November 18, 2007

random thoughts to start on computers

TRS 80 - first computer used after leaving Michigan State; late 1970s
At Michigan stae - Cobol! Fortran! Crashing system at Lyman Briggs, mainframe 1972 - 73

Before that - IBM cards turned into wreaths

one of the first "home computers" for me was in 1983 - PFS file to do bluegrass festival; larry used for classwork; we dialed into university.

The Commodore 64 is an 8-bit home computer released by Commodore International in August, 1982, at a price of US$595. Preceded by the Commodore VIC-20 and Commodore MAX Machine, the C64 features 64 kilobytes (64×210 bytes) of RAM with sound and graphics performance that were superior to IBM-compatible computers of that time.[citation needed

At work, I used the "Trash 80" or as Tandy labeled it, the TRS-80 Model 100, 102 or 200. It was completely able to survive the dreaded "sports reporter" treatment, which should be de rigueur testing for all laptops billed as durable (Jack Lail).

3 comments:

  1. My first civilian job was as sales/tech in the newly opened HeathKit retail store. (I was fresh out of uniform ... my SigInt experience left me pretty messed up ... Chile and all that ... so it was like a pleasant break.)
    Know what I bought with some of my first pay cheque? A $45 kit to build a calculator.

    Think of it ... $45 in '73 is what, in today's money ... $100? more?

    Oh, and the calculator? those ugly red-dome LED digitis ... 4 function. Haaaaahaha! *grin*

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  2. oh-wooops, forgot to select email notification

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