I was trying to avoid the trip down memory lane until Gordon brought this
one up...
>> Ah, the Microbee, I remember it well (check your manuals :-)).
>> For those from other lands, the Microbee was Australia's answer to the
>> Trash-80 (the latter said with fondness - my first experience programming
>> was standing up in a Radio Shack store in L.A. during summer holidays).
My first computer :,-) I remember the anti-static bags crackling as you
opened them and pulled those gleaming black chips out all neatly inserted
onto their black anti-static foam or anti-static tubes. That awe inspiring
moment holding the PCB that was to house these modern miracles of silicone.
Watching your hand shake with trepidation as you strike that first solder
joint between the motherboard and chip holder. Then the task of soldering in
all the resistors and diodes. Finally soldering in a huge 8K of memory.
Plugging in the key pads on the soldered key switches. Then placing it all
inside that awful purple coloured moulded case. Just didn't do it justice.
Connecting it to a monochrome monitor pinched from some old terminal, and
holding your breath as you turned it on and watched it come to life with a
ROM burnt BASIC cursor blinking at you. That fateful moment of connecting up
a tape player, throwing in a tape and telling the computer to LOAD. Sitting
back listening to squeaks and pops as the data was transferred from tape to
machine for a agonising ten minutes until the time you think it's almost
finished and your just about to get extrememly excited with your first
program when it pops up with an informative LOAD ERROR. You rewind the tape
and start all over again. Ahh tape, how I miss it, not. I don't think
today's computer users could stand the wait. In a world where we are
starting to complain that a micro-second is too long, I don't think tape
would cut it.
But the memory's are still fond ;)
Regards,
Andrew Exley
--
Please report bugs to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Please mail [EMAIL PROTECTED] (only) to discuss security issues
Support for registered customers and partners to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Archives by mail and http://www.mail-archive.com/devinfo%40lists.e-smith.org
