My First Computer, The only computer I bought ever
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The truth is I got computer before, but yet, getting computer was the beautiful one :)
I know I am coward since the day I know that fortune favors the brave
Besides, my intension was to make it funny, not good enough though
I know I am coward since the day I know that fortune favors the brave
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I was so proud when I got my first computer. I had used computers before, but this was the first one I actually bought for myself. It was an off the shelf dell, and it was heavily used. I don't remember what model it was, because I didn't know much about computers back then. The people I bought it from had already re-installed windows on it. I took it home and installed a video game and began playing. The computer itself was under specs to play the game, and I had dial up internet, which was too slow for the game. All the crashing in the world could not take away from the fun I had on that game. The whole reason I bought the computer was the guys at work were playing a video game and telling me about it. I got to play the game with them, and it was great!
I used that computer straight 8 years, then give it to my aunt, my cousins used it for 2 years, now its dead I guess
I know I am coward since the day I know that fortune favors the brave
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Besides, my intension was to make it funny, not good enough though
I know I am coward since the day I know that fortune favors the brave
Don't beat yourself up over it. I enjoyed your story...
Silence is golden... but duct tape is silver!! Booger Mobile - My bright green 1964 Ford Falcon - check out the blog here!! | If you feel generous - make a donation to Camp Quality!!
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Year 1998, I started Learning about the wonder (computer). I was in high school I realized RAM is the biggest deal. But yet I didn't know how it looks. As a matter of fact I learned the monitor as a minor thing in year 2000 when I started my University. Year 2000, I left Chittagong. Cause my father was just retired. Chittagong was his working place. So, We moved to Dhaka. My getting fat day started. All I did was watch cable, eat and sleep sometime went go my aunt house. That was only physical exercise I used to do. From ground floor I had to Ride 5 storied building. no escalator or elevator. I have started my bachelor degree just a month. Yet I had lot to learn. And my father decide he will buy me a computer. But I don't know how to buy a computer. Moreover I didn't know what shall I say to the shop. May be something like this: This Idea was before 1996:) Me: I want to buy computer. shopkeeper: What Kind of computer do you want? Me: The black one and make sure the mouse is not Plague infected. Shopkeeper: How much powerful do you want? Me: 10HP may be In Bangladesh Computer is awfully expensive. 40,000 taka is outstanding high for us(at that time it was like $800 may be but not sure. and its a big amount). Anyway my father asked his brother in law about it. He requested two boy living in his neighbor. They were computer something(cant remember what they were, actually never knew). They agreed to assist us. Then the golden day came. I woke up very early in the morning. Probably 4:30 am in the morning. Finished my morning prayer. then I started my longest waiting. Around 9:00 clock those two boy arrived. Then we started a longest journey to New Elephant Road. Perfect for me. I was the New Elephant going to New Elephant Road(I was 101 Kilo. i.e. 222.2lb) 3 wheeler with 3 stroke engine was carrying us. Anyway I was not that dumb to ask for computer with 10HP. It was the idea of mine when I was in high school. But the computer shop was shocking for me. Scattered boxes, random things organized in the rack I don't understand any of them. But there was no computer around. Well, my father told them the budget. My father took a good budget. Because most of other people do the budget around 30K but for me it was 40k. After reaching the shop my father asked to the shopkeeper "Does Sony make Computer?". Well, to my father SONY(the japanese company) was something like hercules, Supreme of all. Then the shopkeeper said. you can get the cdrom from SONY :)
Aah memories. My earliest memories are of a DOS machine. We were kids and we didn't know much about computers. But we learnt to play games. Prince of Persia, Commander Keen, Pong were big hits. So was nibbles on QBASIC. In fact nibbles.bas is probably the first program I saw in my life. Once we tried to load windows from within DOS (I think you had to type WIN at the command prompt) it was the most beautiful thing I had seen on a computer. But alas, it conked out saying we had to get a mouse to use it. I've been hooked ever since! Thank you for your post. Brought a smile to my face. :)
If you need a hammer get C and shut up. If you need a nail gun get C++ and shut up. If you don't need *those* things (and good design should tell you) then by all means get a factory, factory, factory. --code-frog Why would you need to date, when C++ is your soul mate?! --Steve Echols
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Aah memories. My earliest memories are of a DOS machine. We were kids and we didn't know much about computers. But we learnt to play games. Prince of Persia, Commander Keen, Pong were big hits. So was nibbles on QBASIC. In fact nibbles.bas is probably the first program I saw in my life. Once we tried to load windows from within DOS (I think you had to type WIN at the command prompt) it was the most beautiful thing I had seen on a computer. But alas, it conked out saying we had to get a mouse to use it. I've been hooked ever since! Thank you for your post. Brought a smile to my face. :)
If you need a hammer get C and shut up. If you need a nail gun get C++ and shut up. If you don't need *those* things (and good design should tell you) then by all means get a factory, factory, factory. --code-frog Why would you need to date, when C++ is your soul mate?! --Steve Echols
We got windows 98 in high school. School bought only one copy of windows 98 and installed it over dos. we were not allowed to use that computer only watch how the teacher work. at the end of the year we were allowed to write our name on office software, color it, make bold :) haha
I know I am coward since the day I know that fortune favors the brave
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Year 1998, I started Learning about the wonder (computer). I was in high school I realized RAM is the biggest deal. But yet I didn't know how it looks. As a matter of fact I learned the monitor as a minor thing in year 2000 when I started my University. Year 2000, I left Chittagong. Cause my father was just retired. Chittagong was his working place. So, We moved to Dhaka. My getting fat day started. All I did was watch cable, eat and sleep sometime went go my aunt house. That was only physical exercise I used to do. From ground floor I had to Ride 5 storied building. no escalator or elevator. I have started my bachelor degree just a month. Yet I had lot to learn. And my father decide he will buy me a computer. But I don't know how to buy a computer. Moreover I didn't know what shall I say to the shop. May be something like this: This Idea was before 1996:) Me: I want to buy computer. shopkeeper: What Kind of computer do you want? Me: The black one and make sure the mouse is not Plague infected. Shopkeeper: How much powerful do you want? Me: 10HP may be In Bangladesh Computer is awfully expensive. 40,000 taka is outstanding high for us(at that time it was like $800 may be but not sure. and its a big amount). Anyway my father asked his brother in law about it. He requested two boy living in his neighbor. They were computer something(cant remember what they were, actually never knew). They agreed to assist us. Then the golden day came. I woke up very early in the morning. Probably 4:30 am in the morning. Finished my morning prayer. then I started my longest waiting. Around 9:00 clock those two boy arrived. Then we started a longest journey to New Elephant Road. Perfect for me. I was the New Elephant going to New Elephant Road(I was 101 Kilo. i.e. 222.2lb) 3 wheeler with 3 stroke engine was carrying us. Anyway I was not that dumb to ask for computer with 10HP. It was the idea of mine when I was in high school. But the computer shop was shocking for me. Scattered boxes, random things organized in the rack I don't understand any of them. But there was no computer around. Well, my father told them the budget. My father took a good budget. Because most of other people do the budget around 30K but for me it was 40k. After reaching the shop my father asked to the shopkeeper "Does Sony make Computer?". Well, to my father SONY(the japanese company) was something like hercules, Supreme of all. Then the shopkeeper said. you can get the cdrom from SONY :)
You make me feel old. I was using computers back in 1979. The first computer of my own was a ZX81 then a ZX Spectrum. That creaking noise you hear is my nostalgia kicking in!
------------------------------------ I will never again mention that I was the poster of the One Millionth Lounge Post, nor that it was complete drivel. Dalek Dave CCC Link[^] Trolls[^]
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You make me feel old. I was using computers back in 1979. The first computer of my own was a ZX81 then a ZX Spectrum. That creaking noise you hear is my nostalgia kicking in!
------------------------------------ I will never again mention that I was the poster of the One Millionth Lounge Post, nor that it was complete drivel. Dalek Dave CCC Link[^] Trolls[^]
1977: Texas Instruments SR-51 Programmable Calculator. At school, we didn't have a computer. We had a teletype machine connected over 100baud modem to the mainframe of the local university which was 25 miles away. We also had to walk 20 miles to school every day uphill in the snow and then back home uphill in the snow. And it was always dark. Ah... the good ol' days.
m.bergman
For Bruce Schneier, quanta only have one state : afraid.
To succeed in the world it is not enough to be stupid, you must also be well-mannered. -- Voltaire
Honesty is the best policy, but insanity is a better defense. -- Steve Landesberg
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Year 1998, I started Learning about the wonder (computer). I was in high school I realized RAM is the biggest deal. But yet I didn't know how it looks. As a matter of fact I learned the monitor as a minor thing in year 2000 when I started my University. Year 2000, I left Chittagong. Cause my father was just retired. Chittagong was his working place. So, We moved to Dhaka. My getting fat day started. All I did was watch cable, eat and sleep sometime went go my aunt house. That was only physical exercise I used to do. From ground floor I had to Ride 5 storied building. no escalator or elevator. I have started my bachelor degree just a month. Yet I had lot to learn. And my father decide he will buy me a computer. But I don't know how to buy a computer. Moreover I didn't know what shall I say to the shop. May be something like this: This Idea was before 1996:) Me: I want to buy computer. shopkeeper: What Kind of computer do you want? Me: The black one and make sure the mouse is not Plague infected. Shopkeeper: How much powerful do you want? Me: 10HP may be In Bangladesh Computer is awfully expensive. 40,000 taka is outstanding high for us(at that time it was like $800 may be but not sure. and its a big amount). Anyway my father asked his brother in law about it. He requested two boy living in his neighbor. They were computer something(cant remember what they were, actually never knew). They agreed to assist us. Then the golden day came. I woke up very early in the morning. Probably 4:30 am in the morning. Finished my morning prayer. then I started my longest waiting. Around 9:00 clock those two boy arrived. Then we started a longest journey to New Elephant Road. Perfect for me. I was the New Elephant going to New Elephant Road(I was 101 Kilo. i.e. 222.2lb) 3 wheeler with 3 stroke engine was carrying us. Anyway I was not that dumb to ask for computer with 10HP. It was the idea of mine when I was in high school. But the computer shop was shocking for me. Scattered boxes, random things organized in the rack I don't understand any of them. But there was no computer around. Well, my father told them the budget. My father took a good budget. Because most of other people do the budget around 30K but for me it was 40k. After reaching the shop my father asked to the shopkeeper "Does Sony make Computer?". Well, to my father SONY(the japanese company) was something like hercules, Supreme of all. Then the shopkeeper said. you can get the cdrom from SONY :)
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thank you
I know I am coward since the day I know that fortune favors the brave
-
You make me feel old. I was using computers back in 1979. The first computer of my own was a ZX81 then a ZX Spectrum. That creaking noise you hear is my nostalgia kicking in!
------------------------------------ I will never again mention that I was the poster of the One Millionth Lounge Post, nor that it was complete drivel. Dalek Dave CCC Link[^] Trolls[^]
Aah the Spectrum. 48k. Then the Commodore 64 and then finally onto the 286. Games that stood out from those days were Microprose's Gunship, Tank Platoon, Pirates (Sid Meier was a legend!!) and Tom Clancy's Red Storm Rising. Good times.
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You make me feel old. I was using computers back in 1979. The first computer of my own was a ZX81 then a ZX Spectrum. That creaking noise you hear is my nostalgia kicking in!
------------------------------------ I will never again mention that I was the poster of the One Millionth Lounge Post, nor that it was complete drivel. Dalek Dave CCC Link[^] Trolls[^]
I can hear creaking too, my first was a Spectrum complete with tape deck couldn't afford a microdrive it took 20 minutes to load a game that a modern machine does in about 2 secs, always assuming that your little sister didn't pull the power plug halfway through to plug in her hairdryer. But what fun! favourite game was F14 Strike Eagle (Still got it on a speccy emulator, very soothing)
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Year 1998, I started Learning about the wonder (computer). I was in high school I realized RAM is the biggest deal. But yet I didn't know how it looks. As a matter of fact I learned the monitor as a minor thing in year 2000 when I started my University. Year 2000, I left Chittagong. Cause my father was just retired. Chittagong was his working place. So, We moved to Dhaka. My getting fat day started. All I did was watch cable, eat and sleep sometime went go my aunt house. That was only physical exercise I used to do. From ground floor I had to Ride 5 storied building. no escalator or elevator. I have started my bachelor degree just a month. Yet I had lot to learn. And my father decide he will buy me a computer. But I don't know how to buy a computer. Moreover I didn't know what shall I say to the shop. May be something like this: This Idea was before 1996:) Me: I want to buy computer. shopkeeper: What Kind of computer do you want? Me: The black one and make sure the mouse is not Plague infected. Shopkeeper: How much powerful do you want? Me: 10HP may be In Bangladesh Computer is awfully expensive. 40,000 taka is outstanding high for us(at that time it was like $800 may be but not sure. and its a big amount). Anyway my father asked his brother in law about it. He requested two boy living in his neighbor. They were computer something(cant remember what they were, actually never knew). They agreed to assist us. Then the golden day came. I woke up very early in the morning. Probably 4:30 am in the morning. Finished my morning prayer. then I started my longest waiting. Around 9:00 clock those two boy arrived. Then we started a longest journey to New Elephant Road. Perfect for me. I was the New Elephant going to New Elephant Road(I was 101 Kilo. i.e. 222.2lb) 3 wheeler with 3 stroke engine was carrying us. Anyway I was not that dumb to ask for computer with 10HP. It was the idea of mine when I was in high school. But the computer shop was shocking for me. Scattered boxes, random things organized in the rack I don't understand any of them. But there was no computer around. Well, my father told them the budget. My father took a good budget. Because most of other people do the budget around 30K but for me it was 40k. After reaching the shop my father asked to the shopkeeper "Does Sony make Computer?". Well, to my father SONY(the japanese company) was something like hercules, Supreme of all. Then the shopkeeper said. you can get the cdrom from SONY :)
RCA COSMAC ViP (1977) using the CHIP-8 interpreted language. It came in a kit form, and I hooked it up to an old 13" B&W TV set I found in the garage. what fun! here's a ref: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COSMAC\_VIP very amusing story, btw. always wanted a plague-infected mouse; can't get them here in the States.
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Aah memories. My earliest memories are of a DOS machine. We were kids and we didn't know much about computers. But we learnt to play games. Prince of Persia, Commander Keen, Pong were big hits. So was nibbles on QBASIC. In fact nibbles.bas is probably the first program I saw in my life. Once we tried to load windows from within DOS (I think you had to type WIN at the command prompt) it was the most beautiful thing I had seen on a computer. But alas, it conked out saying we had to get a mouse to use it. I've been hooked ever since! Thank you for your post. Brought a smile to my face. :)
If you need a hammer get C and shut up. If you need a nail gun get C++ and shut up. If you don't need *those* things (and good design should tell you) then by all means get a factory, factory, factory. --code-frog Why would you need to date, when C++ is your soul mate?! --Steve Echols
-
You make me feel old. I was using computers back in 1979. The first computer of my own was a ZX81 then a ZX Spectrum. That creaking noise you hear is my nostalgia kicking in!
------------------------------------ I will never again mention that I was the poster of the One Millionth Lounge Post, nor that it was complete drivel. Dalek Dave CCC Link[^] Trolls[^]
Same here - I built my ZX81 from kit
==================================== Transvestites - Roberts in Disguise! ====================================
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RCA COSMAC ViP (1977) using the CHIP-8 interpreted language. It came in a kit form, and I hooked it up to an old 13" B&W TV set I found in the garage. what fun! here's a ref: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COSMAC\_VIP very amusing story, btw. always wanted a plague-infected mouse; can't get them here in the States.
thank you
I know I am coward since the day I know that fortune favors the brave
-
You make me feel old. I was using computers back in 1979. The first computer of my own was a ZX81 then a ZX Spectrum. That creaking noise you hear is my nostalgia kicking in!
------------------------------------ I will never again mention that I was the poster of the One Millionth Lounge Post, nor that it was complete drivel. Dalek Dave CCC Link[^] Trolls[^]
I started with Zx Spectrum 48K in 1984. Then i used also my sister's Amstrad CPC512 (CP/M, word processing). In 1989 i started with Commodore Amiga 500 and in 1992 I got my Amiga 3000T....(the best computer i ever had ;) ). In 1993 i bought a PC to use CAD software for building expansion cards for my Amiga 3000T. After 1996 i solely use PCs :confused: and little endian architectures.....
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RCA COSMAC ViP (1977) using the CHIP-8 interpreted language. It came in a kit form, and I hooked it up to an old 13" B&W TV set I found in the garage. what fun! here's a ref: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COSMAC\_VIP very amusing story, btw. always wanted a plague-infected mouse; can't get them here in the States.
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Netronics Elf II from 1978. I still have it and also some old tapes with CHIP-8 games :)
And from the clouds a mighty voice spoke:
"Smile and be happy, for it could come worse!"And I smiled and was happy
And it came worse. -
wow! I'm impressed. I'll be even more impressed if you tell me the tapes can still be read ;-)
They can, amazing as it may be. And a while ago I wrote a little program to sample the tapes as WAV files and then analyze the sound file to reconstruct the binary file. It also can take a binary file and convert it to a sound file. [oops]Did I not promise to update that tool and add support for the VIP tape format?[/oops]
And from the clouds a mighty voice spoke:
"Smile and be happy, for it could come worse!"And I smiled and was happy
And it came worse. -
Year 1998, I started Learning about the wonder (computer). I was in high school I realized RAM is the biggest deal. But yet I didn't know how it looks. As a matter of fact I learned the monitor as a minor thing in year 2000 when I started my University. Year 2000, I left Chittagong. Cause my father was just retired. Chittagong was his working place. So, We moved to Dhaka. My getting fat day started. All I did was watch cable, eat and sleep sometime went go my aunt house. That was only physical exercise I used to do. From ground floor I had to Ride 5 storied building. no escalator or elevator. I have started my bachelor degree just a month. Yet I had lot to learn. And my father decide he will buy me a computer. But I don't know how to buy a computer. Moreover I didn't know what shall I say to the shop. May be something like this: This Idea was before 1996:) Me: I want to buy computer. shopkeeper: What Kind of computer do you want? Me: The black one and make sure the mouse is not Plague infected. Shopkeeper: How much powerful do you want? Me: 10HP may be In Bangladesh Computer is awfully expensive. 40,000 taka is outstanding high for us(at that time it was like $800 may be but not sure. and its a big amount). Anyway my father asked his brother in law about it. He requested two boy living in his neighbor. They were computer something(cant remember what they were, actually never knew). They agreed to assist us. Then the golden day came. I woke up very early in the morning. Probably 4:30 am in the morning. Finished my morning prayer. then I started my longest waiting. Around 9:00 clock those two boy arrived. Then we started a longest journey to New Elephant Road. Perfect for me. I was the New Elephant going to New Elephant Road(I was 101 Kilo. i.e. 222.2lb) 3 wheeler with 3 stroke engine was carrying us. Anyway I was not that dumb to ask for computer with 10HP. It was the idea of mine when I was in high school. But the computer shop was shocking for me. Scattered boxes, random things organized in the rack I don't understand any of them. But there was no computer around. Well, my father told them the budget. My father took a good budget. Because most of other people do the budget around 30K but for me it was 40k. After reaching the shop my father asked to the shopkeeper "Does Sony make Computer?". Well, to my father SONY(the japanese company) was something like hercules, Supreme of all. Then the shopkeeper said. you can get the cdrom from SONY :)
My first was a UK101 kit computer, bought 1979 I think. I was living in a single rented room and by the time I got back from the shop with it, it was already about 9pm. Set to with the soldering iron, soldering in all the sockets and discreet components, plenty of burnt fingers. Left the biggest sockets till last, so I had some "experience" with the easier ones. This of course meant the (6502) processor socket was last to be soldered on to the motherboard. Gone midnight now, very tired. Still, soldered it in carefully and there was no way that baby was ever coming out. Started slotting in the chips - memory (both the 4096bit chips, giving a total 1kb memory) then the logic gates and finally - the 6502. :omg: :omg: :doh: :sigh: :( I'd only gone and soldered the 6502 socket on the wrong side of the board!! God knows how I'd managed to do that; just too tired by then, I guess. Well, there was no way I could unsolder the socket, so all looked doomed. Until inspiration struck; very VERY carefully bend each pin 180 degrees so all pins were pointing UPWARDS instead of down, and effectively fit the chip upside down. (Anyone who's worked with those chips knows the pins can break off very easily if too much stress is put on them, but by 2am I'd reversed them all and the chip was finally in place - sort of. You can't imagine the relief when I powered up, tuned in the telly (no monitor!) and saw that little blinking cursor inviting me to start tapping in machine code. That UK101 ran for years, I doubled the CPU clock, filled out the RAM to 8Kb then "piggybacked" another 16 chips on top, with separate loose wires for the top-bit addressing, added a sound chip, doubled - then quadrupled - the baud rate to the cassette player, and doubled the video ram (again, piggybacking one chip on top of another) to double the screen resolution. With this super-fast, massively extended UK101 I visited a few computer clubs (remember them?) and other UK101 owners would take a peek at the board.... WHERE's THE PROCESSOR??? All they could see were some filled-in holes in the motherboard where the 6502 socket should be. Got some very weird looks... :-\