VisorCentral.com - What was your first computer?

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Posted by usonian2001 on 10-19-2001 12:42 AM:

quote:
Originally posted by dampeoples

You mean the C-64 had apps?

Actually it did! Not that my family had many of them, since I was always hogging the computer for games and BASIC, but we had a word processor called SuperText (I think) by Muse software that was pretty powerful for a C64 - in fact, it had an 80-column mode that blew Commodore's Word Processor out of the water. My dad used it pretty often, and even bought a real C64 Monitor to take advantage of the 80 columns.

Anyone remember GEOS? My dad bought a copy when the C64 was on its way out (and software was getting super-cheap), but I never spent enough time with it to figure out what it was good for. IIRC, GEOS stood for 'Graphic Environment Operating System' - it was an attempt at giving the C64 a GUI, but because the core applications (word processor, etc) were spread across four floppies it was just too big of a pain in the butt to use. At the time I didn't quite understand the relationship between hardware and operating system (with the C64 you just turned it on and got the READY prompt with blinking cursor... OS? What's an OS?) So I never got into it. In retrospect, GEOS was a pretty impressive effort!

There were also some good music composition/playback programs, even one that supported MIDI by way of external hardware that plugged into one of the ports on the back. I never knew anyone who had that

Ahh, such memories. Time to download an emulator tonight and track down some of my old favorites!

-Andy

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Posted by mrknowitall on 10-19-2001 02:43 AM:

quote:
Originally posted by tstarky

Oh my gosh! That was the first one I ever had. After that I couldn't afford anything until about 4 or 5 years ago. (Not that the TS1000 was expensive, I was busy having a family.) I remember being able to program it to scroll my name over and over again. I thought that was all it did. I wasn't very bright.

Teri

I'd say it's time for TS1000central.com

Nah.. you're brighter than me.. My bro created a clock of some sorts... I just watched the time go by..

add to the mix.. TI-99 + Coleco Adam + Apple ][ ... somewhere in between there was an amber coloured monitor

..and I don't give a damn what anyone says but Lil' Professor WAS a computer, dammit! LOL ... or at least my first handheld. He's now my new avatar as I've stepped down from the tower...

I see one of him eBay.. for 7 bones.. and I'm gettin all emotional

mr. kia

p.s: decent OT thread

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Posted by jeff318 on 10-19-2001 03:32 AM:

mac quadra 605.... and since most people have much faster PCs than that, now, please donate your large amount of idle computer time to curing cancer. click the united devices link below.

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Posted by Madkins007 on 10-19-2001 03:45 AM:

quote:
Originally posted by usonian2001

Anyone remember GEOS? My dad bought a copy when the C64 was on its way out (and software was getting super-cheap), but I never spent enough time with it to figure out what it was good for. IIRC, GEOS stood for 'Graphic Environment Operating System' - it was an attempt at giving the C64 a GUI, but because the core applications (word processor, etc) were spread across four floppies it was just too big of a pain in the butt to use. At the time I didn't quite understand the relationship between hardware and operating system (with the C64 you just turned it on and got the READY prompt with blinking cursor... OS? What's an OS?) So I never got into it. In retrospect, GEOS was a pretty impressive effort!
-Andy

GEOS was by Berkley Software. They made a version for the Apple II WAY before mac- oddly enough, it LOOKED a lot like the later Mac stuff!

GEOS is still around. It became GeoWorks for the IBM platform and offered a graphical look, like Windows but better. It did multi-tasking, etc. and ran on 256K.

Today, it is owned by New Deal or someone like that. I would still be using it but I prefer to use the same stuff we use at work for various reasons- BUT GeoWorks was darn near crash-proof, and came with a sweet suite of apps- inclusing a killer writing and drawing program that made Word look downright foolish.

All that for only about $70!

Posted by Madkins007 on 10-19-2001 03:53 AM:

I'm 42.

I learned BASIC in Jr. High, about 1972(?) on what I believe were Commodore PETs, and FORTRAN in High School (73-76) on a terminal that used PUNCHED TAPE for memory and a printer for the only output device.

In college (84?), we programmed 8088 chips in machine language. Yummy!

At home, round about 82 or so, I got a Commodore VIC 20. Soldered in the 'rest' button, and did a lot of other silly things to it. A few years later, we got the Commodore C-64, floppy drive (5.25" SS-SD), and a Panasonic printer (1080?). Did a LOT of cool stuff on this- especially after getting the GEOS program mastered. Resumes, newlsetters, newsgroups, etc.

Also had a Timex Sinclair 1000 and for a brief time, a Radio Shack 'notebook' computer- it had the folding mono-chrome screen, a small amount of on-board memory for the operating system and DeskMate software, and a floppy drive.

Now, I have a decent Compaq desktop, a Dell laptop, and my Visor Deluxe- which i use more than either of the others excluding on-line activities.

Posted by Doggy on 10-19-2001 04:30 AM:

Lil Professor, what a classic!!! I don't remember how old I was when I got one of those, where did you dig up the image?

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Posted by Yorick on 10-19-2001 04:49 AM:

Re: What was your first computer?

quote:
Originally posted by maddog
I am 33 years old and I can remember my first video game was Telex Pong, it had two dials on a small console and you hooked it up to the TV.

<snip>

Then came my first computer, an Atari 800.

That's freaky. A neighbor gave my family a Telex Pong game in 77 or so and the first family computer was an Atari 800 in 1980 or 81.
This was followed by a 1200XL, a 600XL, a Franklin running MS-DOS, an Amiga 500 -- my first computer -- which I eventually sold after spending four years not using it because of some bad memory chips; a used Mac Peforma; and now my G4.

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Posted by Potus on 10-19-2001 04:54 AM:

Mac SE.
Still have it.
Still works great

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Posted by GSR13 on 10-19-2001 05:10 AM:

quote:
Originally posted by maddog
Lil Professor, what a classic!!! I don't remember how old I was when I got one of those, where did you dig up the image?

Man, when I say that Avatar, I almost flipped. My brother had one of those.

There are so many things in life I've forgotten, and then to see them years later, it just really brings back memories. Pure Craziness.

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Posted by homer on 10-19-2001 06:08 AM:

quote:
Anyone remember GEOS? My dad bought a copy when the C64 was on its way out (and software was getting super-cheap), but I never spent enough time with it to figure out what it was good for.

We had geos on the c64, but, like you said, the Mac was pretty much just a gaming system by that time. We did have geoworks on the IBM when it first came out. I think we kept it until Win95.

Speaking of C-64s...who remembers getting that Commodore magazine each month with the programs printed in the back? You had to type in about 8 pages of hexadecimal code to enter the program in. Strange times...

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Posted by mrknowitall on 10-19-2001 07:36 AM:

quote:
Originally posted by maddog
Lil Professor, what a classic!!! I don't remember how old I was when I got one of those, where did you dig up the image?

hey what's up.. i'm so hammered right now

I dont know which image you saw.. I had a 2D image.. if you look real quick you'll see it on eBay.. but now it's 3D-ish... if you do a good google search you'll find some flashbacks and you'll see that he lives on with TI to this very day.. he's slightly modernized I think.. I'm surprised you dont see his familiar image on a campy raver t-shirt.. LOLOL.. I think I'll make one since XP supports my printer's drivers.. it would be a super laugh for dress down day.. better yet hallowe'en... Ok.. this is drunk talk now.. goodnight. trip.. but dont fall down memory lane.

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Posted by usonian2001 on 10-19-2001 07:53 AM:

quote:
Originally posted by homer
Speaking of C-64s...who remembers getting that Commodore magazine each month with the programs printed in the back? You had to type in about 8 pages of hexadecimal code to enter the program in. Strange times...

Hmm, I don't remember the hexadecimal stuff, but we used to get the Commodore magazine... the regular mag. was boring to me as a kid, but 3 or 4 times a year they did a 'power play' issue all about games & accessories. I was all over that one. And they usually included hugelistings for games written in BASIC that were pages and pages long... and the ones that had like two hundred DATA statements at the end were always the worst. I remember spending most of a weekend typing in some game about nurturing a houseplant (nobody thought to call it a 'virtual houseplant' back then, I guess

), moving it in and out of the sun, feeding, watering, etc... sort of a proto-tamagachi now that I think about it.

But, it didn't work after all my time spent typing. And I couldn't find the error (if it was one) in my typing no matter how hard I looked. I was so p*ssed! I didn't try to copy programs longer than a couple of pages after that. Same thing happened to me with the issue of MAD magazine that was supposed to draw a hi-res line drawing of Alfred E. Neuman on your screen.

I also got ENTER magazine, which was a 3-2-1 Contact spin-off, and usually had some great program listings in back for all the different platforms (Apple ][, C64, TI, Atari). I was so livid when they stopped printing ENTER and instead made it a 3 page section of the 3-2-1 Contact magazine. In fact, I'm getting all angry again just thinking about it! I really looked forward to that one every month.

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Posted by BobbyMike on 10-19-2001 12:58 PM:

My dad had a mother board company (Wameco) and made his own computers. We could do experiments (simple programs), but no games. Tape drives, etc. He used to get a newsletter/magazine called ... oh poop I can't remember, "Dr. something's something", that I used to read, but could never understand. This was all back in the 70's and my memory ain't what it used to be (and I can't even blame it on drug use). We lived in San Jose and I thought computers were boring because I didn't know how to code (my dad, bless his heart, is an excellent programmer- that gene skipped me though, and he was way too tempermental to teach me (or I was too slow! ). I could handle a mean soldering iron though!

My first computer that I bought was an Atari 520ST, which I bought for word processing and GAMES. I owned it until about 6 years ago.

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Posted by visor empowered on 10-19-2001 01:37 PM:

The first computers I worked on were Varian 620 H/I models that ran the Automatic Test Equipment (ATE) test bench that I maintained in the Navy. The thing had main-frame style tape drives and a whole bunch of custom test equipment that were controlled by the Varian and the programs loaded. We used teletype machines for printers. You acutally had to key in the "bootstrap" code using buttons and a toggle switch on the computer. The Varian had 16K of magnetic core memory. You could pull out the memory cards (2x8K) and see the wires and cores sandwhiched between the PCBs. I also did some work on a bench that used the PDP 11.

The first computer I owned was a genuine IBM XT with 64K RAM and two 360K 5 1/4 inch floppy drives and a Hercules Monochrome (Plasma, cause it was easier on your eyes) display. I also had a CITOH dot-matrix printer. I got this from the Computerland that I worked at for a time. I worked on IBM, Compaq and Apple machines at Computerland. And speaking of memory lane, any of you old farts (like me!) remember the infamous IBM PCjr???? What a piece of crap that thing was!! The sad part is IBM didn't learn their lesson and later came out with the PS1!

Anyway, since then I've worked on lots of boxes and owned a few. Currently at home I have an generic box with an AMD K6, 64MB RAM, DVD and CD-R/RW and 8GB HD. I also have a Mac Quadra 800 to play with and my wife has a Dell Inspiron 7500.

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Posted by namja on 10-19-2001 08:20 PM:

Zenith 8088 with two 5 1/4" floppy drives. 4 MHz with the 8 MHz turbo switch. 640 KB RAM.

Used WordPerfect 4.0 -- the entire software, including the dictionary & thesaurus, fit in one 5 1/4" disk.

Posted by Doggy on 10-21-2001 01:49 PM:

I just went to www.atari.com just for the hell of it. Are they still in business? The website shows some pics and says "Coming in November".

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Posted by MarkEagle on 10-21-2001 02:20 PM:

quote:
Originally posted by BobbyMike
"Dr. something's something"

Dr. Dobb's Journal

Our DP guy's at the office used to get this but never read it... said it was over their heads!

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Posted by Yorick on 10-21-2001 08:33 PM:

quote:
Originally posted by maddog
I just went to www.atari.com just for the hell of it. Are they still in business? The website shows some pics and says "Coming in November".

I believe the Atari name and holdings were bought by Hasbro a few years ago.

* FOLLOWUP *
I found a general historical timeline of the Atari company which is here. Hasbro bought it in 1998.

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Posted by BobbyMike on 10-22-2001 12:23 PM:

Thanks Mark, I remembered the name on Saturday while delivering a Sentra.

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Posted by potter on 10-22-2001 02:31 PM:

First Computer: A Radio Shack TRS-80 Model 1, with a whopping 4k of memory and audiocassette tapes to store programs and data. I sold a car to upgrade it to 16k (The car was sold for $75, Radio Shack sold the upgrade for $80, but I got it from another source for $40).

I did a lot of hardware hacking on that thing: Added lowercase characters, a reverse video option (did not like it, removed it), and a numeric keypad.

Bought a second hand expansion box kit for it that the original owner had started putting together. The box when complete would add 32k more memory, a printer port, serial port, modem (300baud), and disk drive controller. The memory was already operational. Got the serial port and printer port operational, already had a modem. Borrowed a disk drive from a friend and got the disk drive controller operational. But then instead of buying a disk drive (about $200 at the time) I opted to buy a new computer.

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