Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Nov 30, 2020 6:43:39 GMT
(CC BSA; Pic 1: SP; Pic 2: Museum Rotterdam 78017-A)
That was it. It was a monochrome monitor, too. Wow. I actually remember those from elementary school. We were being taught moving graphics. I thought it was insane and quit. I never wanted to see those things again. I had a similar one in university and threw it away once I was done. And now I spend my life on it. Hahaha.
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Nov 30, 2020 6:44:28 GMT
How about a picture? Or a link. Would be fun to see. (CC BSA; Pic 1: SP; Pic 2: Museum Rotterdam 78017-A)
Oh my, what dinosaurs.😄
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Nov 30, 2020 6:47:06 GMT
My first computer was a Timex Sinclair. I had the 16K extended memory too! $30 at K-Mart. The monitor was an old black and white TV chassis mounted in a cardboard box and insulated with duct tape. I patched in a keyboard I got out of the trash from an old Wang with some ribbon cable, and the storage was a miniature cassette tape recorder I had dragged around with me in the service. I longed for a Commodore 64 but it was far beyond my price range.
Sinclair basic was great to learn on, but then I dove into machine code and it became real. I actually wrote a flight simulator, but it never really worked that well. In fact, it was terrible. But it was educational.
I understood what the IBM360-70 mainframe was for, but I considered small computers to be mere toys and I didn't understand why so many of my friends were so interested in them. My astronomy club meetings turned into computer hobbyist meetings and no one could explain to me why anyone needed a computer!
Then I saw a spreadsheet program for the first time (SuperCalc, I believe) and the light in my brain came on like a chorus of angels. Then I understood what computers are for.
The first real machines I had were a pair of Sirius 9000's with 5-1/4 floppies and 8088 processors followed by Leading Edge 8086 running at a whopping 4.7 MHz. It had a Turbo switch on it which would boost the speed to 7.5 MHz, if I recall. I actually still have an old Dolch 386 luggable around here with a 20Meg hard drive that I still use for special things from time to time.
How things have changed! Now most people carry computers around in their pockets that are orders of magnitude more powerful than that old IBM mainframe and they have no idea what a miracle that is. Truly miraculous!
I knew it. Some kind of genius. And that's why your poetry covers look like science books!
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Nov 30, 2020 6:53:24 GMT
My first computer was a Timex Sinclair. I had the 16K extended memory too! $30 at K-Mart. The monitor was an old black and white TV chassis mounted in a cardboard box and insulated with duct tape. I patched in a keyboard I got out of the trash from an old Wang with some ribbon cable, and the storage was a miniature cassette tape recorder I had dragged around with me in the service. I longed for a Commodore 64 but it was far beyond my price range.
Sinclair basic was great to learn on, but then I dove into machine code and it became real. I actually wrote a flight simulator, but it never really worked that well. In fact, it was terrible. But it was educational.
I understood what the IBM360-70 mainframe was for, but I considered small computers to be mere toys and I didn't understand why so many of my friends were so interested in them. My astronomy club meetings turned into computer hobbyist meetings and no one could explain to me why anyone needed a computer!
Then I saw a spreadsheet program for the first time (SuperCalc, I believe) and the light in my brain came on like a chorus of angels. Then I understood what computers are for.
The first real machines I had were a pair of Sirius 9000's with 5-1/4 floppies and 8088 processors followed by Leading Edge 8086 running at a whopping 4.7 MHz. It had a Turbo switch on it which would boost the speed to 7.5 MHz, if I recall. I actually still have an old Dolch 386 luggable around here with a 20Meg hard drive that I still use for special things from time to time.
How things have changed! Now most people carry computers around in their pockets that are orders of magnitude more powerful than that old IBM mainframe and they have no idea what a miracle that is. Truly miraculous!
I knew it. Some kind of genius. And that's why your poetry covers look like science books! And even better; a scientist who believes in God! You made my day for coming out. 😉
|
|
|
Post by Ken on Nov 30, 2020 11:58:00 GMT
Then I saw a Spreadsheet for the first time.Yes, spreadsheets are what turned hobby electronics into business machines. The first spreadsheet was VisiCalc released in 1979 for the Apple II, and it was this that really sparked the desktop computing revolution. Supercalc using CP/M followed later in 1980 and was bundled with the Osborne computer. Supercalc was superseded by Lotus 1-2-3 and was favoured on IBM PCs whilst VisiCalc was also followed by Lotus 1-2-3. Microsoft was now making inroads with their DOS operating system and the original spreadsheets were soon surpassed by Excel. The reason that all these spreadsheets found such success was that although they could easily be used for simple arithmetic manipulations they could be automated to provide live time applications. It is these and also software databases that revolutionized computing in the latter decades of the 20th Century. Although my first excursions with desktop computers were Apple products I too started using the The Victor 9000 / Sirius S1 which was conceived by Chuck Peddle in 1980, who also designed the first Commodore PETs. This machine was quite innovative and superior in many points to the original IBM PC, on of the key features was being able to easily copy floppy disks, one to another. It met a certain success in Europe as the IBM PC was not yet available there, whereas the Sirius S1 (european name of the Victor 9000) was. ACT sold a lot of these systems in UK, and their first "homemade" computer, the Apricot PC, borrowed a lot to the Sirius S1. I was fortunate to be able to sell hundreds of these for DTP as well as military applications. Sirius S1
|
|
|
Post by BlueAndGold on Nov 30, 2020 13:11:06 GMT
Ah! Thank you for the correction. The 9000 was Called a Victor. I knew it was big in Europe under the Sirius name but couldn't remember the Victor name. And you are right in that it was far beyond the IBM PC in features. It had a CODEC in it and could be made to speak. The PC could only beep. The 5-1/4" floppy drives could actually store 1.2Meg due to their variable speeds and spiral format whereas the PC's sectored disks could store only 360K, or whatever. The final version of it had a Winchester 10Meg hard drive the size and weight of a brick!
Unfortunately, the company officers grew heady with their success and spent the company into the ground on junckets to the Bahamas and such. They could very well have been the next Apple or Dell. Another sad story of minds and hearts poisoned by success..
|
|
|
Post by BlueAndGold on Nov 30, 2020 13:12:41 GMT
By the way, I'm pretty sure I still have a couple of Victor floppies around here with CPM and DOS 1.25a. Might even have a copy of WordStar
|
|
|
Post by Ken on Nov 30, 2020 14:41:33 GMT
Yes, I remember those hard disks. On the same subject the Sirius supported a large variety of computer languages. Rather than repeating them here there is an excellent list on Wiki. - en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_programming_languagesI used to be quite productive with Pascal as well as Basic. But in the early days of the 6502, 8080 etc machine code was my Raison d’etre.
|
|