My dad ordered one of the first IIe's back when you still had to have it shipped from CA because there were no retailers and when it arrived you had to pretty much wire the thing together yourself.
I have two primary memories of the IIe - one we had a game called "horse race" where you placed a bet on a horse number and then watched numbers move accross the screen in a vertical line - first one to the right margin one. Very advanced! we played for hours.
I also remember dad having a breakdown after loosing a whole chapter of his dissertation - the word processor operated such that the executable was on one floppy and you had to save your data on a second floppy that you had to switch out of the same drive. If anything went wrong between swap outs you were hosed. Kids today will probably never appreciate the old school document loss stories.
LenexatoKCMO wrote:
My dad ordered one of the first IIe's back when you still had to have it shipped from CA because there were no retailers and when it arrived you had to pretty much wire the thing together yourself.
I have two primary memories of the IIe - one we had a game called "horse race" where you placed a bet on a horse number and then watched numbers move accross the screen in a vertical line - first one to the right margin one. Very advanced! we played for hours.
I also remember dad having a breakdown after loosing a whole chapter of his dissertation - the word processor operated such that the executable was on one floppy and you had to save your data on a second floppy that you had to switch out of the same drive. If anything went wrong between swap outs you were hosed. Kids today will probably never appreciate the old school document loss stories.
Had a toshiba laptop that ran fully on ram and floppies. quite the unpleasant surprise when I later tried to install a real program.
drumatix wrote:
Damn thing would shock me all the time...
Hell...I still have that problem with my modern PC's when powering them on sometimes...
What's graciously given to KC, is strong for the region as a whole. Passion and benevolence will one day exeem towards all whom know true adoration. We shall triumph to better the community as One within THINK (ONE) KC.
Apple IIc I bought with lawn mowing money, plus printer and external drive to avoid the save/load problem. Replaced the Logic board in 91 for 250 bucks. Still in moms basement, logic board is out again. Wrote many short stories, two screen plays and part of a novel on that bastard.
I feel for it the way old novelist feel for their manual typewriters.
Oh man, you guys remember that old 90's movie where there is a serial bomber, and at the begining he's bombing a Library..and the only way to keep the bomb from exploding is to keep typing at a rate of like 40 wpm (words per min) on some old (current at the time) PC...and in the screen its counting down the Bytes left untill its out of memory...just from typing...(Till it hits zero and blows up),man...those were the days.
What's graciously given to KC, is strong for the region as a whole. Passion and benevolence will one day exeem towards all whom know true adoration. We shall triumph to better the community as One within THINK (ONE) KC.
im2kull wrote:
Oh man, you guys remember that old 90's movie where there is a serial bomber, and at the begining he's bombing a Library..and the only way to keep the bomb from exploding is to keep typing at a rate of like 40 wpm (words per min) on some old (current at the time) PC...and in the screen its counting down the Bytes left untill its out of memory...just from typing...(Till it hits zero and blows up),man...those were the days.
The progression I recall is Sinclair 1000 -> C64 -> 5x86 133 -> P233 -> AMD K6-2 400 -> Athlon Thunderbird 800 -> Athlon XP 1533 -> Athlon XP 2200 -> Athlon 64 X2 6000+.
"It is not to my good friend's heresy that I impute his honesty. On the contrary, 'tis his honesty that has brought upon him the character of heretic." -- Ben Franklin
I first got on the internet in 97. I grew up in the sticks, so it was a big deal when our high school got dial up. When I went to college the next year, I found out that all students got free, unlimited internet, even if they didn't live in the dorms. You had to bring a floppy to any of the computer labs to get the software/access codes and that was it. I've been on the internet ever since.
My first computer was a Sinclair 1000. My parents did some version of green stamps and that was one of the prizes they could get. I was around 5 or so and I remember we had to drive a couple of hours to the headquarters of this place to pick it up. A couple of years later, we got another computer, but I can't remember what it was. You couldn't do all that much with it, except play games that looked like 8 track tapes. Neither had monitors, so we hooked them up to the tv. I was probably in late elementary/jr. high when we got a computer that used floppies and had an actual monitor.
I'm pretty sure my mom has all three in her house somewhere.
I started using the Internet frequently in 1995 in my job which provided my first linkup. I had used it briefly earlier (around 1993), but my employers' system was too crude for me to use it much. I got home internet access in 1998 via my employer's server and dial-up.
Late 1991, or early 1992. Details are kind of vague, now. I was told about this guy who had a storefront electronics lab/store (in Boulder, Colorado) and that this guy was building computers that you could interface with people all over the world, and gain access to amazing reference libraries.
The guy was scary. He was huge, bearded, dirty and disheveled (so was the store, sans beard) and either really, really stoned, or really, really brilliant. Turns out he was brilliant, at least for the time and place. I offered professional services in exchange for one of his creations (it didn't involve me taking my clothes off, perverts!). Ended up agreeing to $600 and my assistance for what he sold for $2500 to $3000, and considered then to be a bargain.
After a week, or so, he had me pick up the computer and he gave a copy of a hand written list of instructions. Who to call, what to ask for, what to say no to, how much to agree to pay and then a a diagram of where each wire was to go. It ended with, "only call me after every other possibility was tried and then it would cost $50 per hour, minimum one hour". That was attorney money! Scared the shit out of me. As did plugging every thing in, and making the phone call........to who? I have no idea, but in two days I was taking careful steps into the net, and asking everyone who knew more about computers than me (everyone) to teach me more. What did they enter and where did it take them? I had a wall covered with pinned up papers with commands to provide access to various ports on the web (did we call it the web, or internet, or what?). I learned painfully slowly. It was crazily frustrating.
Uhh, except DOS. I did NOT want to learn it. I just wanted them to do it. Luckily, most of the carriers of knowledge wanted to enter every command that they possibly could. And just how did they memorize that massive maze of minutiae?
Last edited by loftguy on Sat Jan 29, 2011 4:37 pm, edited 1 time in total.
