I had a ZX-81 with 1K of memory for my first computer. I then moved on to the mighty 16K Spectrum. Once onto the 128K +2, some games took over an hour to load, meaning that I could never get out of doing homework. And today's kids whinge about load times on the Xbox! They've obviously never waited 45 minutes for Robocop to load only to experience the soul-destruction as a tape error occurred right at the end.
-----Original Message----- From: Christopher J. Bosak [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: 09 April 2008 17:20 To: NT System Admin Issues Subject: RE: for old timers Thanks all, now I don't feel so old. :P Considering my first computer was an Apple IIe. Christopher J. Bosak Vector Company c. 847.603.4673 [EMAIL PROTECTED] "You need to install an RTFM Interface" - B.O.F.H. -----Original Message----- From: Webb, Brian (Corp) [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Wednesday, April 09, 2008 10:58 hrs To: NT System Admin Issues Subject: RE: for old timers My 1st was a C64. My first PC was a Zenith Z-171 sewing machine style portable. I went right for the top and bought 640KB of RAM to start along with the dual 5 1/4 inch 360 K floppies and internal 2400 Baud modem. It weighed 15 pounds without the battery - I never bought a battery as I just hauled it to where I needed it and then plugged it in. The grey scale LCD was pretty bad in terms of contrast. It was about $1900 at the time (1986 I think). I bought an Epson FX-85 for $400 or $500 to go with it.... I remember I tried to buy 1 MB of RAM, but the motherboard would only recognize 640KB. -Brian -----Original Message----- From: Angus Scott-Fleming [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Wednesday, April 09, 2008 2:45 AM To: NT System Admin Issues Subject: RE: for old timers On 8 Apr 2008 at 23:52, Benjamin Zachary wrote: > You know I was right on that page and flipped through it real quick > and went on to look up the original ibm pc and a bunch of other things. FWIW I still have an IBM XT on the shelf, monochrome monitor, IBM keyboard, and all. One of these days I'll have to see if it still boots --before I put it up for sale on eBay ;-) My first personally-owned PC was a Zenith Z-152, 4.77 MHz, 320k of RAM and dual 360k floppies (320k/360k ? memory fades with time). It cost me over $3,000, with Microsoft Word 1.0 for DOS and an Okidata MicroLine 9-pin dot-matrix printer (which I still have). My brother-the-computer-scientist was jealous -- he worked at the local university and "only" had 64k of workspace on the CDC mainframe. On Dec. 31 one year (don't you love the income tax?) I upgraded the Z-152 to 640k RAM and a 7-MHz NEC V20 chip and added a $399 20-megabyte full-height hard drive. Ended up giving it to my kid's pre-school loaded with reading and other teaching programs, all pre-Windows, of course. When I upgraded my 1200-baud modem to 2400-baud I had to find an off-line Compuserve-forum-saving/reading program (OzCIS -- for the "old timers" -- did anyone else here use it?) -- at 1200-baud I could read the forums as they scrolled by, but at 2400-baud I could no longer keep up. Egad, I still remember my Compuserve ID: 75500,3223 and there's even one Google "hit" on my CIS ID still remaining "out there": http://www.google.com/search?q=%2275500%2C3223%22 Anybody here remember TeamB for dBASE? Angus P.S. Yes, I have a (partially) grey beard -- not quite Sid Dabster but "one of these days" I'll get there ;-) -- Angus Scott-Fleming GeoApps, Tucson, Arizona 1-520-290-5038 +-----------------------------------+ ~ Upgrade to Next Generation Antispam/Antivirus with Ninja! ~ ~ <http://www.sunbelt-software.com/SunbeltMessagingNinja.cfm> ~ ~ Upgrade to Next Generation Antispam/Antivirus with Ninja! ~ ~ <http://www.sunbelt-software.com/SunbeltMessagingNinja.cfm> ~ ~ Upgrade to Next Generation Antispam/Antivirus with Ninja! ~ ~ <http://www.sunbelt-software.com/SunbeltMessagingNinja.cfm> ~ ~ Upgrade to Next Generation Antispam/Antivirus with Ninja! ~ ~ <http://www.sunbelt-software.com/SunbeltMessagingNinja.cfm> ~
