Your First Computer
- Thread starter CrittendenWildcat
- Start date
Yes, paper tape and punch cards. They were an advancement for me. The first job I had after leaving the military in 1979 was in the remittance processing center of a bank. To activate the system required that the 50 boot up commands be entered manually via switches. There were eight 0/1 switches that identified the memory location and eight 0/1 switches for data.
Set switches for memory location. 10000001
Set switches for data. 11001011
Press ENTER button.
Repeat 49 more times to enter data into the boot up memory locations.
Then press START button to boot up computer.
This system was shut down at midnight on Friday and booted up at 11pm on Sunday.
Is anyone familiar with REMITTANCE PROCESSING?
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An IBM maybe? It had a huge monitor. This was the late 90's. Sometimes AOL would be busy for an hour before you could log on. Usually between 4 and 6 pm you would just get a busy signal.
Yep, 10MB HD was top of the line hardware.
hackaday.com
Trying (and Failing) To Restore A 1970s CDC 10MB Hard Drive
One fun aspect of 1970s-era hard disk drives is that they are big, clunky and are fairly easy to repair without the need for a clean room. A less fun aspect is that they are 1970s-era HDDs and thus…
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Austin - The Timex Sinclair forced you to become a highly EFFICIENT coder. LOL
Machine Language - boy that brings back a flood of memories that I thought I'd dealt with permanently. LOL
Machine Language - boy that brings back a flood of memories that I thought I'd dealt with permanently. LOL
You got me. Never heard of this brand, so I had to wiki.Spectravideo SVI-738
The computer was marketed mainly in Europe, Australasia and the Middle East. In Poland, 2000 units were marketed in 1986 by Centralna Składnica Harcerska at a price of 440 000 PLZ[1] (the average salary for 18 months at that time[2]). This was the only MSX computer to be sold in official network in communist Poland.[1] This version of the SVI-738 was equipped with an altered keyboard and ROM in order to provide Polish-specific characters.[1] It could also be found in schools in Finland[citation needed]. In Spain, it was initially distributed by Indescomp until the creation of a Spanish subsidiary. In the United Kingdom, it was sold for £399.95. The SVI-738 was also sold in the United States.
SVI-738 - Wikipedia
Growing up, the first cpu I remember was an older apple followed by a TI model which I don't remember. What I do remember is the Commodore 64 and the Vic 20 but the 64 was MUCH better for what I liked to do which was play games. Those huge Quill floppys hold a special place in my heart. I loved it as the atari joystick was straight plug and play. Games I enjoyed back then: Winter Olympics, Wild West, Strip Poker (digital boobs never looked so good at the time), One on One featuring Dr J and Larry Bird, and Zaxxon. Good times. My Lord we have come a long way in a relative short amount of time.
First PC Game I ever played: Leisure Suit Larry in the Land of the Lounge Lizards
Apple 2 GS in the mid 80’s. Had Leisure Suit Larry but never figured out how to get out of the first room. Had a few other games I played a lot including some educational products.
No telling how much $$$ my parents wasted on that computer.
No telling how much $$$ my parents wasted on that computer.
already mentioned the first computer I owned, but the first one I used for any extended amount of time was at UK in the basement of the Taylor Ed building (or the one next to it). It was an Apple II lab and I got to use it as an 11 year old thanks to being GIFTED AND TALENTED. I still have the floppy somewhere.
Also used to spend a lot of time at the Radio Shack in Turfland Mall playing with the Tandys. If I had stuck with computing I probably worked have had a completely different life, but only the nerds did that at school at the time, and I was only Nerd-adjacent.
Also used to spend a lot of time at the Radio Shack in Turfland Mall playing with the Tandys. If I had stuck with computing I probably worked have had a completely different life, but only the nerds did that at school at the time, and I was only Nerd-adjacent.
Real men had computers with a "Turbo Button".
Consider yourself lucky. IT, and the vast majority of people that work in IT are "hell on earth" awful.
Yep they're inbred pieces of shit that cost too damn much. I can buy a non-apple laptop for less than half the price and be just as productive. Phones? Ha! You can't send or receive good videos from/to iPhone unless.... you have a ****ing iPhone! I can send shit to any other device from my galaxy, regardless of OS except shitty apple!
Yeah adobe can ead.Now don't hold back, tell us how you really feel.
I have never been a gamer, so that part has no appeal to me.
I can understand all the hate, but for me, it works. Another part of the story. My original iMac died out of warranty. Apple ended up giving me a brand new iMac as it was a faulty video card and a known issue from their end. They could have not done anything as it was truly out of warranty.
I have been going down the virtual training, content creation, etc. rabbit hole for work. I am finding that with Keynote and iMovie, I can do so many things with native software. When I am ready to step up a bit, I can go right to Final Cut Pro for a one-time fee of $299 and $199 for Logic Pro for audio.
I used Adobe Creative Cloud for a while. Also, used Davinci Resolve a bit. The Mac software just seems natural to me and is native to the computer.
Being able to break the Microsoft and Adobe Creative Cloud chains and subscriptions is a HUGE deal for me. The new M1 Chips really changed everything in my mind.
But everybody has different needs in computers.
Yep. Only reason they get fewer hacks is because nobody uses macs for big money stuff. If apple had something worth truly hacking and breaking into, their software(code) would be broken.
The first I owned was a Commodore 64 that I purchased to get extra practice in a 1982/83 computer class. We were doing basic programming with “basic” language on TRS 80’s (trash eighties) and I needed extra practice outside of the computer lab.
My nerd claim to fame: I wrote a football program with X’s and O’s displayed in fixed (presnap) formation after each player had chosen his play/defense. The program then ran through several randomizers depending on play/defense selections . . . if the offensive player chose a long pass, and the defender a goal-line stand type defense, the randomizer was heavily tilted toward either a touchdown pass or a sack for a loss.
You did not see a runner (or an O) moving with the ball, but after the randomizer had calculated, you saw a ball advance to the correct yard line from the play result, and the yard lines passed by as it moved.
I was “nerd associated,” only, and went well away from technology.
My nerd claim to fame: I wrote a football program with X’s and O’s displayed in fixed (presnap) formation after each player had chosen his play/defense. The program then ran through several randomizers depending on play/defense selections . . . if the offensive player chose a long pass, and the defender a goal-line stand type defense, the randomizer was heavily tilted toward either a touchdown pass or a sack for a loss.
You did not see a runner (or an O) moving with the ball, but after the randomizer had calculated, you saw a ball advance to the correct yard line from the play result, and the yard lines passed by as it moved.
I was “nerd associated,” only, and went well away from technology.
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I was born too late for that, thank God.
You manually entered binary code by typing 1’s and 0’s?
Like 50ish times?
Damn, Card, did you have to walk uphill both ways to get to and leave work (in a driving snowstorm, without breakfast?).
Them old days was a biatch!!
I'm pretty sure the first computer we owned was a HP Pavilion 1530 back around '95-96. That thing was an absolute tank. I remember how excited I was that it came with a grainy music video from Weezer that just ripped:
Man, the 90s were exciting.
Man, the 90s were exciting.
I bought a Vic-20 with a tape deck in 1981. I was immediately obsessed. I would spend hours writing programs in Basic. I remember amazing my friends with a "Casino" that I built that would let them play blackjack, roulette and craps.
That next year I bought a C64, with a Hard Drive and Dot Matrix printer. Everything was ordered through Sears. I also got a subscription to Ahoy magazine and I joined up with a computer club that opened my eyes to the world of Piracy!
Like many on here, once I got to college, I spent a lot of time using UK's mainframe which was called Prime. It was the first place I was exposed to things like Message Boards, Forums and Chat. I also started working in a computer lab and discovered the amazing world of FTP and the Internet. We downloaded a game called Empire and started playing it with folks all over the world. It was basically a game like civilization, and it would run an update every hour. That game became an obsession, and nearly ended my college career.
I miss the old days of computing. There were tons of different systems/languages to learn and use. There was a level of excitement and wonder that I doubt anyone experiences today.
That next year I bought a C64, with a Hard Drive and Dot Matrix printer. Everything was ordered through Sears. I also got a subscription to Ahoy magazine and I joined up with a computer club that opened my eyes to the world of Piracy!
Like many on here, once I got to college, I spent a lot of time using UK's mainframe which was called Prime. It was the first place I was exposed to things like Message Boards, Forums and Chat. I also started working in a computer lab and discovered the amazing world of FTP and the Internet. We downloaded a game called Empire and started playing it with folks all over the world. It was basically a game like civilization, and it would run an update every hour. That game became an obsession, and nearly ended my college career.
I miss the old days of computing. There were tons of different systems/languages to learn and use. There was a level of excitement and wonder that I doubt anyone experiences today.
Like the 50's, but it was 1979 on the 5th floor of First National Tower. I didn't type the entry, there wasn't a keyboard on the system. Everything was done with switch settings using manual switches to represent a 1 or 0.
The computer room was on a raised floor, the HVAC forced cold air under the floor panels and up through openings to cool the computers. Everyone wore jackets and sweaters.
PNC Tower is a skyscraper in Downtown Louisville, Kentucky, and located at 101 South Fifth Street. It was completed in 1972 and was originally named First National Tower. The 40-story, 512-foot (156 m) high structure was designed by architects Wallace Harrison and Max Abramovitz and was completed in 1972. The building, originally named First National Tower, was named after First National Bank and renamed National City Tower when First National was acquired by National City Bank.
National City Tower was the tallest building in the state of Kentucky from 1972 until the AEGON Center was completed in 1993. Also, this building was the first in a long line of new towers in Louisville that started going up in the 1970's. Previously the 800 Apartment Building off 3rd Street was the tallest building in Louisvile.
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