--- Mike Ford <mikeford_at_socal.rr.com> wrote:
> How many people on this list still have their 1st computer? second?
> third?
> every computer you ever used/owned?
The first computer I spent any length of time in front of (not counting
school/boy scout trips to places that had computers) was something owned
by the Columbus Public Schools. It used mark-sense cards and had a
single-line alphanumeric display, possibly a 14-segment per character
amber flourescent display, with a "lazy T" prompt. The prompt was
distinctive - it had the right most segments set and the middle segment
set - like a 7-segment "3" missing the top and bottom horizontal segments.
It didn't do much. I have no idea who the vendor was, but it was no
larger than a desk-top calculator on a pedestal card. They took it
from school to school on career days and the like, circa 1976.
The next one I played with was a Plato terminal at OSU, and a DECwriter II
with acoustic coupler, dialed into a (I think) RSTS machine to play BASIC
games.
The first one I had unlimited access to was a 4K PET at the downtown
public library, circa 1977.
The first one I owned was a 32K PET 2001 w/BASIC 2.0, white phosphor,
and a single C2N - $1,100 slightly used (less than a fortnight before
it was returned to the dealer by the initial purchaser), in 1978 or 1979.
The second one I owned was a Quest Elf kit.
Third was a C-64 that I got at my first-ever job, programming it for
money six months before it was released (my employer got one direct from
C= as a freebie for development). I was 15 when I started using it,
17 when they gave it to me.
My first mini was a PDP-8/L - $35 plus some trade goods (the contents
of my pockets and everything in my arms at the time) at the Dayton
Hamvention in 1982. I didn't see any docs until 1984. I'd mostly fixed
it, but I got one M111 out of place near the A40 spot (by the power-
fail/restart card) and it didn't *exactly* work until I saw the prints,
spotted the gap and moved the right card over one spot to the right place.
It's now the one I show off to guests, complete with ASR-33 and high-speed
punch and reader.
I have, more or less, those first computers and beyond. I say more or
less because that first C-64 was replaced under warranty and I don't have
that precise one... pity, really... it was S/N 000002007. I _do_ have
the replacement, S/N 000002354. The reason it was replaced was that
initial VIC chip had a bug that caused it to generate a light-pen
interrupt when it got hot (3-4 hours of use in an un-airconditioned
room). Since there was no IRQ handler, it went to the blue-on-blue
screen with "READY.", as if you hit the RUN-STOP/RESTORE keys.
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Received on Wed Jan 30 2002 - 12:50:24 GMT