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Your First Development Machine?

Scheduled Pinned Locked Moved The Lounge
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  • K Offline
    K Offline
    Kevin Marois
    wrote on last edited by
    #1

    I taught myself GW-Basic on this Zenith 120[^] back in 1985 while in the Marine Corps. I still have the book

    If it's not broken, fix it until it is

    K S OriginalGriffO P E 48 Replies Last reply
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    • K Kevin Marois

      I taught myself GW-Basic on this Zenith 120[^] back in 1985 while in the Marine Corps. I still have the book

      If it's not broken, fix it until it is

      K Offline
      K Offline
      Keith Barrow
      wrote on last edited by
      #2

      ZX Spectrum 48k[^] 1983 & at home. Mostly stuff from Byte magazine and stuff garnered from the BBC's various publications at the time. I wonder how many times the Spectrum has paid for itself since I started coding for a living, probably the best financial help my Grandma ever gave come to think of it.

      PB 369,783 wrote:

      I just find him very unlikeable, and I think the way he looks like a prettier version of his Mum is very disturbing.[^]

      K R F 3 Replies Last reply
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      • K Keith Barrow

        ZX Spectrum 48k[^] 1983 & at home. Mostly stuff from Byte magazine and stuff garnered from the BBC's various publications at the time. I wonder how many times the Spectrum has paid for itself since I started coding for a living, probably the best financial help my Grandma ever gave come to think of it.

        PB 369,783 wrote:

        I just find him very unlikeable, and I think the way he looks like a prettier version of his Mum is very disturbing.[^]

        K Offline
        K Offline
        Kevin Marois
        wrote on last edited by
        #3

        Hooked up to the tele?

        If it's not broken, fix it until it is

        K 1 Reply Last reply
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        • K Kevin Marois

          I taught myself GW-Basic on this Zenith 120[^] back in 1985 while in the Marine Corps. I still have the book

          If it's not broken, fix it until it is

          S Offline
          S Offline
          Simon_Whale
          wrote on last edited by
          #4

          BBC Micro B[^] in 1987

          Every day, thousands of innocent plants are killed by vegetarians. Help end the violence EAT BACON

          L 1 Reply Last reply
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          • K Kevin Marois

            I taught myself GW-Basic on this Zenith 120[^] back in 1985 while in the Marine Corps. I still have the book

            If it's not broken, fix it until it is

            OriginalGriffO Offline
            OriginalGriffO Offline
            OriginalGriff
            wrote on last edited by
            #5

            At uni, it was an ICL 1900[^], but for actual work it was a Prime 400[^] at the Rutherford Laboratory, Harwell - 0.5 MIPS, 2MB of RAM and 160MB of HDD - and played a mean Colossal Cave! Twenty users! VDU's!

            The only instant messaging I do involves my middle finger.

            "I have no idea what I did, but I'm taking full credit for it." - ThisOldTony
            "Common sense is so rare these days, it should be classified as a super power" - Random T-shirt

            S 1 Reply Last reply
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            • K Keith Barrow

              ZX Spectrum 48k[^] 1983 & at home. Mostly stuff from Byte magazine and stuff garnered from the BBC's various publications at the time. I wonder how many times the Spectrum has paid for itself since I started coding for a living, probably the best financial help my Grandma ever gave come to think of it.

              PB 369,783 wrote:

              I just find him very unlikeable, and I think the way he looks like a prettier version of his Mum is very disturbing.[^]

              R Offline
              R Offline
              Richard Deeming
              wrote on last edited by
              #6

              Same thing, except I had Input[^] instead of Byte.


              "These people looked deep within my soul and assigned me a number based on the order in which I joined." - Homer

              K 1 Reply Last reply
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              • R Richard Deeming

                Same thing, except I had Input[^] instead of Byte.


                "These people looked deep within my soul and assigned me a number based on the order in which I joined." - Homer

                K Offline
                K Offline
                Keith Barrow
                wrote on last edited by
                #7

                Nope, it was Input, not Byte. Funny how your mind plays tricks on you like this. They might even be in my parent's loft, I'll see if I can shin up there for a trip down memory lane. And I learned more from the mistakes, and the bits I had to fill in when the paper shop failed to deliver an issue, than I did from the main articles.

                PB 369,783 wrote:

                I just find him very unlikeable, and I think the way he looks like a prettier version of his Mum is very disturbing.[^]

                1 Reply Last reply
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                • K Kevin Marois

                  Hooked up to the tele?

                  If it's not broken, fix it until it is

                  K Offline
                  K Offline
                  Keith Barrow
                  wrote on last edited by
                  #8

                  Of course. And you could plug headphones into the output jack used for the tape recorder to listen to glorious 1-channel mono sound. Happy Days.

                  PB 369,783 wrote:

                  I just find him very unlikeable, and I think the way he looks like a prettier version of his Mum is very disturbing.[^]

                  1 Reply Last reply
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                  • K Kevin Marois

                    I taught myself GW-Basic on this Zenith 120[^] back in 1985 while in the Marine Corps. I still have the book

                    If it's not broken, fix it until it is

                    P Offline
                    P Offline
                    PIEBALDconsult
                    wrote on last edited by
                    #9

                    PDP-11 at the high school. First home system was an Amstrad 1512. Replaced the DR-DOS (or whatever) and its GEM interface X| with MS-DOS 4. Turbo Pascal, Turbo C, Turbo C++.

                    1 Reply Last reply
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                    • K Kevin Marois

                      I taught myself GW-Basic on this Zenith 120[^] back in 1985 while in the Marine Corps. I still have the book

                      If it's not broken, fix it until it is

                      E Offline
                      E Offline
                      enhzflep
                      wrote on last edited by
                      #10

                      386dx-33, in 92/93. It even had a Tseng Labs 24-bit svga adapter. Still got the book for DR-DOS 6.0 somewhere. Tried Turbo Pascal 6.0 for a few months before giving up in disgust and moving onto TASM. A slowish machine (as compared to machines available in 93), low memory-4mb, 64kb segmented memory and no floating point unit all helped one to hone a comprehensive understanding of the architecture. Though I never did get around to bank-switching the vga card to make use of any video modes needing more than 64k of memory. Directly programming the OPL registers in the sound-card was some fun too - none of this protected memory stuff. Just raw, naked access to the hardware. Yeah baby! Extremely limited vectors for catching virii tend to make one happy to have access to all memory at once. Video Mode 0x13h - oh how I remember thee!

                      char *screenPtr = 0xA0000;
                      screenPtr[x + y*320] = color;

                      "Science adjusts its views based on what's observed. Faith is the denial of observation, so that belief can be preserved." - Tim Minchin

                      1 Reply Last reply
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                      • K Kevin Marois

                        I taught myself GW-Basic on this Zenith 120[^] back in 1985 while in the Marine Corps. I still have the book

                        If it's not broken, fix it until it is

                        D Offline
                        D Offline
                        Dan Neely
                        wrote on last edited by
                        #11

                        I started puttering around with drawing shapes in ascii using tandy basic on Trash-80 color 2 with 4k of ram in the late 80's. Depending on if you counted the schools computer or my parents, my first real programming was turbo pascal on a 386 with 1(?)mb ram (theirs) on a 486-25 with 4mb in '96. I first got paid to develop on a D600 with a PM-1600 and either 2 or 4 GB of ram in 2005.

                        Did you ever see history portrayed as an old man with a wise brow and pulseless heart, waging all things in the balance of reason? Is not rather the genius of history like an eternal, imploring maiden, full of fire, with a burning heart and flaming soul, humanly warm and humanly beautiful? --Zachris Topelius Training a telescope on one’s own belly button will only reveal lint. You like that? You go right on staring at it. I prefer looking at galaxies. -- Sarah Hoyt

                        1 Reply Last reply
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                        • K Kevin Marois

                          I taught myself GW-Basic on this Zenith 120[^] back in 1985 while in the Marine Corps. I still have the book

                          If it's not broken, fix it until it is

                          R Offline
                          R Offline
                          Rage
                          wrote on last edited by
                          #12

                          Amstrad CPC 6128+[^] with floppy disk !

                          ~RaGE();

                          I think words like 'destiny' are a way of trying to find order where none exists. - Christian Graus Do not feed the troll ! - Common proverb

                          1 Reply Last reply
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                          • K Kevin Marois

                            I taught myself GW-Basic on this Zenith 120[^] back in 1985 while in the Marine Corps. I still have the book

                            If it's not broken, fix it until it is

                            R Offline
                            R Offline
                            R Giskard Reventlov
                            wrote on last edited by
                            #13

                            One of these: Commodore 64[^].

                            "If you think it's expensive to hire a professional to do the job, wait until you hire an amateur." Red Adair. Those who seek perfection will only find imperfection nils illegitimus carborundum me, me, me me, in pictures

                            L G 2 Replies Last reply
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                            • R R Giskard Reventlov

                              One of these: Commodore 64[^].

                              "If you think it's expensive to hire a professional to do the job, wait until you hire an amateur." Red Adair. Those who seek perfection will only find imperfection nils illegitimus carborundum me, me, me me, in pictures

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                              L Offline
                              Lost User
                              wrote on last edited by
                              #14

                              Ditto

                              Government is not reason; it is not eloquent; it is force. Like fire, it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master. ~ George Washington

                              R 1 Reply Last reply
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                              • K Kevin Marois

                                I taught myself GW-Basic on this Zenith 120[^] back in 1985 while in the Marine Corps. I still have the book

                                If it's not broken, fix it until it is

                                R Offline
                                R Offline
                                Ravi Bhavnani
                                wrote on last edited by
                                #15

                                IBM-PC AT (80286, 6MHz), 512K RAM, 20 MB hard disk, 2x floppy drives (5.25" 260K, 5.25" 1.2M), Hercules CGA video card, Princeton Graphics System color monitor, Okidata 192 Microline dot matrix printer, Rockwell 300 baud modem, MS-DOS 3.0, Lattice-C compiler.  Also 1985. /ravi

                                My new year resolution: 2048 x 1536 Home | Articles | My .NET bits | Freeware ravib(at)ravib(dot)com

                                E G 2 Replies Last reply
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                                • L Lost User

                                  Ditto

                                  Government is not reason; it is not eloquent; it is force. Like fire, it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master. ~ George Washington

                                  R Offline
                                  R Offline
                                  R Giskard Reventlov
                                  wrote on last edited by
                                  #16

                                  Mike Mullikin wrote:

                                  Ditto

                                  I've never heard of a 'Ditto'. Was that a special model? :-)

                                  "If you think it's expensive to hire a professional to do the job, wait until you hire an amateur." Red Adair. Those who seek perfection will only find imperfection nils illegitimus carborundum me, me, me me, in pictures

                                  L 1 Reply Last reply
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                                  • R R Giskard Reventlov

                                    Mike Mullikin wrote:

                                    Ditto

                                    I've never heard of a 'Ditto'. Was that a special model? :-)

                                    "If you think it's expensive to hire a professional to do the job, wait until you hire an amateur." Red Adair. Those who seek perfection will only find imperfection nils illegitimus carborundum me, me, me me, in pictures

                                    L Offline
                                    L Offline
                                    Lost User
                                    wrote on last edited by
                                    #17

                                    Yep, came with a cassette drive. Slow and buggy as hell! ;P

                                    Government is not reason; it is not eloquent; it is force. Like fire, it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master. ~ George Washington

                                    T 1 Reply Last reply
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                                    • K Kevin Marois

                                      I taught myself GW-Basic on this Zenith 120[^] back in 1985 while in the Marine Corps. I still have the book

                                      If it's not broken, fix it until it is

                                      T Offline
                                      T Offline
                                      Tim Carmichael
                                      wrote on last edited by
                                      #18

                                      In high school, Commodore PET with 16K of memory. Learned Commodore BASIC in class; self taught on Assembler.

                                      1 Reply Last reply
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                                      • R Ravi Bhavnani

                                        IBM-PC AT (80286, 6MHz), 512K RAM, 20 MB hard disk, 2x floppy drives (5.25" 260K, 5.25" 1.2M), Hercules CGA video card, Princeton Graphics System color monitor, Okidata 192 Microline dot matrix printer, Rockwell 300 baud modem, MS-DOS 3.0, Lattice-C compiler.  Also 1985. /ravi

                                        My new year resolution: 2048 x 1536 Home | Articles | My .NET bits | Freeware ravib(at)ravib(dot)com

                                        E Offline
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                                        enhzflep
                                        wrote on last edited by
                                        #19

                                        :thumbsup: Somehow Ravi, your post has reminded me of a particular scene from the Futurama series. The one where Bender is getting all hot and bothered at seeing the circuit diagrams of old robots.

                                        "Science adjusts its views based on what's observed. Faith is the denial of observation, so that belief can be preserved." - Tim Minchin

                                        R 1 Reply Last reply
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                                        • K Kevin Marois

                                          I taught myself GW-Basic on this Zenith 120[^] back in 1985 while in the Marine Corps. I still have the book

                                          If it's not broken, fix it until it is

                                          R Offline
                                          R Offline
                                          Roger Wright
                                          wrote on last edited by
                                          #20

                                          This one[^] :-D

                                          Will Rogers never met me.

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