Age

From: Richard A. Cini <rcini_at_optonline.net>
Date: Sat, 26 Feb 2005 21:26:01 +0000

OK, me to...

Born in 1967. My first computer was...hmmm...a Trash 80 Model I at the local
Radio Shack. This was quickly followed by the Commodore PETs in the school's
computer lab (which I quickly, er, borrowed the key for and made a copy of).
Got to know the janitors and spent lots of evenings there.

I then received a Commodore VIC-20 as a gift, which was my main machine
until I graduated high school, which would have been 1985. I bought a
complete Fat Mac system (astonishingly, I spent somewhere around $5,000 for
a complete system. $500 for a 1200-baud modem...eh gads.)

I would have stuck with a Mac except no one in B-school used them. My dad
brought home a PS/2 Model 50 from work which I used until I built my own.

I started collecting machines in about 1992 when I got that very same PET I
used at the middle school that I went to and from which I copied the
computer lab key. It was the same math teacher running the lab, too, 10
years later.

After that, I stuck with micros (mostly 6502-based Commodores and Apples)
until I got a PDP11, which I played with for a few years and then donated to
the RICM. Here and there, I picked up some Trash 80 stuff (Model 100), some
SBCs (KIM and AIM primarily), and a Northstar Horizon, plus some random
machines (ZX-81, Atari Portfolio).

Lately, I seem to be collecting mostly printed documentation. I have a
nearly complete set of BYTE magazines (from the interesting years). From
1975 to 1986 (135 issues), I'm missing only 13 issues (most of 1976). I have
a database of about 700 "interesting" article entries that someday I hope to
have posted to my Web site.


Rich
Received on Sat Feb 26 2005 - 21:18:33 GMT