A friend of mine had an Apple IIGS. I have fond memories of me and him spending hours on that thing building a BBS. He had a screaming 4800 baud modem, that's why we used his computer. Those were the days.

 

Our first computer was a Commodore 64. At the time, it was the "cool" computer because it had the best games around for a computer.

I then moved on to:

IBM compatible (remember that term?) XT with amber monitor, 1200 baud modem, 10 meg drive

Packard Bell 286 12mhz with 640k base.. 384k extended, 40 meg drive, 2400 baud modem, VGA monitor!!

386 33mhz, 8 megs ram

486 66Dx2, 16 megs, 14.4k modem

Pentium 133, 32 megs ram, 540 meg hard drive, 28.8 modem, TV tuner card!

Sun Sparcstation 2, 48 megs ram, 400 meg hard drive

Pentium II 400 mhz, 128mb ram, 56k modem (still my backup modem), 4 gig drive, etc..

(Current) Sun Sparcstation 20, 64 megs ram, 1.2gig drive

(Current) PIII 733mhz, 128mb ram, 10 gig drive

I also now have a PIII 500 as a file/domain server and 2 other pc's performing other functions.

 

Ahh geeks older then me

I got in around the BBS days...I was using a 386 I bought off my uncle for 50$, and my friend adam was using a XT that he convinced was a 286...neither of us had much money being we were pretty young. But fear me in L.O.R.D. Anyone play that back in the day? BBS were great but they were only local, still met alot of people on them and made some good long term friends on them.

Any other BBS geeks here?

I ran a few different systems...I remember TRIAD? Or TRYSIS? HRmmmm cant remember.


And to the one who played Oregon trail. Now thats something I remember

Chado

 

I really miss the BBS days! Remember when you had to explain to people what email was? How about the term "SYSOP"? At the time I had an AT&T IBM compatible, running an 8088 processor, 20 meg HD and 640K ram. I remember taking my brand new mail order 2400 baud modem out of the box and replacing my old 300 baud. It was an awe inspiring day!

 

You guys are funny.
My Alg & Trig professor was talking about that UNIVAC compy, how he spent countless hours replacing stuff to find out that there was nothing really wrong with it. He worked for Navy Intelligence, I think he was talking about Bethesda. I don't recall.

My first compy was a Apple Classic 2. Which ran pretty quickly and did everything that I needed it too. It even had a 14.4 Fax modem with the little trouble lights.

The next one was a gateway 300s that didn't stay stock very damn long. I grew to disliking the crap that Windows had all over it and all the senseless programs running simultaneously trying to figure stuff out.

Now I have this Dell Inspiron 5100, its an amazing little laptop. I never thought they had the power to compete with a laptop.
About all that I ever do with this is listen to music, surf and write papers.

 

I remember L.O.R.D.! Was an avid player. I killed the Red Dragon several times (easy task if you had a high enough respect level).

 

**** COMMODORE 64 BASIC V2 ****
64K RAM SYSTEM 38911 BASIC BYTES FREE
READY.

 

How about excalibur? That was alot like it but with races etc; alot more advanced...I played LORD on about 8 different BBS. As well as my own

Ahh the good ol' days...(not really, the good ol' days followed shortly after when I had my own job and no vehicle taking 75% of my income in insurance + repairs + gas, and I could blow my money on whatever I wanted...1x purchase and then I owend it...the good old days)

Chado

 

Anybody remember IOK on Compuserve?

I have had:
1-Proprietary 6809 system
3- C64's 2-heavily modified 1-stock
1-TRS80 Color computer
1-Heath H-89/19
1-Zenith Z-100 20MB Hard Drive!!!
1-Amiga 1000 w/memory mods
1-Amiga 3000 100MB Hard Drive!!!
1-PCXT clone 8088/V20(NEC) Dual Floppies!!!
1-486DX266
1-486DX4100
1-AMD Athlon 500
1-AMD TB 1400
1-AMD XP 1600+ (current system)

I still have most of those systems.

 

My first computer was a Tommy Tutor. It was a keyboard that attached to the tv. It came with a book that was very thick. The only thing I remember of that one was the programs to make. It took 25 lines of commands. But, I thought I was the coolest kid.

Then, at school, we had computer day. We were either on commodire 64s or a apple IIe. Of course, I use to babysit for a doctor who had a macintosh. I use to play with the paint programs all the time.

At that time, LOL, my folks spent around 3K for a Tandy 1000sx. Every once in a while, I would create programs to freak out my parents. When they would load up the computer, I would have the screen flashing in different colors and sounds with a warning that the computer was going to explode if it wasn't shut off immediately.

I had PrintMaster (early card printing, graphic software). My folks ran Symphony, Lotus, etc. The computers back then actually made you LEARN, not have it thrown on the screen for you. We JUST got rid of that Tandy, after hearing from people that we'd have to pay somebody to take it off our hands. Well, we left it on our porch on night, and it was gone in the morning. Somebody stole it, lol. We were glad, because we were quoted for getting online (5 years ago). It was $7-14/hour for 9600 baud (I think that was the rate).

Those were the fun days. Now, I can't remember how to program a darn thing. But, if it was thrown in my face, I could figure out what the program was going to do. Make sense?

 

I still run a BBS!! There are now telnet based, but they are all drawn with ansi and all the old favorite games are still there. I don't get as many callers like back in the old days, but the board is up and running and gets a few calls per day. BBS's were pretty awesome in their day..

 

I still have my IMSAI 8080 with a speed demon 8MHz(I think) 8080 processor. Had to build it my self, the instructions were a set of schematics and the Intel databook. Took me 6 months to put it together and to make it work. Had a heck of a time getting the keyboard interface to work since guy at the store told me to hook it up "this way". He was wrong, the way he told me had the computer chasing it's tail on every key stroke. Clipped the wire and it's alive. Played Startrek all night, mom thought I was nuts.

It came with the OS on paper tape, remember the hand pulled paper tape readers? Ah cassette tape was much better at 300baud, that was crankin.

Memory came in 4K static memory boards. I knew when I got my first 16K dynamic board I was in trouble, the instructions started off with a preamble that said "while dynamic memory has gotten a bad reputation, ours it top quality..." Yup, never did work right. It passed memory tests just fine, but if you halted it for a second or so, it would start to drop bits. I finally just got a whopping 64K in 8K static boards. It ran the coolest "Startrek" game. Sound effects were from an AM radio placed near the system.

Still have it and it still runs. Also have Microsoft Basic v 1.0 on 8 inch floppy. The drive for that only cost me a $1,000. Also had CPM.

As I recall those Johnny come lately Apple IIs had color so I am not sure what the original poster had unless he just had mono screens. I loved those amber monitors, you knew you had the upgraded video then.

Jim Henderson

 

You'll have a hard time getting anyone around here (Rochester, NY) to talk about it, but Xerox invented the personal computer as we know it today. It had pages (or windows), a mouse, e-mail and network capability, and the first application of graphic-user interface. They put it on the shelf because it was going to cost $10,000 per terminal, and they figured no company would shell out that kind of money for such a toy. It was called Altos, and they let some kid take the prototype home and play with it. His name was Steve Jobs (yeah, THAT Steve Jobs), and the year was..............1973. Freakin' unbelievable- they invent the personal computer, then give it away. Just like Xerox has done with the copier market. Ironic, don't you think?

 

Man, I'm going to have go back and re-read some of my favorite books, because I had forgotten about the Altos too. He's right though.

 

Wow, great to see all these people who were into computers way back when!
I, too, was programming on the old Apple computers in school. Seems to me Visicalc, word processors, and spreadsheets were the things I can recall... Then I remember 'Apple Logo', drawing pictures with a 'turtle'...
We had an Apple II, then an Apple IIc at home. When I was on my own, I got myself an XT with a black and white CGA monitor. Then I got a PC Junior with color CGA monitor. I went online with the XT, dialing up to the BBS with a 400 baud pulse-dial modem! LOL Then I moved up to a Cardinal 800 baud modem. It was fine for newsgroups and playing 'VGA Planets' with a few other people, as long as you sent in your 'moves' before midnight!
I moved up to a 286, 386DX, 486, PI, PII 300, and PIII 550. I am glad for the Windows system; tho I got pretty good at using DOS, and still have a lot of DOS manuals collecting dust... The cable modem LAN is a wonderful thing, and it hasn't been the same for me in such a long time. The virgin internet was very exciting at the time, but has been so improved up to now...
Mark