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Old School Computers — Parallax Forums

Old School Computers

T&E EngineerT&E Engineer Posts: 1,396
edited 2005-10-12 13:59 in General Discussion
My first computer was the ZX81 which I built from a kit. Advertised as the first computer to break the $200 price barrier (non kit form - kits were $179 I think with 1K of RAM or the 16K memory pack for $99 more).

Those were the days and the SX Video module I bought reminds me of the low res graphics.

Later I moved on to an TRS-80 model III, Atari 400, Atari 800, Atari 800 XL, Atari 130XE, Comodore 64, SX-64, Amiga 500, Amiga 3000 (Great Computer!!) and finally when I kit college my first P60 pentium.

Lot's of fun in writing code / hacking code / etc..

Comments

  • BeanBean Posts: 8,129
    edited 2005-10-11 13:25
    I actually looked at the ZX81 ROM code for some of the video timing. So it's no wonder it looks familiar.
    I had a Timex Sinclair 1000 (same as a ZX81 only with 2K RAM).
    Bean.

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  • Chris SavageChris Savage Parallax Engineering Posts: 14,406
    edited 2005-10-11 14:17
    There is a thread for this particular subject just a few down.· Old-School Hackers.· =)

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    Chris Savage
    Parallax Tech Support
    csavage@parallax.com
  • LoopyBytelooseLoopyByteloose Posts: 12,537
    edited 2005-10-11 16:20
    Does the computer you learn on count as a first?

    My first computer was the University of Oregon's IBM360. For a mere 64K of memory, it took up an entirely separate building with air-conditioning and 3-phase power. And, you had to keypunch a stack of cards with one line of code for each card.

    I learned FORTRAN and received an A.

    My second computer was a RadioShack 'Color Computer' that used the TV for video and had a tape drive for memory storage.

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    G. Herzog in Taiwan
  • T&E EngineerT&E Engineer Posts: 1,396
    edited 2005-10-11 19:58
    Chris,

    Yea...you caught my mistake. I started reading through some of those posts on Old School stuff and mistakenly posted a new message instead of replying at the end.

    A lot of good memories all the same.

    Timothy Gilmore
  • Chris SavageChris Savage Parallax Engineering Posts: 14,406
    edited 2005-10-11 20:12
    So you can still join into the current thread...You can even remove your old post when you're done, then that won't be cross-posting...Either way.· Everyone was sharing their past experiences for awhile, but a lot of new members have joined since.

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    Chris Savage
    Parallax Tech Support
    csavage@parallax.com
  • LoopyBytelooseLoopyByteloose Posts: 12,537
    edited 2005-10-12 08:13
    I seem to think that 'Hacking' is a wider field [noparse][[/noparse]covers all of electronics] than 'Computing'. I feel that I was a 'hacker' for 12 years before I used computers in any real sense.· It may be a generational view point.

    I entered my first 'digital computer' above.

    Myfirst 'computer' was really an analog computer board with 3 potentiometers and big calibrated dials that fed into a bread board with a few components.

    The idea was to use it as an 'electronic slide rule'. Of course, the good old slide rule was never so big and didn't require electricity. So, it was really a trainer in hard-wiring non-linear functions. I think you could intergrate, differential, mutiply, divide, and sum.

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    G. Herzog in Taiwan

    Post Edited (Kramer) : 10/12/2005 8:16:45 AM GMT
  • Tom WalkerTom Walker Posts: 509
    edited 2005-10-12 13:59
    Kramer,
    It just so happens that I just yesterday saw an example of the analog computer you describe in the new book "Mechatronics for the Evil Genius". Some good basic projects, there....

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    Truly Understand the Fundamentals and the Path will be so much easier...
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