learned to sleep through having three people yelling at the screen in my residence room at 2am.
I also ended up having to replace the bloody joystick every six months for my entire tenure at university. I still boggle how someone managed to depress one of
First one I purchased (Score:2)
I used others many other ones my parents had. I purchased a Packard Bell 386 16Mhz, 1MB RAM, 16 MB HDD for $850 from Montgomery Ward. God I'm old.
Re: (Score:2)
I fished my first x86 out of a dumpster in my late teens. People were upgrading to 386 and the stores were just throwing the 286s in the garbage.
Just throwing it the garbage! It was insane. Show up at 3am, Free Computer!!1!!!
Later I got 386s that way too; usually SX though. If it was a DX the store would resell it.
The modems they would strip the jumpers off to try to foil us, since there was no internet and no manuals, but it only took one weekend to try all the combinations and get an ISA internal modem co
Re: (Score:2)
I still have a 386sx/20 on my shelf.
Texas Instruments.. (Score:2)
TI-99/4a....
Re: (Score:2)
Same here. I got mine towards the end of its life cycle apparently, just before TI stopped selling them. In fact I think the price was reduced tremendously because of that. I was around 10 at the time. I did always envy my friend's C64 though. The TI cartridge games were pretty decent for the time, but its BASIC was very limited and slow, so the TI versions of the programs in Compute! magazine were always pretty pitiful compared to the C64 versions.
Atari 800 (Score:2)
Atari 800.
TRS-80 Model 1 (Score:4, Interesting)
Actually, the first part I bought was an expansion interface. I had access to a model 1 at the store and access to floppy drives, but the expansion interfaces would fly out the door and having a floppy drive was of no use without one.
So I first bought an expansion interface so that I could keep it at the store, then when I could afford it, I bought the model one, a floppy drive and took it home.
Re: (Score:2)
Don't forget the 3 error messages it could output:
Sorry
What??
How??? (divide by zero error)
Re: (Score:2)
Mine was the Mk IV, 32k ram and 2 disk drives, and a white (not silver/grey) case.
Do not Know (Score:4, Interesting)
My first home computer: A hand-me-down Apple ][ Plus in 1985 (on a loan).
The first computer in which I did serious work: A Sanyo MBC-555 (WordStar, CalcStar) 1984
The first Computer I programmed: Commodore 64 (Basic and Logo) 1984-1985.
The first computer which was my own: A comodore PC-10 1988 (yes, with MS-DOS 3.2 and an 4.77 Mhz 8088 CPU).
AMD 486 DX2/66. (Score:3, Interesting)
4MB of ram. Had to buy 4 more at 55 dollars per to run Ultima 8. Being a lab assistant wasn't so bad :)
Those qemm days amirite?
Southwest Technical Products SWTPC 6800 (Score:3)
With a TV Typewriter II. 4KB SRAM. Audio tape storage. MIKBUG monitor.
Gradually upgraded to a 6809 with 16KB DRAM. Multitasking OS implemented in a homebrew Algol-68-based programming language.
Still have the thing in a box in the basement.
Tandy MC-10 (Score:2)
My first computer was a Tandy MC-10 in 1983 or so, but only for about a week or two. I played around on it and my Dad took it back to Radio Shack for me and got me a Color Computer 2. I did not have a modem for it, but I did get a cassette player that I could save programs onto and use as a tape drive. I also had a little printer that printed on receipt size paper.
Heathkit H8 (Score:2)
A Heathkit H8 with the hexadecimal keypad. Then a TRS-80, I think model 3, then a commodore 128, and then the first PC was an ITT 8086 based machine with DOS and I want to say 5MB hard drive. *BUT* it had the amber monitor instead of green, so it was awesomely cool. Added a color card,and really went nuts.
Re: (Score:2)
I was already using mainframes and minicomputers when I bought it, so it didn't keep my attention very long. It took a long time for home machines to reach a point where I felt it was worth he effort to use them.
Re: (Score:2)
Altair 8800A (Score:4, Interesting)
Bought in March 1976 in Berkely. 2Mhz 8080, and 4K RAM with only the front panel for about 2 months. Then added the Processor technology VDM-1 16X 64 Video card, 3P+S I/O card and a CUTS casette tape interface. When I added the GPM memory board with a 2K byte ROM Monitor, it was actually easy to read a game in from casette and actually use the computer for something. (Target and TREK-80 for the win!) I eventually added some more RAM - 16 K Dynabyte cards and a North Star micro-disk floppy system. The system eventually evolved to a Z-80, CP/M 80, 60K RAM and a Morrow 16 Megabyte Hard disk.
Commodore... (Score:4, Insightful)
...VIC-20. Purchased at a garage sale for $20. Later I upgraded to the C-64... and even later an Amiga 500. These days, computers can do anything and the primary difference between my current Windows 7 Pro machine and the next PC i buy will be the horrible Windows 10 UI. But back in the 80's and 90's every new computer was different and NEW and EXCITING. I miss that feeling. Much like my first run through Ashron's Call.
C64 Peeks here (Score:2)
The first computer in the home was the Commodore 64. Had a tape drive and it hooked up to a small color tv. Used to spend hours typing in programs from I think Byte magazines, but maybe it was called something else.
Still have 2 C64's and a C128. =)
C-128 Pokes (Score:2)
I didn't get in on the game until the C=128 came out. Had the 5-1/4" drive... what was it the 5128? No, that was the power supply... the 1541 was the disk drive.
But my favorite add-on was the Covox Voicemaster -- it did speech synthesis and voice recognition. Horribly. But it was awesome.
paleo (Score:5, Funny)
My first home computer was a slide rule.
Apple II GS (Score:2)
Family's first was an Apple II GS -- came in handy for my high school term papers.
First I paid my own money for was a Pentium 100 Mhz, 8 Mb of RAM, upgraded to 12 Mb... came with Windows 3.11, upgraded to Win95 shortly after.
A Lisa (Score:3, Interesting)
Any offers?
Re: (Score:3)
yes an Apple Lisa, with an Mac mod chip, for the display. still in my attic. Any offers?
Yes, actually, I'm very interested with a serious offer. We have no place to store our empty luggage, sleeping bags, old photo albums, old family films, boxes of framed photographs and diplomas, mothballed clothes, blankets and flags, a pair of upholstered chairs we're not using, boxes of Christmas ornaments, decorations, lights, and the artificial tree. How about $25 per month?
IBM PC (Score:2)
um, jr. I spent a lot of time with Crossfire, Adventures in Math, Gato, and Kings Quest II. I learned to type playing Kings Quest II. My wife doesn't want our son to play video games, but I've already told her he's going to learn to type on Kings Quest games.
First one I ever owned? (Score:2)
A 8086 machine with 640kB RAM, single 5-1/4" floppy drive, CGA graphics adapter.
When I bought it I was torn between spending extra to upgrade to a 20MB hard drive or getting an EGA graphics card (16 colors!). I went with the 20MB hard drive; a wise choice in hindsight.
A month or so later I bought a real time clock adapter which came as a socket that plugged in underneath the BIOS ROM (?). It was great not having to set t
The first computer I ever programmed.... (Score:3)
...was a TRS-80 Color Computer at a community programming class. I was hooked! Unfortunately, at the time, there was no way I could afford such a thing on my own. I received the David H. Ahl's BASIC Computer Games books as a Christmas gift, and I would pore over the code pretending to run the programs in my head. I guess those books were the first computer I ever owned. To help ease my computer cravings, I could book time at the local public library on their TRS-80 Model III, which was a lousy computer in all respects, but at least I had some access to it. I had to plan things out carefully, since I only had an hour, and that included cassette loading/saving time. Finally, I was able to get a computer that was affordable enough to acquire, since it was dirt cheap--a clearance sale model Timex Sinclair 1000 (the US version of the ZX81). I think I paid $35 for the computer and another $15 for the 16K RAM pack and some game cassettes. Without color or sound or even an on/off switch, it was certainly a piece of junk, but it was *MY* piece of junk which I could use anytime and any way I wished. Unlike in the UK, the US market had a dearth of software, but we did have a lot of books available, so I programmed as much as I could. I still have it, and it still works (I had to repair the voltage regulator a few years ago), and it still has those same horrid RF interference screen patterns that make it unusable on a modern TV. Fortunately, I have a few old B&W CRT TV's laying around...
Later on I was able to snag an Atari 1200XL on clearance and was finally able to move onto "real" computing. That Atari was by far my favorite computer, but that lousy Sinclair still holds a special place in my heart. After all, you never forget your first! :-)
IBM PC - DOS 1.1 (Score:2)
Retail Price: $8,400 CAD (with a 20% discount - $6,800).
Year -- 1981 I think.
I used TRS-80s at school - but this was the first computer at home.
Commodore PET (Score:2, Interesting)
You spoiled brats with your C64s with floppy drives and your VIC-20s... you had it too easy. The original Commodore PET had 8K of RAM, a 40x25 character display, and storage on a cassette tape.
Fun memories:
I kept putting it off (Score:2)
I learned basic and fortran in the late 70s, and worked on them both in school and as a job - but the tech kept improving so rapidly, and I was a cheapskate, so I kept putting it off. Finally my wife told me to just by a damn computer already, so I bought the components and built my own 486-based computer.
So basically I procrastinated for something like 15 years...
TRS-80 with 16k RAM (Score:2)
Learned BASIC and Z-80 assembly, the Z-80 got me a job writing 8080 assembly at work, the rest is history.
The computer with no name (Score:3)
My first computer didn't use electronic components, but it was battery powered and had lights to display the next move. I used a cigar box from my grandpa as the case. I made it myself back in the 1950's, and all it could do was play the game of Nim.
It always won if it got to move second as is the case with a judicious choice of an initial number. Against those who didn't know the game of Nim, it usually won if it took the first move.
I "won" some coins, less than 50 cents, from the other kids. I think they knew better than to trust me; they just wanted to see it work.
Cyrix (Score:2)
Commie 16 +4 (Score:2)
Commodore 64 (Score:5, Informative)
My first computer was a Commodore 64, which my parents gave me for Christmas in 1985 when I was in fifth grade. My grandfather bought me a matching disk drive. I was a lucky kid to get these gifts because my parents were and still are working poor. I now suspect that my grandfather also paid for the computer. In 2017 dollars, it was something like a $1,000 Christmas for me.
I didn't set aside my gifts after a few months like many kids do. A year and a half later I was published in RUN Magazine and received a royalty check for my efforts at the ripe old age of 12. I spent virtually every dollar I had on programming books and magazines. I managed to get on the Internet with my first post to Usenet in 1992 but otherwise I was isolated from any other programmer. I was and continue to be a self-taught, natural programmer. I took all of the requisite computer science classes at the university, but more often than not they managed to suck out all of the enjoyment I had been experiencing programming since I was a pre-teen.
More than three decades later, I'm still doing programming. I switched to 100% Linux in 1994, so I've been doing Linux development for almost exactly 23 years. I still remember those early days.
IBM PC Jr. (Score:2)
The first one we owned at home was an IBM PC Jr.
The first one I ever used was an Apple I, at school.
Super Elf (Score:2)
256 bytes RAM, hex keypad, 7-segment displays, CDP1802 processor, no OS at all. $106.99 in 1981 as a kit from Quest Electronics. I later got the Super Expansion (adds 4 KB of SRAM and a couple of sort-of-S-100 slots) and finally a 64 KB S-100 DRAM card as a bare board (remember bare boards?).
First Home computer was actually my third computer (Score:3)
Just looking at the other responses and I just realized that my first "home computer" (ie something that plugged into the TV and you could program and play games on) was actually my third.
I started with a Sharp PC1211 which was a large BASIC programmable calculator with a QWERTY keyboard, 2k of program memory and a thermal printer base station that allowed you to store programs on cassette: http://www.rskey.org/pc1211 [rskey.org] I think it was purchased in 1979.
Then went to a CPM computer I designed/wire-wrapped myself: https://slashdot.org/comments.... [slashdot.org]
And, because games were limited on CPM, mono-chrome text based machines in the early 1980s, I got myself an Atari 400 because it had the most sophisticated graphics and sound at the time (I still have the ANTIC chip manual) which is what you would consider a "home computer".
Timex-Sinclair 1000 (Score:2)
It was good for... well, pretty much nothing, even by the undemanding standards of the time.
Commodore 16. Still beautiful in my eyes, (Score:2)
and a pleasure to program, as it had an advanced BASIC interpreter.
Apparently I'm too young to be here (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Yup. You're a puppy.
Ampro Little Board (Score:2)
My first home computer was my third computer (Score:5, Interesting)
Looking at people's responses, I'm guessing a "home computer" is one that:
- Plugs into a TV and could display graphics for games
- Play Games
- Could do programming on it
My first "computer" was a Sharp PC1211 (still have it). 2k BASIC programmable, large format QWERTY keyboard and a printer base unit that allowed programs to be stored on cassette.
My second was a wire-wrapped Z80 S100 CPM system: https://slashdot.org/comments.... [slashdot.org]
Which came down to what did I get when I wanted something that I could play games and program: an Atari 400 - the ANTIC chip graphic capabilities were superior to the other competing small systems. I still have the ANTIC manual for it.
Re: (Score:3)
Almost the same: Casio FX-702P here. 1680 bytes of usable RAM.
It could take password protected programs (people sold programs on cassette tape).
I may have come up with one of the first buffer overflow exploits for a computer: Add a line saying totototototototo... until it would stop accepting input, and hit enter. It would expand each "to" with a space, and overflow the display buffer. Instead of showing the line, it would then show the memory instead, with the first couple of characters being garbage,
Apple IIe (Score:3)
Having learned some BASIC on II's and II+'s at school in Jr. High, the family bought a IIe for home before high school. I forget if we had one floppy drive or two. 128K RAM. Black and white monitor - but it could be hooked up to the TV for color.
I'd hack Ultima III save files to give my character better gear/stats - and the mapfiles to change the map contents.
The programming experiment I remember best was doing mandelbrot on the printer. I ran it over night and got about one really poor line of output before giving up on it.
Eagle 8086 (Score:2)
Shout out o Franklin Ace 1000th (Score:2)
I had an Apple II clone. A Franklin Ace 1000 with a Star dot matrix printer which I loved very much.
1996 IBM Aptiva (Score:2)
On hindsight, I should have been glad with the cheaper Packard Bell my dad had wanted to get instead of pouting until he gave in. Still, it was a wonderous and life changing experience. Computer City was like a next level toy store for a 12 year old, just couldn't leave.
C-128 (Score:2)
My first home computer was a Commodore 128, though it was a bit disappointing as I'd already used IBM 8088's at school in typing class.
Truthfully I spent 99% of my time in the C-64 emulation mode as the computer was bought used and almost all the software that came with it was actually for a Commodore 64. It was where I learned to tinker around in BASIC though. Eventually the disk drive broke; for a while after that I would just never turn off the computer so the memory wouldn't clear (until a power outag
First V-Tech! (Score:2)
The original V-tech "learning computer" with membrane keyboard and LCD screen. Did approximately nothing, though playing around with the music creator cartridge was fun.
Second was a Timex Sinclair 1000 which was just barely usable. I sort of learned to program, but the minuscule membrane keyboard made doing anything beyond painful. At least it had the 16k expansion pack so you could write something more complex than "hello world." The only game I had was subLogic flight simulator, which took forever to load
IMSAI 8080 (Score:2)
S-100 based system that my dad built; H-19 terminal, 48k of RAM, later updated to 56k. For those of you that have seen WarGames, that's the one.
Motorola D2 copy (Score:2)
Cosby Special (Score:2)
IBM PC 8088 (Score:2)
Listen up, kids (Score:2)
An Altair 8800 kit with 256 bytes of static RAM which I mail ordered from Southwest Technical Products very soon after the January 1975 issue of Popular Electronics. I soldered every component of every PC board, plus all the 100 pin sockets on the backplane the multiple 100 wire connections between the backplane sections. I replaced almost every IC socket with Augat gold-plated machined-contact teflon-based sockets for reliability.
It had a 2 MHz 8080 CPU.
To boot it, every time after turning it on, you had t
Commodore 64 or O'Brien Sailboard (Score:2)
BASIC cartridge on a Bally Astrocade (Score:2)
The Astrocade game console only had a numeric input keypad. Coding programs was like texting on a feature phone, but without any text prediction, and especially without switch debouncing logic.
The cartridge itself did have a 1/8" jack so you could possibly save the fruits of your labor onto a cassette tape, with some luck.
The game console had almost no memory, so BASIC programs were stored in every other bit of the video frame buffer, and palette tricks were used to make the raw program data invisible on th
TI-99/4A! (Score:2)
My parents bought it for me to learn how to use a computer and type due to my disabilities when I was like seven years old or so. I was scared of it. And then, I found out it can do computer games since I was a video gamer (Atari 2600 and arcades). And then I totally love computers after that as shown in my http://zimage.com/~ant/antfarm... [zimage.com] history. ;)
Exidy Sorcerer II (Score:3)
CoCo (Score:3)
Tandy/TRS-80 CoCo 1, full-sized silver sucker with 4K RAM and tape drive. Those were the days!
Apple II+ 48K from my Dad (Score:4, Funny)
The first modular Mac: a Macintosh II (Score:3)
I was the school sysadmin on a AT&T 3B5 & a bunch of 3B2s for a few years and borrowed Apple IIc's, Apricots (a 386 PC maker back in the day) and then a Mac +.
For my first personal machine I wasn't going to be using an underpowered Atari or an Amiga or PC with substandard graphics (this was back in the CGA day) & besides I wanted a _real_ Unix.
The school owed me some serious money for my time and in lieu of payment I wrangled a deal. The school bought a brand new fully kitted out Mac II (16 Mhz 68020 with 4 Mb RAM, a 40Mb hard drive and a 13" 640x480 screen) that they wrote off as non-functional & I picked it up for $1.
I installed A/UX to it, added a 1/4" QIC drive (so that I could move files easily to/from it) and for years had a faster, more powerful Unix machine at home than the Sun 3's I was administering professionally. A few years later I upgraded the RAM to 8Mb, upgraded the CPU with a 32 Mhz 68030 on a daughterboard that replaced the 68020 & the 68881 MMU and added a L3 cache.
That Mac II lasted for over a decade as my primary home computer.
BBC Micro, in about 1981 or 1982... (Score:3)
Then came floppy drive solutions, ending up with a pair of 400/800kb 40/80-track, double-sided, switchable drives in a bridge case that sat over the back of the BBC.
Then a 6502 Second Processor was added, which made programming in BASIC much more reasonable [more space for code, in any screen mode] and brought me "Second Processor Elite". Wow...
That gave way to an Acorn Archimedes A440, which had an *actual hard drive* [MFM configuration - even pre-IDE drives]. of 40Mb capacity... That and 4Mb of RAM, in the days when an IBM PC could not handle more than 640kb thanks to design limits... as well as a 4 MIPS 8MHz risc processor [the precursor to the chips that power 90+% of smartphones sold today...]
Happy days.
ICT-1301A (later G) (Score:3)
Teletype (Score:3)
My father had a TI Silent 700 teletype terminal. It had an acoustic coupler modem and used thermal paper. The paper was hard to find, before FAXes were common.
I lived near Dartmouth College and at school we had a teletype + modem to dial in. We also had accounts at Timeshare corp. I figured out how to use the Silent 700 to connect to Dartmouth's DCTS (or DTSS) and their chat room (conference).
Later, we got an Apple ][+ (never a modem though). In college I had a Z100 DOS system (not PC compatible), a Z248 80286 and after college I put Minix on it.
That lead to a Gateway DX486 with Linux SLS and 0.98pl5.
Got you all beat. (Score:3)
Cromemco Z-2 my father picked it up with a auction lot he bid on and won. Had a single Cromemco serial terminal.
It's why to this day I favor Unix and it's derivatives as I cut my teeth on Cromix.
KIM-1 (Score:3, Interesting)
In 1975 my father brought home a KIM-1 that had been built by the guy who designed the IMSAI 8080. I eagerly typed in the 6502 instructions included in the HOWTO manual that came with it, and I got an idea of what Turing Complete was all about. Great fun. But at the time there was no way to save the instructions, so you lost everything when the power went down. I got over it: I was 10 years old, and it was a great way to learn about volatility and, as I mentioned, Turing Complete.
Then in 2005 I was working for a GPS company (which later became Garmin). One day my manager came to me with an SOC data sheet, and he said something like, "This is a really cheap part, but we need to program it to coordinate the 32-bit GPS part with the SSD part, and the USB part." I read the datasheet and about screamed with joy when I saw that it was a 6502 (now owned by ST Micro). Once again, the 6502 taught me in an amazing way: the 6502 was bit-banging (I2C) the NMEA sentences out of the 32-bit part, and control of the SSD part, and was able to control the interface to the USB device. My job: write firmware (YES! FIRMWARE on a 6502! NO MORE POWER OUTAGES) so the high-speed USB part could power things and exchange NMEA sentences; make the SSD hold the ephemeris and almanac for the 32-bit part. That little 6502 certainly did it's job, and I had great fun re-learning the 6502 instruction set.
1982 TRS80 Model 3 (Score:3)
Sinclair ZX Spektrum 16k (Score:3)
C-64 started it all for me (Score:4, Insightful)
Meanwhile, at work, I was doing assembler language (PAL) on a DEC PDP-8 for data acquisition and processing in a small lab. Those were the days!!
A little later I bought an 80286 for home. Today you can buy three or four computers for what I paid my my '286.
Sinclair, then Atari (Score:5, Interesting)
Technically my first computer was some kind of clunky Sinclair programmable calculator, which met all the requirements of being an actual computer. But just barely. It was, for all intents and purposes, unusable for anything meaningful.
Next came an Atari 800 with an actual keyboard (not the chicklet keys). Two cartridge slots, two floppy drives (one of which was a "Happy Drive"), and a full 48-fuckin'-K of memory. Whoo hoo!
It had a 300 baud modem which could be set to *any* baud rate, all the way down to 1 or 2 baud so you could actually see the letters...coming...out...on...the...screen...one...by...one.
God times.
The IBM PC Tech ring binder (Score:3)
The first IBM PCs were slow to arrive but the gray ring Binder in a cloth wrapped box was. A treasure trove of info. Great primer on bios and hardware for newbie. Read it cover to cover uncounted times while I waited for the actual hardwareto arrive. IBM deserves kudos for bringing a lot of soon to be engineers up to speed. I also constantly visited the Pc store in downtown SF which became a social hub. For years used to look look at this manual every time I need to check the ASCII code table page... though I suppose the internet has moved us on from that. Great days, Showing off the piano app for my Aunt and Uncle, Mom and dad.
February 1978 ... (Score:4, Interesting)
... on a visit to Radio Shack, the sales guys were setting up this TV typewriter showing some crude blocks of white on black graphics and some all-cap text.
They "broke" it and I saw:
10 ... do something ... do another thing ... do some more stuff
20
30
Then they fired it up again.
After 9 years in this man's Navy as an avionics tech working on a 64-8-bit computer with ferrite core and programming a TI calculator, I realized IT WAS A COMPUTER!!!
I told them to box it up. They said they couldn't because it was a store demo and the only one within 200 hundred miles.
The manager walked in and told them to sell it to me because, "That's what we do here."
I took it home, breezed through the manual, had it calculate orbital speeds based on distance from the Sun (some being beneath the surface and exhibiting relativistic speeds).
It was the TRS-80.
You can look up the specs.
I wrote articles for 80 Microcomputing and ordered an A-D converter from Analog Devices and made battery checkers and digital thermometers.
Saw one at the Smithsonian Institute, many years later, when I visited D.C.
8008 (Score:4, Interesting)
I see no one has mentioned the 8008 yet so I guess I'm the oldest geezer.
Popular Electronics had plans for an Intel 8008 based computer so I hand wired it on a homebuilt chassis. 256 bytes of memory. Programmed in bare machine code (no stinking assembler crutch). Added an octal keyboard and display which made it much easier to program. Also added a cassette tape interface which could store and read programs... Programmed and ran a few games on it.
I think I still have it buried under the house somewhere.
Re: (Score:3)
Timex/Sinclair 1000.
It was a devious monster, when you filled the 2K of RAM it would just lock up, no data error and chance to edit your code... reboot.
Of course I didn't have the tape drive.
Re: (Score:2)
My dad had the version with the 16KB RAM module you plugged in the back. Unfortunately, if you banged that membrane keyboard a little too hard, it would fall out, and then you'd lose everything.
Re: (Score:2)
It was enough to flush the toilet to make it disconnect enough to crash. An exercise with permasoldering it to the mother board with a flat cable solved that problem.
Re: (Score:2)
ZX-80 for me.
Re: (Score:2)
Mac Classic was my first as well, followed by a Performa 400, if I recall correctly.
Re: (Score:2)
Mine was a Trs-80 MC10 with 4k RAM and a 16k expansion pack. It had a 6803 CPU. A bit of a piece of crap, but I would spend entire days coding in its variant of MS BASIC or mucking around in assembly with this assembler program I typed in by hand from a Rainbow magazine.
Re: (Score:2)
TRS-80 CoCo model 1 for me. I didn't get my first IBM compatible computer (486dx2 66) until 1996.
16 bits in 1979! (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
The coolest part was the multi-voice sound synthesizer. You could generate touch tones, Star Trek noises, whatever you could program in BASIC. Good times.
Re: (Score:2)
Same here, though perhaps a slightly different version. We had the 768k RAM option and went with a TTL display card (RGB was still pretty expensive at the time). In my last few years of school I wrote all my term papers on that thing using PC-Write. [wikipedia.org]
Re: (Score:2)
Hah, I bought one of those from the Salvation Army for $5. What a truly, truly terrible machine.
Re:Atari ST (Score:4, Interesting)