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Posted: 2/21/2006 6:48:02 PM EDT
[#1]
Telengard and Archon were great.
I also liked to play the Avalon Hill game B1B Nuclear Bomber. My first was a Commodore 64. I had that one with the datasette as well as the 1541 disk drive. I also had an adapter I could use tapes with the Atari game console. I had a few games on tape for that one as well. Someone came out with a GUI for the C64 - GeoWorks or something like that? I had a copy but never got it working. Right now, in my office, I have: Sun Ultrasparc 10 Dual Pentium III 1GHz procs TI-99/4a  Cheers, kk7sm |
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Posted: 2/21/2006 7:12:11 PM EDT
[#2]
I have that C64 monitor, still works as far as I know. I used it as my TV in college with a VCR to do the tuning.
My first computer, the Timex-Sinclair 2068. 
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Posted: 2/21/2006 7:18:52 PM EDT
[#3]
Heh, mines in museums now.
Data General 1200.  The toggle switches on the front where to load a binary boot program into memory. This would then load basic into the thing. It ran 4 TTYs, and 2 CRTs. Real high tech for 1977. To save your program, it would out put to paper tape. I still have a bunch around here someplace. I wrote a monoply program. |
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Posted: 2/21/2006 7:22:29 PM EDT
[#4]
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Posted: 2/21/2006 7:31:54 PM EDT
[#5]
My parents, especially my dad, were (and to some degree still are) technophobes, so they didn't understand how important it was to me to have my own computer. That meant I didn't get one until I was 21, and could afford to buy one of my own. That was October 1991, and I bought an AMD 386/40 with 4MB RAM (4 x 1MB 30-pin SIMMs), and a HUGE Maxtor 213 MB hard drive. Total cost: $1200 or so, with 14" generic monitor and 1 MB non-VESA-compatible ISA video card.
But, I was interested in computers since I was a kid. In 1980, I got to go to the San Francisco Computer Expo at the Civic Center as an award for school, and they had all of the classic pre-IBM PC computers there. Since I didn't have a computer of my own, I had to use other people's computers, and I did so at every oppertunity. Because of that, I learned all of the computers and how they worked, along with things like printers. Computers that I begged/borrowed/stole time on as a kid: - Texas Instruments TI/99 - Apple II, II+, IIe, IIc, IIGS - Atari 600, 800 - VIC-20 - PET - C64 - Coleco "Adam" - Mac 128K, SI, and various others - IBM pre-PC running CP/M - and of course, IBM PCs, XTs, and various clones - Troy <-- The Geek |
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Posted: 2/21/2006 7:38:58 PM EDT
[#6]
Kids.
 I used to punch Fortran on cards. One line per card. Program size was judged by how many shoeboxes were required to hold your punch cards.  (The WHOLE ROOM is the computer, everything you see in that picture) And this:  |
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Posted: 2/21/2006 7:49:24 PM EDT
[#7]
SYS64738
 Remember the SYS codes? I can only remember that one for rebooting the computer. I know there was one that played the different voices. We learned to draw pictures in LOGO in our "computer" classes. I have no idea how that would ever be a useful skill, but if I ever got a job that called for the ability to draw polygons, I was all set. 
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Posted: 2/21/2006 8:04:30 PM EDT
[#8]
Damn! I remember that!  There was another one that reset without wiping memory. 65737?  Wow. THAT is really digging the memory! ETA: Remember these? POKE 53281,0 POKE 53280,11 POKE 646,6 
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Posted: 2/21/2006 8:07:19 PM EDT
[#9]
Wow, you all were rich folk. When I was a kid, we couldn't afford a computer....my parents got me an abacus instead. When we played Space Invaders, it meant my brother threw rocks at me while I moved the wooden beads.......
I still remember the times we had to whistle the connect codes into the phone. Man, those were some good old times.
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Posted: 2/21/2006 8:15:40 PM EDT
[#10]
I learned to code punch cards in grade school....
Had a trs-80 at home, and then my dad brought home and ultra-rare Apple III - he was an accountant and the Apple III was one of the first to run VisiCalc. |
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Posted: 2/21/2006 9:45:58 PM EDT
[#11]
Back in 1985 for Christmas my brother and I got a Apple IIc plus. We used this almost all the way through the mid90's. In early 1999 I bought another complete IIc plus at an auction for 10.00. both of these computers were placed into storage. I recntly took the auction computer out of storage and hooked it up to my TV and played with some of my old programs. Took me back to the days of wated youth lol...
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Posted: 2/21/2006 10:08:03 PM EDT
[#12]
My GOD, you guys are geeking hard!
I had a Macintosh 128k, which ran off a floppy - no hard-drive. Got a second floppy, thought I was the Cat's Meow. Then Dad got himself a 512k, and bought a 40MB disk drive, which was more storage than anyone could ever use in a hundred years. My wireless phone has more internal memory right now.
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Posted: 2/21/2006 10:15:16 PM EDT
[#13]
LOL... good times............. 
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Posted: 2/21/2006 10:22:29 PM EDT
[#14]
The furthest I ever got on Bungeling Bay was 1 or 2 bombs away from destroying the last city. Silent Service got a lot of play time. Back when I was an Airman living in the dorm a bunch of us used to play those Olympic games. I was always the Soviet Union.  Lots of fun on the old 64. |
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Posted: 2/21/2006 10:25:43 PM EDT
[#15]
Oh, yeah! Those last two factories were always a bear, but I managed to make it through a couple of times. I used to love taking out the warship!
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Posted: 2/22/2006 12:48:57 AM EDT
[#16]
Hell I have a trs 80, a C-64, and aTi 99 in the attic of the garage should I put the on ebay?
Parsec on the Ti was way cool. I still have the TI tape drive too. I also used to program Andover building control systems. The first computer I purcased for my son was a Tandy TL/2 286 on a 8 bit bus. He now can make a computer do damn near anthing. |
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Posted: 2/22/2006 1:26:41 AM EDT
[#17]
Brings tears to my eyes. We used the 5 slot and 16 slot versions. 2k of core memory per board. Examine 376, Key 060110, hit Deposit, Key 377, Hit Deposit Next, Examine 376, Hit Continue. (Booted to TTY with that sequence) Or you cold Key 060112 to get you out to paper tape to load the Basic Interpreter. Wheeeeee (scarey I still remember that) |
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Posted: 2/22/2006 1:39:34 AM EDT
[#18]
My first computer was Mac Plus. No hard drive, the OS was loaded into RAM off a 3.5" floppy. The monitor was B&W.
God, I hate Macs. |
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Posted: 2/22/2006 1:42:55 AM EDT
[#19]
I remember my father took an electronics course to get a deal and the TRS 80 Model III (Trash 80). We would type programs into play games or draw. Then we would save them to a cassette using a regular tape player/recorder. It was cool letting the program "load" from a tape for a few minutes to play pacman. Then came the 5 1/4" floppies (my dad at access to the 8" floppies at work). I remember he upgraded to a TRS 80 Model 4 with 4 drives. The second set were double sided. No more flipping the disks to read the other side.
At this time we moved to a schoo system were apple was predominate. I wanted a color computer and saved to buy a Tandy 1000 (forget which one) and my mother bought an Apple IIgs. At this time MACs were getting popular and my dad upgraded. He still kept the TRS 80 ready to go though until about 1990. The introduction of the 3 1/2 disk, then double sided, then high density. I upgraded to a better Tandy 1000. My dad upgraded to a Mac SE (or something like that). This lasted me until soph. year in college (92) and I change to a MAC. To reminsce of the past. I was looking through a 1977 is of a ham radio magazine. They were selling a card for a computer with 1?? kb of memory. As a kit was was 195. Assembled it was 200. I am sure others can go further back to a room sized computer. |
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Posted: 2/22/2006 1:52:48 AM EDT
[#20]
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Posted: 2/22/2006 2:01:04 AM EDT
[#21]
That game got crazy at the end. |
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Posted: 2/22/2006 2:06:02 AM EDT
[#22]
 |
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Posted: 2/22/2006 2:31:34 AM EDT
[#23]
When I was a kid, calculators with LED readouts were the new thing, and cost a minimum of $300. I remember the first Pulsar digital wristwatch - people used to go to the mall just to look at it! Cost was around $2k!! We didnt' have VCR's or cable TV either. By the time the C64 came out I was in college being tortured through FORTRAN and PASCAL. At my first job, we had a huge DEC PDP-11 mainframe, which was uber high tech at the time. We used it to host a token ring LAN that connected remote 8086 process control systems to control machinery in huge factories. The biggest system we sold was around $75M and took months to install and debug.
You could do the whole thing today wirelessly and for around a couple of grand. I didn't own my own computer until 1994, when I built my first - a 486DX2-66. |
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Posted: 2/22/2006 2:57:33 AM EDT
[#24]
I can still remember how giddy I was when I added a math co-processor to my 386 machine and upgraded the ram to 4mb!!!!
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Posted: 2/22/2006 3:57:12 AM EDT
[#25]
That is freaky, and brings back more memories. I've not met too many people that used that baby. |
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Posted: 2/22/2006 4:02:55 AM EDT
[#26]
My first was an Atari 800XL followed by a Commodore 128. Apple IIe was used at school and I remember hating Apple's version of BASIC.
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Posted: 2/22/2006 4:11:04 AM EDT
[#27]
My first was (alright I'm not as old as y'all) an IBM PS/2 486SX25 325 mb HD, 16 mb ram, and a 2x cd drive in 1993 IIRC. cost my family about 4K. Nothing like the switch from AOL 1 to 3 (huuuuge improvement), and getting windows 3.11 instead of 3.0 (wtf?). Early net pron ruled.
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Posted: 2/22/2006 4:23:18 AM EDT
[#28]
AOL hell ARGGGGH |
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Posted: 2/22/2006 4:28:24 AM EDT
[#29]
anyone remember learning to 'program' LOGO on the Apples in 81 or so?
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Posted: 2/22/2006 4:34:01 AM EDT
[#30]
first was a Apple IIc cost the parents like 2500 used it non stop. My WATCH has more memory that that. loved connecting at 300 "baud" with my Promethius modem.
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Posted: 2/22/2006 4:40:13 AM EDT
[#31]
First computer I ever worked with:
 That was a LOOOOONG time ago. |
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Posted: 2/22/2006 4:46:54 AM EDT
[#32]
Started off much the same here, c-64 and a tape drive. Then the AWESOME 170K disk drive.
Loved impossible mission, f-15 eagle, and many others mentioned. Lots of good memories. Buddy and I spent alot of time entering code from magazines for programs. He now has a Phd in computer programming..... I just use them to make money. TXL |
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Posted: 2/22/2006 5:01:26 AM EDT
[#33]
Been there, done that, got the t-shirt. That's why a line of code in FORTRAN is still called a card. You should see the new S/390 mainframes. I haven't seen one since a Gen 4, but that one had a hood scoop and everything.
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Posted: 2/22/2006 5:02:08 AM EDT
[#34]
Yeah ... was that Summer Games? I always did well on the skeet portion but sucked on the diving one. |
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Posted: 2/22/2006 5:07:10 AM EDT
[#35]
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Posted: 2/22/2006 5:07:50 AM EDT
[#36]
Ahh yeah, I still have a Mac SE that was my family's first computer. 20 Meg hard drive, 1 meg ram, 8 MHz processor. I upgraded it to 4 megs ram (the max it could take) as a kid. I still have it, though I'm not really sure what to do with it. The hard drive crashed once or twice since then, and I don't have extra copies of any of the programs I had on it.
Back in school, I used Apple IIgses (I think). I remember Logo, EZ-Logo, Oregon Trail, whatever that game was with the fish, number crunchers, etc. Some friends of ours had a Commodore 64. Now that was old. Nowadays, my calculator (pretty old itself) has 640k of ram. My cellphone has 12 Megs internal memory, and a 32 Meg memory card. |
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Posted: 2/22/2006 5:31:04 AM EDT
[#37]
bump for reminiscing later on
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Posted: 2/22/2006 5:54:23 AM EDT
[#38]
MEGA photoshop. That's a reactor control panel from the maneuvering room of a nuclear submarine. 
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Posted: 2/22/2006 6:08:38 AM EDT
[#39]
Commodore 64
I had one of the first 500 built. Floppy drive, cassette drive and printer. Choplifter in cartridge form was the best game. You flew around blowing up prison camps and picking up POWs. |
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Posted: 2/22/2006 7:16:41 AM EDT
[#40]
My buudy had one of those Com64's in high school. I couldn't figure out why he was so facinated with it. 8 years later he was a computer genius living in Silicon valley. He survived the ups and downs of the industry and has done very well for himself. he
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Posted: 2/22/2006 8:40:40 AM EDT
[#41]
So is that steering wheel supposed to be like a mouse? I need one. -k |
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Posted: 2/22/2006 9:45:25 AM EDT
[#42]
That was a fricking awesome game...as was Archon. Anyone know where to get the C64 emulator and downloadable games? |
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Posted: 2/22/2006 9:53:16 AM EDT
[#43]
 Tandy Sensation My parents bought it new in 1992, cost around $2200. I played the original Mech Warrior and Jet Fighter games on it. We had the Apple 2 in elementry school, hunting in Oregon Trail was the best thing about it. |
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Posted: 2/22/2006 10:46:04 AM EDT
[#44]
I was going to post something along those lines. Never figured out how to get out of the blasted echoing tunnel. |
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Posted: 2/22/2006 10:58:36 AM EDT
[#45]
Raid Over Moscow was one of my favorites! |
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Posted: 2/22/2006 11:15:55 AM EDT
[#46]
Silent Service!!!!!!!!!!!!!
That game fucking ruled!!!!!! I loved playing it on Nintendo.
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Posted: 2/22/2006 11:16:42 AM EDT
[#47]
Silent Service!!!!!!!!!!!!!
That game fucking ruled!!!!!! I loved playing it on Nintendo.
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Posted: 2/22/2006 12:06:50 PM EDT
[#48]
Here's a 15 megabyte hard drive on sale
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Posted: 2/22/2006 12:08:33 PM EDT
[#49]
 Unbelieveable!
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Posted: 2/22/2006 12:14:43 PM EDT
[#50]
Remember these?
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