On the subject of Techno-history

[Matblack]

I was trying to think when the microchip first made an impression on my life.

It was probably in the late 70s when it first started to make its mark, I remember I had one of these

http://www.bigredtoybox.com/articles/simon.jpg

Simon came out in 77 but I probably didn't get one till 78 and I was 6

the next thing which I distinctly remember was my 'Little Professor' which was a handheld maths game. Amazingly this came out in '76 but I'm pretty sure I didn't have one till about '80 and I was 8, mine definatly a pre LCD version

http://www.datamath.org/Edu/Images/Prof_80.jpg

1981 Brought a whole new experience to the home

My father bought a soldering iron and a box of bits

http://www.nvg.ntnu.no/sinclair/images/zx81.jpg

After hours of muttering and swareing he finally got it to work and we had our first home computer. I can without any hesitation catagrically state that it was rubbish! It took hours to program it to do anything vaguely interesting and then it would crash endlessly

A year later we bought a 15k RAM pack for it, which due to the design, (it had no feet and placed all its weight on the circuitboard) made the bloody thing crash even more badly. At this point I was a lot more interested in my TCR (Total Control Racing) set, which actually worked, probably because it didn't have any chips in it!

http://i18.ebayimg.com/02/i/000/d2/2f/0ba5_1.JPG

Next major advance for me was the Amstrad CPC464 which Dad got me, I suspect that my father not only harbored a lot more respect form Alan Suger than Dr Sinclair but he also didn't want me hogging the TV

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/9/91/Amstrad_CPC464.jpg/290px-

Released in 1984 the CPC 464 was quite literally the mutts nuts, it had everything built in, you didn't need to buy a tape recorder or a seperate monitor and it seemed pretty advanced graphics wise. I set about programming it for hours on end with code from computer magazines which never ever worked usually due to being full of misprints. Comercial games like Turrican and Kung Fu Master were great though

http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/games/wYie_Ar_Kung-Fu.gif

Whilst people around me graduated to Spectrums and BBCs I was pretty happy with my CPC464

Probably around 1989 I got my Atari St, which of course kicked arse and imediately got me into playground fights about which sucked most the ST or the Amiga. I knew deep down that I was probably wrong when I stuck up for the ST and the Amiga certainly outlasted it but I loved it. Especially

ALIEN SYNDROME

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/0/03/Alien_Syndrome.png

At around this time my mother was writing her Masters on one of these green screened abominations

http://www.old-computers.com/museum/photos/Amstrad_8512_System_s1.jpg


Yep its another Amstrad an 8512!

It wasn't long before we got our first machine which could actually be called a PC, guess who this as made by?

http://www.old-computers.com/museum/photos/amstrad_pc1512_2s.jpg

It an Amstrad 1512 launched in 1986 an despite my initial disinterest in it it outlasted my Atari!

That machine had a proper chip too, an Intel 8086!

My father must have been Big Al's favorite customer, I had an Amstrad vertical record deck too!

After that my computer history is a hotchpotch of personal builds, PCs rescued from skips and stuff :D

MB

[Goose]

And when was the double-post first invented? :evil:

I think we've still got a Granstand (?) somewhere....

[Desmo]

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/9/91/Amstrad_CPC464.jpg/290px-
This was my first proper computer owned by me. Was a Christmas present and I still remember getting my brother up in the early hours to help me set it up and then playing Harrier Attack nonstop :D

10 PRINT "JAMES IS COOL"
20 GOTO 10
RUN

Genius.

[petemc]

OMG Little Professor. I had one of those. I think the first time I was really blown away by technology was when I got a usb fleshlight... No wait, many years before that *ahem* I had a speech cartridge for my C64. My computer spoke! Its spoke! Then it started swearing a lot :D

[kaiowas]

To this day I've no idea why we ever ended up with a computer. Neither of my parents were the type to have wanted one for themselves and we certainly weren't well off yet one day when me and my brother were both too young to appreciate it we suddenly got a ZX Spectrum + on which I learned BASIC and it's formed the basis of my whole career and interest in computers.

After that I eventually progressed to a C64 (Bought 2nd hand from a mate as he was upgrading to an Amiga 500) never could program the damned thing with all of it's PEEKs and POKEs, was totally incomprhensible to me then compared to the speccy. Then I made one of the few impulse purchases in my life when I blew all my xmas money and my paper round tips on a Gameboy having played tetris on someone elses xmas present.

Eventually got bored of the Gameboy and traded it in along with my C64 plus £50 for my very own A500 (whilst all the cool kids were getting A1200s). the Amiga lasted me well and I spent my uni days drooling over a housemates 1200 with a proper monitor, external hard drive and massive 4Mb of RAM whilst deriding horribly inefficient PCs with their ludicrous hardware requirements and dodgy operating system whilst suffering the numerous false dawns and supposed comebacks of the far superior Amiga platform.

Eventually once I had finished uni and got a proper job I gave up on the Amiga (Still got it here though) and got a P2 400 which last I knew was still running as a server after I sold it to a mate.

Couple of years back I saw an A1200 in a local computer shop for a tenner. I couldn't resist a bit of nostalgia, got it home and was pleasantly surprised to find it had an internal hard drive. Spent a few evenings tinkering with it. Found out that the expansion slot on the side could support PCMCIA network cards and got it hooked up to the wifi and managed to ping google. Was only the lack of a browser that was light enough to run in 2mb of ram that stopped me going online properly with it :D

[Joe 90]

wow now i feel young for the first time in ages!

they're all before my time.

[Desmo]

Found out that the expansion slot on the side could support PCMCIA network cards and got it hooked up to the wifi and managed to ping google. Was only the lack of a browser that was light enough to run in 2mb of ram that stopped me going online properly with it :D
I bet that was one of those "YES, I've done it....but what the **** for" moments ;D

[kaiowas]

Wasn't quite like that. Was more a case of "YES, I've done it....Installing a browser should be easy, this is going to be so cool."

Followed by disappointment, followed by checking eBay for accelerators and memory upgrades. Haven't quite decided whether it's worth forking out for one yet as anything decent is quite pricey for what it is but I might go back to it one day.

[Jonny69]

I had a TCR set :D

Strangely I'd never used a computer before I went to university. I'd sat in from of one and tapped words on a keyboard but never actually used one for anything. It was a bit of a shock. I got my first pc in late '99 and it was an AMD K6-2 400 with 32Mb of ram. Now I'm stuck in IT eternally and a forum geek and addicted in internet porn :(

Actually come to think of it I had an Atari Lynx which my dad bought when the dollar was previously 2 to the pound. That counts I guess but I never really got into computer games all that much.

[Mark]

Well, that's very, very scary. :shocked:

While I don't think I ever owned any of those, for each and every one I knew someone who did (not necessarily the same someone in all cases), so I've used them all. :shocked:

I'm not stalking you, honest. :)