There were 3 of us geeks (Chuck, Mark, and myself). Chuck's parents got him a C64 and a tape drive. We spent countless hours hacking on that thing. Then he con'd his mom into a floppy drive. Ah, now "we" had a real machine. The next expense he talked her out of was a HexMon cartridge. We entered the world of Assembly. Mark's parents got him a Sinclair and tape drive. I was the poor one that had to "borrow" time.
I inherited a Vic-20 from my friend Ted. He was a drummer...not a computer geek. His mom would always bitch when we fired it up. It generated a large amount of interference on the TV. Messed up her viewing of Magnum P.I. The first computer I actually "owned" would be a C64. The guy I was working for snorted all his profits and went out of business. He gave me the computer system as payment for bad payroll checks. A good trade. It came with a cartridge that double the columns on the screen. Also included a "thermal" printer, dual floppies and modem (1200 I think). My cousin had been given a C64-C (of thin cased) for Christmas before I got mine. His package came with GEOS and Q-Link disks. He was only interested in "games"...so I got those toys. I racked up a $100 bill playing with Q-Link. Ouch. That hurts when you're a teenager. I used GEOS to draw up schematics for some of my electronic designs. When I showed this to the Senior Engineer at the company I was working for...he took me under his wing and gave me a chance in the development dept. The boss man financed the purchase of a used IBM Model 5150 w/ fast CPU (4.77Mhz I think). This baby had a CGA card, max'd RAM, 2 Seagate 20meg harddrives and a full-height floppy. Also had a REAL IBM CGA monitor. The best part about that machine was the keyboard...you could beat on that thing for days and not do it any harm. Bill Turner -----Original Message----- From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Alex Smith (K4RNT) Sent: Saturday, February 06, 2010 2:57 PM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: [nlug] First Computer Commodore 64 here. Still love that machine to death. :) On Sat, Feb 6, 2010 at 14:35, Michael Schultheiss <[email protected]> wrote: > Curt Lundgren wrote: >> OK, if we're digging into the past, and if I may be so bold as to >> suggest a slight expansion of the topic, in what year did you get your >> first computer and what was it? > > My first computer was a Timex Sinclair 1000. I'm not sure when I got it > but since Wikipedia said it was released in July 1982 and discontinued > in 1983, December 1982 is probably a decent estimate. > > The membrane keyboard on it died a few years after we got it so we got > rid of it. I got another Timex Sinclair 1000 off of eBay a few years > ago. -- " ' With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censured, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably.' Those words were uttered by Judge Aaron Satie as wisdom and warning... The first time any man's freedom is trodden on we’re all damaged." - Jean-Luc Picard, quoting Judge Aaron Satie, Star Trek: TNG episode "The Drumhead" - Alex Smith (K4RNT) - Nashville-Davidson County, Tennessee USA -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "NLUG" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/nlug-talk?hl=en -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "NLUG" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/nlug-talk?hl=en
