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RE: What was your first computer? - 3/25/2007 4:15:20 AM

SirDiscipliner69

Posts: 2607
Joined: 2/1/2005
Status: offline

quote:

ORIGINAL: DomMeinCT

An Apple IIc "portable". It had 128k of RAM and 1 floppy drive.
The CPU had a handle which was what made it portable, but the monitor weighed 20 lbs.

Bought it through 47th Street Photo in 1986 for grad school.

Yes I have come across a few "portables" in My time

I use to get donated parts from people and businesses and restore them and give them to families that could not afford them and elderly and handicapped.

It was My wy of balancing karma for being so deliciously evil and wicked.

Still have a few left running XP Pro now that I will need to find homes for

I came across a toshiba portable that lloked like a real relic.

Looking at a satellite 100CS laptop portable that someone wants Me to fix.

Also on the shelf here is a stack of about 13 IBM thinkpads 2465

Sure they will make it to some deserving homes

Ross
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(in reply to DomMeinCT)

Post #: 41

RE: What was your first computer? - 3/25/2007 4:16:52 AM

FLFunTop

Posts: 33
Joined: 2/8/2005
Status: offline

anyone remember wampus? or is that really too old

(in reply to Elorin)

Post #: 42

RE: What was your first computer? - 3/25/2007 4:21:25 AM

redsky

Posts: 228
Joined: 12/28/2006
From: UK
Status: offline

Wampus? wasnt that the striped cat in the toy shop on tv years ago?....no wait, that was baggpuss. lol

_____________________________

(in reply to FLFunTop)

Post #: 43

RE: What was your first computer? - 3/25/2007 4:22:02 AM

SirDiscipliner69

Posts: 2607
Joined: 2/1/2005
Status: offline

quote:

ORIGINAL: playfulotter

in 1984 or 1985 i worked on a kaypro of some kind at work.. soooo hard to do anything on but it was portable and that was nice..but i didn't move it anywhere but at the time i was working on a typewriter called a Xerox memorywriter so what did i know.....i mostly worked in the marketing department trying to do things with mailing lists on the Kaypro computer in a was it called cpm system...i forget....then we had Apple computers in the marketing/sales department and everyone else in the company had Dos...poor those guys...then i cried years later when they wanted to take away my apple..but since windows was there..i adjusted rather smoothly...ha ha

Does anyone else remember the orginal Ditto machines?

You wrote on paper that had a cabon like page inderneath and it was then attached to a drum and ink was fed to it and you cranked a handle and it feed paper thru making duplictes of what you wanted.

Newsletters were often made this way.

I still have My 256 grayscal handheld scanner thhat I was going to go out into the world and scan textures for My art.

Anybody else get caught up in the font collections addictions?

Having to collect as many as you can and then loading them all on the system so it crawled to a s-l-o-w wobble?

Ross
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(in reply to playfulotter)

Post #: 44

RE: What was your first computer? - 3/25/2007 4:27:11 AM

SirDiscipliner69

Posts: 2607
Joined: 2/1/2005
Status: offline

quote:

ORIGINAL: all4yourplsr

My first computer was a "no name" computer that came with a home based business oppurtunity I got into back in '94(?) I had the computer for 7 years but the home based business was a waste, as I now know they usually are. :-) I now have a HP w/WinXP but it is showing signs of wear but I will wait until Vista is better before I think about getting a new computer.

Actually home biz can be productive but not in the ones that are presented.

The best one I am aware of is the vinyl graphics biz.

I can cut vinyl logos using a Geber Avantage HS-15 plotter.....did a lot of setups at car races ...wasn't unusual for Me to go up against the bigger companies and design on the spot hybred versions of logs when the full page add guys only sold their stock.

8 hours six packs of cigs (back then I smoked like a chimney) and ten cokes and I was $600 free and clear...not bad for something I enjoyed doing...plus the networking and the women....mmm

Most of this equipement can be bought pennies on the dollar now as everyone needs the latest greatest thing now.

Ross
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(in reply to all4yourplsr)

Post #: 45

RE: What was your first computer? - 3/25/2007 4:27:48 AM

justplainjava

Posts: 173
Joined: 2/22/2007
Status: offline

my first husband and i could not afford a real monitor for my son's first computer so he had to use an old black and white tv

(in reply to SirDiscipliner69)

Post #: 46

RE: What was your first computer? - 3/25/2007 4:31:41 AM

ChainedExistence

Posts: 507
Joined: 2/5/2005
Status: offline

ahhhhh...ditto machines....I can still remember the smell and warmth of the paper when they were "hot off the press." The kids used to love to sniff them, ( it was probably toxic, but heck we were riding bikes with no helmets then too!). Of course, if you were running a lot of copies, you had purple fingers!

(in reply to SirDiscipliner69)

Post #: 47

RE: What was your first computer? - 3/25/2007 4:34:20 AM

SirDiscipliner69

Posts: 2607
Joined: 2/1/2005
Status: offline

quote:

ORIGINAL: purelea2003

I had a Leading Edge 8088 with mono monitor. It came with 2 floppy drives & I installed the hard drive myself. I thought it was just the most extraordinary thing!

I remember putting in a Hercules mono card...wow!

I still have a few 5.25 floppies for the retro computer I need to put together

I use to love palying Red Storm Rising, Platton and Gunship by Microprose

Never had the heart to part with them...still in the boxes waiting for resurection.

Ross
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(in reply to purelea2003)

Post #: 48

RE: What was your first computer? - 3/25/2007 4:35:58 AM

SirDiscipliner69

Posts: 2607
Joined: 2/1/2005
Status: offline

quote:

ORIGINAL: HydroMaster

I don't really remember. It was in the 80's and it was a custom built mix of brand names parts....It had less power than the calculator I used in high school...with an old dot matrix printer and 5 1/2" floppy drive. But it did have and impressive CGA monitor that was capable of actual graphics...so frogger, and a couple flight sims were on it.

I had a 21 pin? dot matrix printer that was louder than sin.

Started to get away from spreadsheets and into graphics...

Believe it was ANSI graphics that was popular then.

Ross
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(in reply to HydroMaster)

Post #: 49

RE: What was your first computer? - 3/25/2007 4:38:13 AM

Elorin

Posts: 970
Joined: 8/22/2004
From: San Antonio, TX
Status: offline

quote:

ORIGINAL: SirDiscipliner69
Does anyone else remember the orginal Ditto machines?

You wrote on paper that had a cabon like page inderneath and it was then attached to a drum and ink was fed to it and you cranked a handle and it feed paper thru making duplictes of what you wanted.

Newsletters were often made this way.

I still have My 256 grayscal handheld scanner thhat I was going to go out into the world and scan textures for My art.

Anybody else get caught up in the font collections addictions?

Having to collect as many as you can and then loading them all on the system so it crawled to a s-l-o-w wobble?

Ross
©º°¨¨°º©

I remember dittos, though I never used the machines...I remember a teacher coming in with the warm purple pages, fresh off the machine.

I still have a bunch of fonts, actually, use them for the graphics I create.

~E

(in reply to SirDiscipliner69)

Post #: 50

RE: What was your first computer? - 3/25/2007 4:39:33 AM

MyMasterStephen

Posts: 219
Joined: 8/16/2005
Status: offline

I bought a Sinclair ZX80 when I was an apprentice in the Navy. Programming that 1k of memory was a bitch, and put me off computers for a long time. So long, in fact, that my second computer is the one I'm using now, bought a little less than four years ago. Sir Clive is responsible for me spending over 20 years in the computer wilderness.

(in reply to SirDiscipliner69)

Post #: 51

RE: What was your first computer? - 3/25/2007 4:39:59 AM

SirDiscipliner69

Posts: 2607
Joined: 2/1/2005
Status: offline

quote:

ORIGINAL: completenz

I started with a decent computer, a Macplus with 7inch monochrome screen, 2 meg ram and a 20 meg exterior harddrive and 700 kb floppy drive. Oh the speed lol.
C

A friend gave Me the art dept computer of a wine company a few weeks ago

External hard drive, scanner, laser printer, monitor, cpu, Adobe Photoshop, Pagemaker, 3 paper boxes full of software and hardware...

Guess I need to see what I have been missing...

Was worth about $3000 a few years ago...probably has the street value of $20 now...how sad...

Ross
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(in reply to completenz)

Post #: 52

RE: What was your first computer? - 3/25/2007 4:40:51 AM

bandit25

Posts: 3029
Joined: 6/18/2005
Status: offline

Mimeographs, not dittos

(in reply to Elorin)

Post #: 53

RE: What was your first computer? - 3/25/2007 4:56:13 AM

SirDiscipliner69

Posts: 2607
Joined: 2/1/2005
Status: offline

quote:

ORIGINAL: ownedgirlie

No clue of it's official title. It was a "PC Clone" (is that what we called it? or IBM Clone) with two 5 1/4" floppy drives and a boot-up disc. I moved up in the world when I got a 386 - HP I think. Later I had a MacSE/30 which was way cool at the time.

IBM clones it what help the PC take the market

It opened up the competive market for others...the mac (no I do not need to get into a pissing war about Mac vs windows or have this become a wickedpedia spewning forum of who can copy as much as the other..this is based on personal memories)

I remember getting mags called Boot which later went into Maxium PC which later became watered down senselessly...

Boot up disks were cool as you could load various promps into your auto.ect and com.exe and config.sys

I remember the first hacks of Lotus 123 on floppies as when you set the system up initially it re wrote over the original disks changing the file name.

I remember buying a hardware / software setup that would defeat copy protection by speeding up or slowing down the drive...(no I do not endorse copyright infringement but understanding how things work is interesting)

I later remember how there were programs that emulated software when using a printer port dongle...Rainbow Technologies seems to come to mind....still would like to find out how that is done for the old versions of Geber Avantage 6.2......

Later the USB flash dongle came into play..which was rather interesting as when Upgrading to the Omega version it would flash the printer dongle useless and activate the USB...yes another back burner project...

Ross
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(in reply to ownedgirlie)

Post #: 54

RE: What was your first computer? - 3/25/2007 4:57:20 AM

SirDiscipliner69

Posts: 2607
Joined: 2/1/2005
Status: offline

quote:

ORIGINAL: ElectraGlide

This Dell 2400 I have now. I am a newcomer at this. I waited till I was almost 40 a few years ago, to get into this. I have learned quite alot in a short time. I used a Apple in high school and various computers on jobs, but you could not explore just do the same exact programs over and over to complete a task.

Actually things have become easier in many means...

I still remember the Underwritter Typewritter.....

Ross
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(in reply to ElectraGlide)

Post #: 55

RE: What was your first computer? - 3/25/2007 5:00:04 AM

SirDiscipliner69

Posts: 2607
Joined: 2/1/2005
Status: offline

quote:

ORIGINAL: mythi

Atari 800xl

Was that the one with the great graphics and had a cult following or was there another one that started with "A"?

Ross
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(in reply to mythi)

Post #: 56

RE: What was your first computer? - 3/25/2007 5:01:32 AM

SirDiscipliner69

Posts: 2607
Joined: 2/1/2005
Status: offline

quote:

ORIGINAL: JohnWarren

Altair.. eight switches and a button. I bought it through an advert in Analog

Whow....do you still have it?

I remember seeing adds in magizines about buying and building kits for the latest power hungry hobbist.

Nice to see you around again...

Ross
©º°¨¨°º©

(in reply to JohnWarren)

Post #: 57

RE: What was your first computer? - 3/25/2007 5:04:59 AM

SirDiscipliner69

Posts: 2607
Joined: 2/1/2005
Status: offline

quote:

ORIGINAL: BrainSlugs83

TRS-80 Model 4, It was all one solid unit, built in black and white screen, 5.25" disks, and keyboard -- it also had a tape drive, DOS, basic rom -- I learned to program on this thing...

Later I had a commodre vic 20, and 64... no DOS... I had to write a program in basic to format disks... and load a file called "$", which would list as a line numbered basic program that showed the contents of the disk (no folders, each line was a program name, it wouldn't run as it was all syntax errors)...

my first PC was an 8Mhz 8088 with CGA graphics and PC speaker for sound... I was happy when we finally got a 16 Mhz 286 with EGA! ... my first modem was 2400 baud...

Why does the image of wayne's world "We're not worthy" conjure up?

The built in monitor reminds Me of the Sears guitar that Lowel George of Little Feat use to have...the name evades Me and I refuse to google it...what did We do before We googled..sort of like a pencil before the calculator....

Yes! I remember the "$" file...how scarey!

I remeber pouring over mags that you could copy the code to do something like make it speak in computer sounds or something as equally world breaking.

you must of had some money to buy that 2400 baud...gee...

Ross
©º°¨¨°º©

(in reply to BrainSlugs83)

Post #: 58

RE: What was your first computer? - 3/25/2007 5:09:02 AM

SirDiscipliner69

Posts: 2607
Joined: 2/1/2005
Status: offline

quote:

ORIGINAL: BrainSlugs83

quote:

Altair
I read somewhere, that althought the Altair couldn't really do much, it caused radio interference, and you could program it with fancy math calculations, turn on a stereo to the right freq and you could play music via a computer program...

Now how cool is that?

I have a classical music prgram that was used for tuttoring subbies...it played a piece and they needed to answer the questions presented...

That was when times were more structured with goals in mind....

I am breaking out My old kits of electronics that allow lights to be lit to the intensity of music...wonder if there is a program to go with it and possible usb adaption with low current such as tens?

Ross
©º°¨¨°º©

(in reply to BrainSlugs83)

Post #: 59

RE: What was your first computer? - 3/25/2007 5:10:47 AM

SirDiscipliner69

Posts: 2607
Joined: 2/1/2005
Status: offline

quote:

ORIGINAL: youngsubmission

a 486 i think. Only had it for a bit. Eventually upgraded to a pentium 1 lol.
Good ol' Windows 3.1 and DOS games =)

Still have copies of win 3.1, 3.1 for workgroups and 95...

I went thru so many 486s it wasn't funny...

That seemed to be a great landmark in the PC.

Ross
©º°¨¨°º©

(in reply to youngsubmission)

Post #: 60

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