My First Hard Drive...........
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From: Twickenham, home of rugby
OMG!! An Acoustic Coupler!!
SD
More bang for your buck
Joined: Nov 2005
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From: land of the clanger
Acorn Atom, which I soldered together myself, Atari ST (my son poo pooed that and brought an Amiga) 66meg PC 1meg of ram, 6meg hard drive dos 5 and windoze 3,11. (now running a Quad processor 4gigs ram 500gig HD which cost a lot less than the 66meg pc.)
Thread Starter
Joined: Oct 2000
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From: Brighton. UK. (Via Liverpool).
This has turned out to be a little gem of a thread!
Those pictures are brilliant, those of you with old stuff under the stairs, in the attic/loft etc go and take pics of them and put them up here!!!!!
I remember my mates dad had a ZX81 with which he took off the old keypad and replaced it with one of his own! My mate still has it now somewhere, I will get him to dig it out and will post a pic.
My first computer was a C16 then an Amiga with about 500 discs for it and some amazing games. I wrote a programme in basic on that C16, still have it up at my mums somewhere, would love to find it and see what it is like!!
I got a job in computers back in '85 inputing data and printing it out for a clothes factory in Birkenhead. I remember our 'IT' guy from a company called 'Xetal' in Manchester called Rob, he came over once with a monitor for me, it was a colour Tascan and it was the bees-knees! People used to come over from all over the place to have a look at it!
Those pictures are brilliant, those of you with old stuff under the stairs, in the attic/loft etc go and take pics of them and put them up here!!!!!
I remember my mates dad had a ZX81 with which he took off the old keypad and replaced it with one of his own! My mate still has it now somewhere, I will get him to dig it out and will post a pic.
My first computer was a C16 then an Amiga with about 500 discs for it and some amazing games. I wrote a programme in basic on that C16, still have it up at my mums somewhere, would love to find it and see what it is like!!
I got a job in computers back in '85 inputing data and printing it out for a clothes factory in Birkenhead. I remember our 'IT' guy from a company called 'Xetal' in Manchester called Rob, he came over once with a monitor for me, it was a colour Tascan and it was the bees-knees! People used to come over from all over the place to have a look at it!
Joined: Jan 2008
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From: The Land of Beer and Chocolate
I would get pics, BRL, but since I ain't where my old stuff was ya can guess it's gone.
Nowadays I just have to "suffer" this old Athlon XP2600, a quad-core, a PS2 and a Wii
Come to think about it, the quad-core system cost about as much as my first PC, the P1-133 system....
Nowadays I just have to "suffer" this old Athlon XP2600, a quad-core, a PS2 and a Wii
Come to think about it, the quad-core system cost about as much as my first PC, the P1-133 system....
Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 348
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From: Canada
1986, a generic XT with a 20MB hard drive that I had to be talked into. The supplier said that loading from 5" floppies was becoming passe.
I had DBase,Lotus and Wordperfect on it. The monitor character colour was orange, green being the other option. Cost me about $Cdn 2600.
The printer was a nine pin IBM dot matrix.
Good grief, this should be in the History and Nostalgia section.
I had DBase,Lotus and Wordperfect on it. The monitor character colour was orange, green being the other option. Cost me about $Cdn 2600.
The printer was a nine pin IBM dot matrix.
Good grief, this should be in the History and Nostalgia section.
Oh Shazbat!
Joined: Feb 2004
Posts: 239
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From: Leeds, UK
Looking at the old games - anyone else remember the old DEC graphics terminal (circa 1980). We had one at the educational establishment I frequented in those days, hooked to a PDP-11 running Unix 7, and it had the "Moon Lander" game which amazed us as it was graphical. You used the light pen to control the moon lander's decent & if you got on the moon without mishap the astronaught came out & popped into the Macdonalds next door for a burger. One of the profs was so good he could loop the loop in the moon lander on the way down.
In 1981 we upgraded to a VAX with BSD Unix (pre V4 I think) and it came with a game called "Space Invaders" that you could play on a standard ascii terminal, wonder what happened to that?
In 1981 we upgraded to a VAX with BSD Unix (pre V4 I think) and it came with a game called "Space Invaders" that you could play on a standard ascii terminal, wonder what happened to that?
Joined: Oct 2001
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From: london
Ahhhhhhhhhh some comments make me feel very old...
My family started with a ZX81 - with the highly reliable 64k(?) memory pack (ended up mounting on a piece of plywood with the memory pack wedged in to stop the crashing)
Then became very jealous of those with the splendid vic20, but my
Dad then decided a BBC model B was the future. Oh the joy, and the hours spent playing defender, scramble and (possibly) the still unsurpassed ELITE!
Following that I lost interest (probably typing in programs from magazines that never worked), until I went to uni where a PC to type up assignments etc was very useful. Parents kindly bought an Amstrad PPC640 (as pictured in a previous post) for me. No hard drive - boot to DOS from floppy (3.5 inch and 2 of them!!), what a machine. After uni again lost interest.
Years later I bought a packaged machine from Tiny - can't remember the specs but it had had a whopping 4.3Gb hardrive - the rest is unfortunately is history, have become a geek, building systems for myself and friends....and my wife hates me.
My family started with a ZX81 - with the highly reliable 64k(?) memory pack (ended up mounting on a piece of plywood with the memory pack wedged in to stop the crashing)
Then became very jealous of those with the splendid vic20, but my
Dad then decided a BBC model B was the future. Oh the joy, and the hours spent playing defender, scramble and (possibly) the still unsurpassed ELITE!
Following that I lost interest (probably typing in programs from magazines that never worked), until I went to uni where a PC to type up assignments etc was very useful. Parents kindly bought an Amstrad PPC640 (as pictured in a previous post) for me. No hard drive - boot to DOS from floppy (3.5 inch and 2 of them!!), what a machine. After uni again lost interest.
Years later I bought a packaged machine from Tiny - can't remember the specs but it had had a whopping 4.3Gb hardrive - the rest is unfortunately is history, have become a geek, building systems for myself and friends....and my wife hates me.
Joined: Jan 2008
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From: The Land of Beer and Chocolate
Ohitsmonday
With you there, why hasn't there been a decent "modern" version of Elite or Frontier?
Come to think of it, thinking about "older games", why has nobody updated Boulderdash (or isn't it violent enough?)
With you there, why hasn't there been a decent "modern" version of Elite or Frontier?
Come to think of it, thinking about "older games", why has nobody updated Boulderdash (or isn't it violent enough?)
Chief Tardis Technician
Joined: Jan 2001
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From: Western Australia S31.715 E115.737
First puter was VIC 20 n tape drive, sold it for A$100.00 (sucker) Next was C128, with single side disk drive, (later upgraded to double sided) Monitor and printer ( MPS1000:- rebadge Epson LX 80/800) still in the shed, and working . Also aquired a C64, still in shed and works, has a tape drive as well, and I think an acceleration mod of some sort. First PC was a 486 DX32 wif 40 meg HD and 16 Meg ram (A real power house), has been upgraded many times. currently using a Dell laptop, and have a Desktop of some description at home. Still have a sh!t load of Commodore games in the shed, pacMan, boulderdash, galaxiansn so on.
Hippopotomonstrosesquipidelian title
Joined: Oct 2006
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From: is everything
Re Elite, there was a falling out between Ian Bell and David Braben. You can read one perspective at http://www.iancgbell.clara.net/elite...e/b5081501.htm.
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From: Twickenham, home of rugby
why hasn't there been a decent "modern" version of Elite
It was awful!Perhaps with more modern hardware and software it would be possible to produce a game that was true to the original while also more challenging and involving.
But I doubt it!
SD
Official PPRuNe Chaplain
Joined: Apr 2001
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From: Witnesham, Suffolk
Now, if you are really sad, you can download a programme called Beebem which will emulate the BBC B (and some of its variants) on your PC.
You can also download Elite for it, and sit and relive your past experiences trading out of Lave, Commander Jameson!
You can also download Elite for it, and sit and relive your past experiences trading out of Lave, Commander Jameson!
Joined: Jan 2008
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From: The Land of Beer and Chocolate
SD
Which version of Frontier? You had the original Frontier, which I didn't think was too bad, and then it's follow-up which was truly awful.
Mind you, I was a mere slip of a lad when I got my paws on Frontier, so I wouldn't be surprised if my rose-tinted memory has been switched on.....
Which version of Frontier? You had the original Frontier, which I didn't think was too bad, and then it's follow-up which was truly awful.
Mind you, I was a mere slip of a lad when I got my paws on Frontier, so I wouldn't be surprised if my rose-tinted memory has been switched on.....
Joined: Aug 2007
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From: Germany
My first computer was something that a couple of schoolfriends and me put together for the maths depatment at school in the sixties (1960's NOT 1860's as my nieces tell everyone). It used valves, wires and a series of on/of switches. Today I have a scientific pocket calculator that can do more a lot quicker.
First "PC" was an Amstrad with one 128kb 3" (not 3,5") floppy disk and no hard drive. You loaded the programme with one disk, took it out and then used another for the data you were working on. It had a green screen and a dot matrix printer as part of standard kit. I also bought a mouse for it. The wordprocessor was Locoscript and it had a cad programme called Dr something or other. Total cost was about 400 pounds.
Gave it to my nieces when I bought a new machine. They used to use it to write up homework, etc. It finally died when their house was flooded in the early nineties.
First "PC" was an Amstrad with one 128kb 3" (not 3,5") floppy disk and no hard drive. You loaded the programme with one disk, took it out and then used another for the data you were working on. It had a green screen and a dot matrix printer as part of standard kit. I also bought a mouse for it. The wordprocessor was Locoscript and it had a cad programme called Dr something or other. Total cost was about 400 pounds.
Gave it to my nieces when I bought a new machine. They used to use it to write up homework, etc. It finally died when their house was flooded in the early nineties.
Joined: Aug 1999
Posts: 208
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From: In the pension queue, Lancashire, UK
First "PC" was an Amstrad with one 128kb 3" (not 3,5") floppy disk and no hard drive. You loaded the programme with one disk, took it out and then used another for the data you were working on.
)About four or five years ago the rubber band that drives the floppy gave out and I even managed to find a replacement. Actually the seller sent me two as they were the last ones he had - my reply to his comment that "when they go I don't know where you'll find a replacement" was "if they last as long as the original I'll be well into my nineties and will probably have other things to worry about!"
I'd put a picture up but the batteries on my digital camera are flat (again!!)
Okay, fifteen hours later, batteries recharged - here goes:
Complete with tuner and home-brewed switching. Now, where's that spare digibox!
Last edited by Groundgripper; 13th March 2008 at 13:13.