My First Computer, The only computer I bought ever
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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[^]
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
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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 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... :-\
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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... :-\
You bent all pins of the CPU without breaking some off and without killing it with a little static discharge? Some people have all the luck. My first computer was a kit as well and everything was CMOS. I would not have gotten away with this. But I still have the old computer and actually zapped only few ICs in all that time.
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. -
yes, you did have to type "WIN". that is, I did, until I got smart and put it as the last line of my autoexec.bat file. ahh, you young whippersnappers have it so easy these days...
win /386 is how we used to roll :)
The best way to accelerate a Macintosh is at 9.8m/sec-sec - Marcus Dolengo
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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.
Mine was the RCA COSMAC kit from 1976. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COSMAC\_ELF Still have it too, though it was quickly supplanted first by a Z80 kit, followed by one of the early Apple II computers (took a second part-time job to earn the money for that one). Didn't keep any of those though; it was already becoming clear to me that this year's computer hardware was next year's hopelessly obsolete junk. (That trend finally seems to have slacked off in computers altho it still applies to smartphones and tablets). --- janet
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Mine was the RCA COSMAC kit from 1976. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COSMAC\_ELF Still have it too, though it was quickly supplanted first by a Z80 kit, followed by one of the early Apple II computers (took a second part-time job to earn the money for that one). Didn't keep any of those though; it was already becoming clear to me that this year's computer hardware was next year's hopelessly obsolete junk. (That trend finally seems to have slacked off in computers altho it still applies to smartphones and tablets). --- janet
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Z80? You willingly switched sides and joined the enemy? :)
I'm invincible, I can't be vinced
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Did you build the original Elf or a kit like my Elf II? Above we had somebody with a VIP, so we can slowly start a club :)
I'm invincible, I can't be vinced
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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 :)
My first computer was a portable teletype like machine with built in acoustin coupled 300 baud modem and thermal paper (for output). Myu father worked for Xerox (Lewisville texas, not PARC) and brought it home for WORK. He used it to play Chess and used it to play Zork. Later we got one of their 820 systems which sucked beacuse because it had nothing in common with the Apple ][ which was the hot machine back then. It ran CPM and had dual 8-inch floppy system which was about as good as a frisby for storage (frequent head crashes). One advantage of the 820 system was that it came with a Diablo daisy wheel printer which meant I could use the word processor for my school papers. Back then teachers would not accept anything printed on dot matirx but the daisy wheel was indistinguishable from a typewriter. I spent a lot of time at the local compu-shop on the Apples and became the sales guys unofficial tech resource. After HS graduation I got my first real computer, an Apple ][c which was compact enough to take to and from college. Unfortunately the monitor was not.
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My first computer was a portable teletype like machine with built in acoustin coupled 300 baud modem and thermal paper (for output). Myu father worked for Xerox (Lewisville texas, not PARC) and brought it home for WORK. He used it to play Chess and used it to play Zork. Later we got one of their 820 systems which sucked beacuse because it had nothing in common with the Apple ][ which was the hot machine back then. It ran CPM and had dual 8-inch floppy system which was about as good as a frisby for storage (frequent head crashes). One advantage of the 820 system was that it came with a Diablo daisy wheel printer which meant I could use the word processor for my school papers. Back then teachers would not accept anything printed on dot matirx but the daisy wheel was indistinguishable from a typewriter. I spent a lot of time at the local compu-shop on the Apples and became the sales guys unofficial tech resource. After HS graduation I got my first real computer, an Apple ][c which was compact enough to take to and from college. Unfortunately the monitor was not.
Ahh yes, the old days .... My first PC-type computer experience was a friends Apple II that we proceeded to rebuild and rebuild and rebuild. I dont know how many Beagle brothers products we installed .. . I think a gazillion .. and re-installed and tweaked and re-installed and untweaked! :-D My own first PC was a Columbia (IBM clone) with 256 kb, 2x 360k floppies, 2 serial ports! and and a CGA graphics card!!! Had the green screen monitor so the colors were green or white. Ran DOS (1.1 through 5)and CPM on that old thing. Even wrote a small interupt process that would allow you to crudely multi-task... The last interation was 1 MB mem with 2 30MB MFM harddrives!, 12 inch color monitor and 1 360kb floppy running DOS 5. I also remember what a pain it was to get those two harddrives to work together but it was easier than working with two RLL drives. :cool: Even scarier is that I still have that PC AND it still boots up and runs! Although I have to admit it is slower than watching paint dry or grass grow. :-D
Cegarman document code? If it's not intuitive, you're in the wrong field :D
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Ahh yes, the old days .... My first PC-type computer experience was a friends Apple II that we proceeded to rebuild and rebuild and rebuild. I dont know how many Beagle brothers products we installed .. . I think a gazillion .. and re-installed and tweaked and re-installed and untweaked! :-D My own first PC was a Columbia (IBM clone) with 256 kb, 2x 360k floppies, 2 serial ports! and and a CGA graphics card!!! Had the green screen monitor so the colors were green or white. Ran DOS (1.1 through 5)and CPM on that old thing. Even wrote a small interupt process that would allow you to crudely multi-task... The last interation was 1 MB mem with 2 30MB MFM harddrives!, 12 inch color monitor and 1 360kb floppy running DOS 5. I also remember what a pain it was to get those two harddrives to work together but it was easier than working with two RLL drives. :cool: Even scarier is that I still have that PC AND it still boots up and runs! Although I have to admit it is slower than watching paint dry or grass grow. :-D
Cegarman document code? If it's not intuitive, you're in the wrong field :D
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Ahh yes, the old days .... My first PC-type computer experience was a friends Apple II that we proceeded to rebuild and rebuild and rebuild. I dont know how many Beagle brothers products we installed .. . I think a gazillion .. and re-installed and tweaked and re-installed and untweaked! :-D My own first PC was a Columbia (IBM clone) with 256 kb, 2x 360k floppies, 2 serial ports! and and a CGA graphics card!!! Had the green screen monitor so the colors were green or white. Ran DOS (1.1 through 5)and CPM on that old thing. Even wrote a small interupt process that would allow you to crudely multi-task... The last interation was 1 MB mem with 2 30MB MFM harddrives!, 12 inch color monitor and 1 360kb floppy running DOS 5. I also remember what a pain it was to get those two harddrives to work together but it was easier than working with two RLL drives. :cool: Even scarier is that I still have that PC AND it still boots up and runs! Although I have to admit it is slower than watching paint dry or grass grow. :-D
Cegarman document code? If it's not intuitive, you're in the wrong field :D
My second system was the best personal computer built in the 80's, an Amiga 1000. Did the old memory stack hack mentioned in other posts to double the ram to either 512k or an insane 1mb. Cant remember which, I think it was 1mb. Bought some software (and some casio drum pads) and built an interface to one of the ports that turned it into an electronic drum kit. Too bad Commodore couldn't market their way out of a wet paper bag. Must have been all ex Xerox marketing people. I don't think I've ever purchased a pre-built PC desktop system. Used to get all the parts from Computer Shopper and build it myself. Now it's New Egg but the process is the same.
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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 :)
Wow, 30 GB was really a lot back then. On 1997 I purchased an excellent Micron (brand) laptop with 3GB, and 512Mb ram, and it felt huge in capacity. It lasted until 2004, really a good machine.