Well, I started with a Vic-20...
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- Thread starter wcalvert
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I had an Osborne Executive, the first portable computer, 28 pounds, 4” orange screen, and hand carried it through the airport. LOL
CoCo! My first computer too. Storage system was the Sears cassette player, just fast forward until you got to the counter where your program was written. So much fun, kicked off 40+ years of programming. I really wanted the Amiga, but never pulled the trigger. The good old days of innovation. Now we've got 40 years of PCs. Yawn.
cactusman
Well Known Member
TRS-80 Model 1 cassette drive bot with my radio shack discount in 1980. Part time job - sophomore in high school. Model 3 just came out so they were clearing the old ones out. Dad thought i was nuts. Don't move the recorder while its downloading btw.
We also got Pong from Sears Xmas 1976. Well Santa....but you know....
We also got Pong from Sears Xmas 1976. Well Santa....but you know....
Brantel
Well Known Member
I started with a Vic-20 that I still have and it looks brand new. Also have a tape drive. About 20 years ago I bought a “MegaCart” cartridge that has every commercially produced game, application, programming tool, and memory expansion that was ever sold for the Vic-20 loaded on it with a custom menu system. Very few were made. The guy that made them was a genius.
VAX/VMS! Now you got my attention. Those indeed where the days...Ah yes, the time spent debugging, Commodore PETs, cassette tapes, floppys, punch cards, FORTRAN, PASCAL, COBOL...good times.
I remember when we got a VAX VMS system at school, and they stopped using punch cards. I can remember the sight of punch cards going out a 10th story window...and it was happening all over campus. I'd bet, if you looked hard enough, you'd still find some laying around, in that town...
Bill Boyd
Well Known Member
Michael/Roadjunkie hit all the high points for me as well - guess we're the same vintage: residency, beepers, C-64 and floppy drive (how did we ever afford that on an intern's salary in 1980 ?!?!) dot matrix printer, monochrome monitor... Never had a PDP-8, but my college did - as the only computer serving the whole campus! Never had to fool with punch cards but had nerdy friends in high school who did. Wrote a very compact BASIC routine for the C-64 to decode Morse so a quadriplegic patient could communicate with us via a sip-and blow keyer. Fun times. Computers left me in the dust when my kids came along, and they became experts while I never was able to keep up and now don't even try.
Time to go outside and yell at a cloud.
Time to go outside and yell at a cloud.
Pilot135pd
Well Known Member
Mine was a Commodore 64
ronrapp
Well Known Member
That was my first computer. Connected to a 70's vintage TV. It had no storage. When you turned it off, whatever you had programmed into the memory was simply gone. Next time you turned it on, you had to use the built in version of BASIC to program something. Mine had a grand total of 1K of memory.
rmartingt
Well Known Member
Man, I feel like a baby... we started with Apple IIs in school, and got our first computer at home (a 486 with a whole megabyte of RAM!) in 1992 or 1993, primarily so my dad could do his bids easier.
Of course, my son still doesn't quite believe that we didn't have ipads and cellphones as kids, and can't comprehend music or TV that isn't streamed on demand...
Of course, my son still doesn't quite believe that we didn't have ipads and cellphones as kids, and can't comprehend music or TV that isn't streamed on demand...
Oh come on….IBM mainframes, punchcards, TRS80’s….that’s nothing. I was there the first time we rubbed 2 Commodore 64’s together and created fire!!
azrv6
Well Known Member
Ok I'll admit it. Digital Equipment Corp PDP-8. Wrote real time data acquisition programs for laboratory equipment in octal machine code. Entered the program via toggle switches on the front panel. Surprisingly, I can still get insurance for my RV6.
In the mid 80’s I wired Digital VT220 terminals and ‘Rainbow’ computers to the mainframe while a student at Baylor (I worked in the IT department part time to qualify for some financial aid). Still remember the pinout color order - black, red yellow green. Still have the fine wire stripper. Punch down blocks, crawling in tunnels, tone detectors, the whole smash.
Fortran punch cards the year before that in community college.
Back then we ran dozens of cables through the rafters in the basketball gym down to the floor on temporary tables so students could register for classes. My roommate got called to the Dean’s office a few days after registration once and was asked why he (as a student with mainframe access) was adding girls into closed classes. “Because they were pretty and I was wanting to get their phone number, sir.” Telling the truth kept him in college <G>. The Dean laughed and said don’t do it again.
I had a first model Mac that booted w/a floppy and a 300 baud modem that I could tie into the mainframe with from my apartment. Thought I had it goin on. Typed papers for people for extra money.
Working in the campus IT department as a student had its perks. We knew the system didn’t validate whether or not your parents had paid for the ‘food plan’ for the first two weeks of the semester - every student card inserted into the checkout machine gave a green light (for two weeks). Possibly a few of us IT types may have slipped into line at a dorm for lunch. And breakfast. And dinner.
Fortran punch cards the year before that in community college.
Back then we ran dozens of cables through the rafters in the basketball gym down to the floor on temporary tables so students could register for classes. My roommate got called to the Dean’s office a few days after registration once and was asked why he (as a student with mainframe access) was adding girls into closed classes. “Because they were pretty and I was wanting to get their phone number, sir.” Telling the truth kept him in college <G>. The Dean laughed and said don’t do it again.
I had a first model Mac that booted w/a floppy and a 300 baud modem that I could tie into the mainframe with from my apartment. Thought I had it goin on. Typed papers for people for extra money.
Working in the campus IT department as a student had its perks. We knew the system didn’t validate whether or not your parents had paid for the ‘food plan’ for the first two weeks of the semester - every student card inserted into the checkout machine gave a green light (for two weeks). Possibly a few of us IT types may have slipped into line at a dorm for lunch. And breakfast. And dinner.
Attachments
We've got that in common, I worked in the Computer Services department at the college I attended during by second year. One of the projects I was responsible for was tapping a terminal into a punch block so we could watch what trouble a certain student was getting into on his terminal in the lab. Called it Operation Fat Boy - sure couldn't do that now - I don't think we ever managed to catch him hacking.
My first computer was a KayPro. It had 5 1/4 inch floppy disk drives and a keyboard that folded up the base to make it portable. In 1984 my house was broken into and the computer was the only thing stolen.
Todd Bynum
Member
My first was a circa 1981 Texas Instruments TI-99/4A. 16KB RAM. Used a cassette tape recorder for file storage and a 13” color TV as a monitor.
Remember the programs you could find in the old PC Magazine written in Basic, that could send a print job to the dot matrix printer to make it "sing" with different notes?
rocketman1988
Well Known Member
I still have an original Mac and it still works fine. Ran across some extra memory so I opened it up. It turns out that the designers signed the inside of the case! Pretty cool...I had an Apple II+, 48k. Got it with my wife’s school teacher discount for ”only” $1800.. Programmed stuff from Nibble magazine to display on my 10” B&W TV.
N6013E
I'm New Here
Exactly my sentiments, keep up the good work Doug
Roy Thoma
Well Known Member
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I built my first computer using wire wrap and an RCA 1802, no OS and 256 bytes of memory. It could flash lights and play "music"! I think I ordered the parts from a small distributor named Digi-Key.
Punch cards with IBM 370. 300 baud modem/teletype with paper tape to access VAX. Part of team that implemented UNIX OS on PDP 11/04 with 4k of ram.
I programmed with ALGOL, SNOBOL, LISP, C, Fortran and Basic while earning my EE/CS double major.
First job was designing a solid state floppy replacement using 92k bubble memories and assembly language programming of TMS9900 processor, used for a seismic data real time processing machine. I was fascinated watching a TI-99 manufacturing line while working for TI.
I was employee 641 at then startup Compaq Computer and was one of a handful of designers for Compaq’s first Deskpro. I wrote the assembly language code for the AT compatible 8042 keyboard controller. I still have engineering prototype #2 of the Portable 386, which I used while designing the DeskPro 486.
Regards,
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Bill Boyd
Well Known Member
Boy does that 0.1" perf board take me back to my early days in ham radio - when I should have been busting my gonads in anatomy and pharmacology! I think Ten-Tec still uses boards like that
THANKS to DR, Bill and others for the "new" forum SW. I'm still finding my way around. I could care less about badges or trophies..........
My first Computer
I built my first computer using wire wrap and an RCA 1802, no OS and 256 bytes of memory. It could flash lights and play "music"! I think I ordered the parts from a small distributor named Digi-Key.
View attachment 54652
Punch cards with IBM 370. 300 baud modem/teletype with paper tape to access VAX. Part of team that implemented UNIX OS on PDP 11/04 with 4k of ram.
I programmed with ALGOL, SNOBOL, LISP, C, Fortran and Basic while earning my EE/CS double major.
First job was designing a solid state floppy replacement using 92k bubble memories and assembly language programming of TMS9900 processor, used for a seismic data real time processing machine. I was fascinated watching a TI-99 manufacturing line while working for TI.
I was employee 641 at then startup Compaq Computer and was one of a handful of designers for Compaq’s first Deskpro. I wrote the assembly language code for the AT compatible 8042 keyboard controller. I still have engineering prototype #2 of the Portable 386, which I used while designing the DeskPro 486.
Regards,
Oh ... HAM and autopatch at 4800bps with YModem-G ... what a great way to share software!Boy does that 0.1" perf board take me back to my early days in ham radio - when I should have been busting my gonads in anatomy and pharmacology! I think Ten-Tec still uses boards like that
YModem-G was the first file transfer protocol to support error correction and compression.
Fun times.
Heathkit built by a teacher in 1978 (cp/m?), paper tape.
TRS80 (the one that was only a keyoard, we had to add everything else).
PDP-11 in 1982 with teletype terminal.
IBM (we had an XT!) in 1984
VAX/VMS (1983?)
Loads of UNIX/Solaris/Linux 0.99 (patch level ?? on 50 floppies)
Z-80 assembler
Could go on, but you've already moved on, I imagine.
Cheers!
Mike
TRS80 (the one that was only a keyoard, we had to add everything else).
PDP-11 in 1982 with teletype terminal.
IBM (we had an XT!) in 1984
VAX/VMS (1983?)
Loads of UNIX/Solaris/Linux 0.99 (patch level ?? on 50 floppies)
Z-80 assembler
Could go on, but you've already moved on, I imagine.
Cheers!
Mike
I learned assembly on the Amiga (making demos). I missed the early Linux versions ... joined the Navy in 1990 and priorities shifted, but I'm a hard core Linux guy now.
blaplante
Well Known Member
The COSMAC Elf (RCA 1802) was also the first computer I built. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COSMAC_ELF
I was working at UNIVAC (Sperry Univac) where the 1100/80 was the current model. https://www.ithistory.org/db/hardware/sperry-rand/univac-110080
I was working at UNIVAC (Sperry Univac) where the 1100/80 was the current model. https://www.ithistory.org/db/hardware/sperry-rand/univac-110080
wirejock
Well Known Member
I owned an Amiga. It was ahead of it's time. I'm also a big Linux fan, but probably not "hard core". I installed it on a dinasaur Vista machine and it's my shop PC. It has manual, plans, music, etc. It went from 30 minutes to boot up to 3 minutes and runs like a new computer. Love Linux.
That was why the first thing you did after punching up all the program cards was to draw a line diagonally across the top of the stack - ask me how I know.
Elliott 804, ICL teletype, Cira 1968
So ... since we're laying it out there ... I was in the Navy and was assigned temporary duty while waiting for a school and they figured out I knew something about computers so immediately assigned me to work in the computer division. One day they were working on the halon system in the computer room, where the mainframe was, and took the clear plastic box off the push button, which just so happens to be right next to a similarly shaped light's off button that I regularly used ...
MED
Well Known Member
I’ll bet a lot of folks needed a change of pants!
I ran backups on an IBM 360 (I think that was the number) in college. They told me to make a change - any change - to the database after each backup. I dutifully complied.
6 months after I graduated, I got a call from woman running the console. She was in hysterics and I could barely understand her.
See, she was running the premium statements (insurance, of course) and the first bill printed was for James T. Kirk, C/o Federation Headquarters, San Francisco, Planet Earth.
It turns out I changed the policy of the company founder….
Oops.
6 months after I graduated, I got a call from woman running the console. She was in hysterics and I could barely understand her.
See, she was running the premium statements (insurance, of course) and the first bill printed was for James T. Kirk, C/o Federation Headquarters, San Francisco, Planet Earth.
It turns out I changed the policy of the company founder….
Oops.
Could that be about the same time they were reporting the hole in the ozone layer was getting larger?
MED
Well Known Member
Heck, I remember 8 inch floppies!
I guess you couldn't really blame her - he had a Trans Am!The best thing about punch cards were the chips and making it snow in the car of the guy that stole my girlfriend. I’m Not sure he ever got all of them out of his Trans Am.
Load *,8,1
