If so, you might find that this brings back a few memories
tinyurl.com/3tfuz6o
I was a Commodore man myself...
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I was an Amiga user myself..
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I had a Spectrum+. Followed by a BBC Master 128, Atari ST, numerous PCs and then a Mac. Had a ZX81 and a Spectrum before the Spectrum+.
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C64 here, followed by an IBM 386.
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ZX81
Spectrum + Microdrive
Vic 20 (awful)
C64
Electron
Amstrad 464
Amstrad 664
Amiga
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Spectrum 48k (rubber keyed job)
Amiga
then onto PCs.
The Amiga is the one I get dewy eyed over. A proper, mouse driven, pre-emptive multitasking OS, four channel sound and 4096 colour graphics in 1987! It completely wiped the floor with the contemporary PC in terms of power and OS capability. Then Commodore effectively sat and did nothing while the PC overtook it. When they did eventually release an OS upgrade and hardware refresh in the early 90's, it was botched, poorly publicised, and introduced tons of backward compatibility issues. By then the PC was faster, cheaper and better supported.
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Since we are doing this again:-
Commodore C64 MK1
Commodore C64C
IBM PS/1
486 then onto Pentiums etc.
I am sad that I skipped the 16-bit generation, I missed out on the Amiga, but in 1993 when we got the PC, the Amiga was already starting to die out, so it seemed pointless investing £1000 on an old machine, even if it was better spec than the IBM.
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I started with a Sord M5 16kb. Had a rubber keyboard like a Sinclair but not much software. I think it's still in my niece's cupboard. I learned to programme in Basic though.
First newsroom system at work used CPM and was a complete disaster. We soon switched to MSDOS like the rest of the early 1980s world.
My first 'work' laptop was a 16kb Tandy 200. I worked so hard in those days I had to empty the memory every night into the printer. I used to carry around a rubber thing a bit like a gas mask so I could hook it up to public phones and download to the office. Wow.
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>> carry around a rubber thing a bit like a gas mask so I could hook
>> it up to public phones and download to the office. Wow.
An accoustic coupler. Worked at 75 baud if you were lucky.
I'll let you work out how much slower than todays speeds it was
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baud#Relationship_to_gross_bit_rate
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Despite being towards the geek end of the social Spectrum (see what I did there), the 'Time' 400Mhz Pentium 2 system I bought in 1998 was my first home computer; never did the BBC micro / Spectrum thing. HP85 was the first computer I used regularly, for some basic Basic programming at work.
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I still have the old Philips Msx. Nothing beats playing boulderdash on the 24 ish year old computer.
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Most computers from the pre PC era were not bought or used as computers at all, they were just games machines.
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"Nothing beats playing boulderdash on the 24 ish year old computer."
I think you probably need to get our more :-)
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I still occasionally get the C64 out, but I am always disappointed, while I am amazed of the graphics and what they can do with a 1Mhz processor and 64kb of RAM, the experience of loading cassettes just ins't nice. Then on modern TVs it is impossible to get it to tune well which makes the picture grainy.
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Spectrum, Spectrum + (might have had 2 of them...) then an Amstrad PC 1512 in about 1988 (512k RAM, single 5.25" drive, no hard drive, B/W screen). Ah the days when you could boot DOS from a single 360k floppy.... Upgraded it with a HDD on a card - 20MB IIRC, then ran a DOS based menu system. Followed up by a 286 from my Dad's work, then a 486 DX2 66 in about 1995 when I was at Uni.
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Yeah but it had its moments, like illegally copying games with a double tapedeck. On those msx computer you had to load your games with tapes. Its true about the tv's, best would be to have an old tube based tv. Still waiting here to get the old lemmings game for Android.
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Reading the above histories, am I the only one that had the Sinclair QL??
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I am surprised that no-one else here had the UK101 a 6502 machine that could be built from a kit of parts at about £200.
I built it it in about 1981 and used it with a self modified 12" Ferguson BW TV. The advantage of that TV was that it was also specified to run from a 12v supply that meant it was fully isolated from the mains.
Followed by
BBC
Amstrad 1512 with HD
386
486
......... and updated machines at 3 yr intervals. I think that most are in the loft waiting resurrection at some point in the future:)
To seal this post with the kiss of death I don't think that any of these machines ever had a hardware failure.
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>> Ferguson BW TV. The advantage of that TV was that it was also specified to
>> run from a 12v supply that meant it was fully isolated from the mains.
Didnt stop it generating voltages high enough to zap stuff tho.
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>> Reading the above histories, am I the only one that had the Sinclair QL??
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I remember reading the initial announcement in PCW with a couple of workmates who were also into this new and exciting hobby (ie a way to waste loads of money the missus knew nothing about) and we all vowed we'd have one as soon as it hit the shops.
By the time it actually did it's reputation was shot by constant delays and the addition of a temporary dongle plugged in the back because they couldn't find a way to get all the harware in the case.
Were they actually any good?
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>> Were they actually any good?
I played with one
It was a pile of poo, the dongle contained some of the microcode for the system because it was too big to fit on the rom chip inside. What a joke. It did for poor old clive sinclair.
And the ICL OPD was a pile of poo as well.
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>> ICL OPD
ICL One Per Desk - related to the QL I believe. Yes I pile of excrement. I've only ever seen one.
>> It did for poor old clive sinclair.
And the electric 'car'. His main dream project.
Last edited by: rtj70 on Fri 26 Aug 11 at 20:43
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I actually quite enjoyed mine.
It had to have additional RAM and the plug-in 3.5" disk drives to make it usable though - those microdrives (as on the OPD as well) were a waste of time!
Lack of decent software was the real bind.
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Did anybody here have a ZX Spectrum+ ? - swiss tony
