Sure they're useful to anyone. My first computer, a TRS-80 CoCo, was given
to me by my parents in 1990 or 1991... quite a while after they had gone
out of style (They got it at a garage sale for $90 or something). I didn't
get any magazines with it, but I did get loads of books... that first day,
I must have gotten through the first 5 chapters in the BASIC programming
book.. and I had a ball with it. People at Rat Snack laughed at me and
told me to get a REAL copmuter (286 or 386..heh), that I couldn't do
anything with this machine... I laughed at them because I had hours of fun
playing Space Invaders, Shooting Gallery and Wildcatting (I actually still
have that cart, even though I no longer have the computer :( )... and then
came my second computer, and apple IIe :)
Kevin
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
After sifting through the overwritten remaining blocks of Luke's
home directory, Luke and PDP-1 sped away from /u/lars, across the surface
of the Winchester riding Luke's flying read/write head. PDP-1 had Luke stop
at the edge of the cylinder overlooking /usr/spool/uucp.
"Unix-to-Unix Copy Program;" said PDP-1. "You will never find a
more wretched hive of bugs and flamers. We must be cautious."
-- DECWARS
____________________________________________________________________
| Kevin Stewart | "I am a secret |
| KC8BLL ----------| Wrapped in a mystery -Milford High School |
| a2k_at_one.net | Wrapped in an enigma Drama Tech Dept. |
|jlennon_at_nether.net| And drizzled in some tasty chocolate stuff.|
--------------------------------------------------------------------
On Fri, 16 Apr 1999, Sellam Ismail wrote:
> On Fri, 16 Apr 1999, Tony Duell wrote:
>
> > However, for people starting out, getting their first computer, they are
> > going to want to be able to use the software from the local PC shop.
> > They're going to want to be able to use the 'learn to use your home
> > computer' type magazines. And, unfortuantely, you can't use a PDPx or a
> > PERQ or a TRS-80 or an Apple ][ or a PET or a BBC or a ... for any of
> > that. Sure _we_ can get these machines to do useful work, but probably
> > others can't.
>
> Sure, anyone can. Just deliver them an old home computer with a stack of
> books and magazines that were published around it and they could figure
> anything out. You can find old issues of Nibble, Incider, A+ for the
> Apple ][ in lots of places. I'm sure the prevailing magazines for the
> other common machines can be found just as easily. Of course a PERQ or
> PDP would be a different story, but the home micros are well documented.
>
> > I'm even more amazed by the amount of test equipment that I've been given
> > as 'beyond repair' that's had trivial faults. It's one thing that the
> > little-old-lady can't fix the TV (even if the only fault is a wire off in
> > the plug), but an electronic engineer who can't find an blown fuse in
> > some expensive piece of equipment? What is this world coming to?
>
> I've gotten some real good test equipment that had only trivial faults for
> real cheap. Now to find those faults and fix them :)
>
> Sellam Alternate e-mail: dastar_at_siconic.com
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Don't rub the lamp if you don't want the genie to come out.
>
> Coming this October 2-3: Vintage Computer Festival 3.0!
> See http://www.vintage.org/vcf for details!
> [Last web site update: 04/03/99]
>
Received on Sat Apr 17 1999 - 09:45:14 BST